Sometime before my 14th birthday I took an oath to a secret society with only three members. The other two members were my closest blood relatives.
Ron Greschner, Ron Duguay, and Phil Esposito were unindicted co-conspirators. To this day they are unaware of their membership.
My dad took my brother and me to a hockey game at Madison Square Garden. We took the Long Island Railroad into the city after school and my dad met us at the big board with all the trains posted in the dingy departure rotunda far below 33rd Street.
Our seats were above the glass behind one of the goals in the lower bowl of the Garden where the seats are angled to provide a great view of the ice. We could see the plays develop as we had unobstructed views that ran the full length of the ice. It’s the best angle to see a hockey game.
It was also the perfect angle for an errant puck to hit an unwitting gray-haired bespectacled spectator one seat to my brother’s right just above the eyebrow. I can replay that moment in my mind’s eye like a SportsCenter highlight. I see the impact. The head jerks backwards. The blood spurts from a jagged cut along his browline. The look of disbelief on his face. Had the guy been Gerry Cheevers, he would have had to etch another stitch on his mask.
My father immediately realized the gravity of the situation. The guy who had been hit with the puck would leave the Garden with a headache, a scar, and a story he could retell for the rest of his life.
My dad’s concern was much graver and closer to home. “You can never tell your mother about this as long as you live.”
And we didn’t. Not until long after President Obama’s second inauguration. Had my brother been seated one seat over, the secret society would never have been possible.
Keeping children safe is one of society’s most important shared responsibilities. Gary Bettman, the longtime NHL Commissioner, figured that out after a deflected puck killed a thirteen-year-old girl in Columbus and insisted that NHL arenas install nets behind the glass to ensure that it never happened again. Of course it was twenty years too late. But, when faced with the incontrovertible facts behind the tragedy, he acted decisively.
Pennsylvania needs a Gary Bettman now, not in 20 years.
No, not because there is an epidemic of pucks flying through the netting in arenas in Pittsburgh or Philadelphia, but because there is a far more serious and equally preventable measles outbreak spreading across a majority of the commonwealth’s counties.
Prior to the creation of the MMR vaccine nearly every child in the country contracted the measles virus before the age of 15. The CDC estimates that between three and four million people were infected each year with 48,000 hospitalizations, 1,000 cases of severe encephalitis, and 400 to 500 deaths annually.
Measles is not a harmless childhood illness. Unknown to most of us born since the availability of the MMR vaccine, measles is a pernicious virus with potentially fatal side effects including permanent brain damage.
Through mandatory childhood vaccination programs measles had been effectively controlled and characterized as eliminated in the United States. It was, for generations, a part of the social contract. You get vaccinated for your health as well as the health of others. It’s the same reason we stop for stop signs on empty streets at 3am. We don’t get to decide when or where to obey the law for convenience. Numerous states relaxed enforcement of mandatory vaccination and measles has returned across the country with increased infection rates, numerous outbreaks, and four fatalities catalogued by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.
95% vaccination rates provide herd immunity and effectively control the spread of the virus. Below that level, the risks of transmission multiply risking the health of immunocompromised individuals and children too young for vaccination.
We’re all entitled to our own opinion about vaccination. We’re not entitled to our own opinion about the science vaccination is built on. We’re not entitled to an opinion that endangers others any more than we are allowed to blow through a stop sign at 3am on a deserted street corner.
Pennsylvania and the other states experiencing a significant uptick in infection already have the mechanism to prevent ongoing transmission. They just switched it off.
School-entry vaccination has been settled law since Jacobson v. Massachusetts in 1905, and “no shot, no school” has held up in courts for over a century. What hasn’t held up is the philosophical exemption, the one that lets a parent opt out with no reason given, no burden met, nothing but a signature. Medical exemptions protect the kids who truly can’t be vaccinated. Religious exemptions protect a belief the state has chosen not to litigate. Other exemptions protect nothing but convenience, and convenience is not a reasonable standard to ensure public health.
The architectural and systemic solution is obvious and already exists. This isn’t a new policy or program. Deaths from preventable childhood diseases are an unacceptable societal risk in the same way deaths from slapshots were unacceptable to Gary Bettman and the NHL. Close the exemption. Keep the other two. Let the established mandate actually do its job.