Exposing a sick society

You can pick sides on hotly disputed issues like global warming, gay marriage, chemtrails and pro football. We'll happily publish your written opinion on these pages, even if you're a warming denier or a 49ers fan.

What we won't do is knowingly contribute to potentially devastating misunderstandings of life-and-death health issues.

Much to the chagrin of some in the region - and outside, as attested by a phone call from a concerned Maryland resident who'd read that day's Coeur d'Alene Press online - we aren't going to publish further letters to the editor encouraging citizens to avoid vaccines. With respect, we're going to reject those letters.

Our philosophy is that the expression of diverse opinions generally leads to greater understanding and better decision-making as a result of that enhanced understanding. We take pride in publishing a wide range of opinions, particularly those that fly in the face of our own. But we won't be party to the potentially lethal spread of sickness.

While modern medicine is imperfect, it remains mankind's best weapon against illness, disease and accident. Medicine is always evolving, and one day we might learn that the unintended consequences of certain vaccines were greater and more harmful than we currently know. But the risk of jeopardizing not just the health but the very lives of citizens, particularly our youngest and our most vulnerable, by perpetuating myth and fear and bad science is too great.

So those of you contacting the newspaper, insisting that vaccines are evil and that the world's leading medical experts are misguided or part of an insidious plot, please save yourselves the grief. It's your choice to ignore vaccination advice; sadly, it's also your choice to reject vaccinations for your minor children.

It's our choice to encourage everyone else to get their flu shot today.