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In some areas, immunity has been eroded so much that the child who's not vaccinated is now actually more vulnerable to the complications of infectious diseases.

I think that protecting children at the age where they're most vulnerable against diseases that are highly contagious is prudent.

Children and teens need to explore the dark side as a healthy part of growing. If a child is protected from everything dreadful, he will have no coping mechanisms in place when finally confronted with disaster.

Vaccines save lives; fear endangers them. It's a simple message parents need to keep hearing.

I am very puzzled by the fact that young people are getting infected again. They don't take precautions despite an enormous amount of information. It's like riding a race car at 200 kilometers an hour. Some people like the risk.

Children are free moral agents and have a right to be exposed to a range of beliefs well beyond the rigid doctrinal confines of their parent's faith, and we have an obligation to insist that they be so exposed, at least in public schools, if not elsewhere.

We're all in denial from time to time. We all see things that are too painful to really deal with. But this has consequences, and the consequences of not vaccinating your children are not only just that those children are exposed to illnesses; it's that everyone else they go to school with and they hang around with are, too.

I think what's at risk is kids losing touch with being a kid. Being a kid is being defined differently than it was when you didn't have all this stuff you could put in front of your face.

Childhood vaccines are one of the great triumphs of modern medicine. Indeed, parents whose children are vaccinated no longer have to worry about their child's death or disability from whooping cough, polio, diphtheria, hepatitis, or a host of other infections.

When we protect children from every possible source of danger, we also prevent them from having the kinds of experiences that develop their sense of self-reliance, their ability to assess and mitigate risk, and their sense of accomplishment.