Medical doctor is nostalgic for the days when people died in their thousands of cholera, diphtheria, typhus, tb, smallpox.

Offering a startlingly candid view into the philosophy guiding vaccine recommendations under the Trump administration, the leader of the federal panel that recommends vaccines for Americans said shots against polio and measles — and perhaps all diseases — should be optional, offered only in consultation with a clinician.

Dr. Kirk Milhoan, a pediatric cardiologist who is chair of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, said that he did have “concerns” that some children might die of measles or become paralyzed with polio as a result of a choice not to vaccinate. But, he said, “I also am saddened when people die of alcoholic diseases,” adding, “Freedom of choice and bad health outcomes.”

Maybe, just maybe, freedom of choice is not more important than herd immunity. Maybe freedom of choice that puts other people at risk is not a valid form of freedom of choice. Maybe the collective good actually does matter more than Mai Perrsonal Choyce.

In the case of an infectious disease, a personal choice to decline a vaccine may also affect others, including infants who are too young to be vaccinated or people who are immunocompromised. But a person’s right to reject a vaccine supersedes those risks, Dr. Milhoan said.

Nope, it doesn’t. Maybe if said person lives in a sealed building and is never physically able to infect other people said person has a right to reject a vaccine, but otherwise, no. People don’t have a right to run over pedestrians, they don’t have a right to set fire to the neighborhood because they’re chilly, they don’t have a right to take up two seats on the bus when people are standing.

Dr. Milhoan said that making the vaccines optional, rather than requiring them for entry into public schools nationwide, as is now the case, would ultimately restore trust in public health.

As measles and polio come roaring back? I don’t think so.

“He has no idea what he’s talking about,” said Dr. Sean O’Leary, chair of the infectious disease committee at the American Academy of Pediatrics.

“These vaccines protect children and save lives,” Dr. O’Leary said. “It’s very frustrating for those of us who spend our careers trying to do what we can to improve the health of children to see harm coming to children because of an ideological agenda not grounded in science.”

But freedom! Freedom freedom freedom!