It's called the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program, and it's funded by an excise tax on each dose of vaccine given.

I think the CDC usually traces these things, though you'd have obvious issues with current medical privacy laws, etc. The logistical issues may be insurmountable. sadly.

I'd like to see a legal approach where vaccine-refusers can be sued for damages by people that catch preventable diseases from them, especially parents of infants too young to be vaccinated. Make the anti-vaxxers put their money where their mouths are.

Vaccines. Our modern world is pretty much build around our kids not dying very often, from our workforce to our birthrates. Just the time and resources it takes to raise the few extra kids who end up dying is immense. Plus women's time which otherwise would have gone to childcare - basically half our workforce would…

It always amazes me on Star Trek polls, websites, etc, how many Voyager fans there are out there. It's always been unwatchable crap in my eyes. This is an interesting article to me simply because it helps me understand where a lot of the fandom is probably coming from. It's like the Phantom Menace - a lot of people…

Guns, Germs, and Steel changed the way I look at history in general now. Forest through the trees.

Damn straight. The kids are still going to the park, playground, etc. As long as they're part of the general population, then the parents should not have any right to reject vaccinations of the kids unless it is for medical reasons. And I include religious objections there.

There's a huge difference between 60k Germans living in Rome and 1 million Romans. Look at the historical population statistics. And don't try telling me that 60k people have the wealth, sanitation, trade, or productivity of a city of a million.

Wait, so listverse.com is a more reputable source than Fordham University? Listicles for the win I guess.

A 30% population loss affects everyone - that's in line with a social, economic, and political collapse. A lot of your 'common' people went from city dwellers to serfs on farms, if they survived at all. The Gothic Wars alone depopulated a lot of Italy for centuries. Granted, again, the traditional definition of no…

Plenty dark about a 1/3 population loss. That's a pretty big deal.

Sigh as well. Here:

Sure, that's all true. But despite that, a very real 'dark age' really happened for a period after the fall of the Western Empire. I think using a small 'd' and having it as an event as part of the EMAs would be accurate. But in terms of depiction, I don't think it's that inaccurate - Western Europe in this period…

Come on, everyone knows that the 'Dark Ages' only refers to Western Europe. The term replacing it, the 'Early Middle Ages' is no better in the is regard.

They were called the Dark Ages because there was a massive population crash, abandonment of many large cities, famine, etc. Dark in that it sucked to live during that time in the formerly most civilized areas around Rome, southern France, etc. which were largely abandoned a few hundred years later. Did progress…

They'll blame the crappy state of life, the food supply, flooding, etc on liberals, immigrants, high taxes, and Obamacare. Guaranteed.

Man, I would watch the shit out of Discovery if they had a show where painted dogs hunted Kardashians.

I always love reading about all of the possible 'sunken' settlements and civilizations, like Doggerland and especially the Black Sea, which probably flooded in a single catastrophic event when the Mediterranean broke through. Who knows what sort of villages, megavillages, and cities were buried, but it's fun to think…

"As per security, You will have to manage your own security or be at the mercy of your guards."

Yeah, "terrorist training camp in Yemen" is a lot different from "terrorist training camp in Colorado". A lot of those Yemenis would probably really like to kill Americans, but they're 1) in Yemen and 2) are dirt poor and have no way to get into the US.