Far from ridicule you knocked it out of the park. We considered a Waldorf school a while back and they definitely attract a certain fringe. I can't imagine one in Asheville (which also attracts a fringe). It's a very niche set of people.
I sound like a broken record with my "bad data" claims but these are the patterns you look for when you analyze a statistical claim.
I am part of this fringe, which is why I know exactly why one would expect this to happen.
Anthroposophical medicine is more of a thing in Europe, but we also have it here. So, I had an anthroposophical doctor for my families GP for many years. She was a fully licensed MD, worked part time in a major local hospitals emergency room as an emergency room physician and then had her own private practice the other half the week. So anthroposophical medicine is practiced by licensed MD's, not random herbalists...... they know when you or your childs illness is serious and can give good information on treatment options and vaccines - anyway, do not think all doctors think every child should have every vaccine, especially on the CDC's scheduale. European countries will even have anthroposophical doctors within the nation health service, the netherlands for sure pays for it publicly. It is also a big thing in germany, sweden, switzerland, the Uk and austria, but I did not take the time to look up which or all have it paid for by the government.
So, it is not a religion it is a philosophical outlook that is different than our current mainstream medical approach. Osteopaths are also different than our mainstream medical approach, but an OD is regarded to be an alternate to an MD, very different way to look at the reasons and treatment of disease form an OD or an MD, so an anthroposophical MD is also a different philosophy of reasons and treatments than a mainstream MD. Criticize all you want , but it would be better to acknowledge that this is an established alternate philosophy and practice of medicine, it is not " quack". If you want to criticize it as quack, then first you would need to get the studies done to show worse outcomes for these medical practices, of which there are none. You of course do not need to bring yourself or your family to an OD or an anthroposophical MD, you can stay with mainstream Md's.
I think it is a hard time we are in where people are getting more controlling of others and wanting everyone to all think the same way. This is happening in all spheres, you cannot give your own true beliefs - political, medical, educational, firearms, the list goes on and on. Without much thought or evidence a state like california has done away with any and all vaccine exemptions, including religious. So, more people are homeschooling. This would be par for the course out here as the same argument used for guns was applied to vaccines, ie., we dont care about peoples rights if it saves just one life.....
Anyway, while there is a spiritual component to anthroposophy, and this underlies anthroposophical medicine, still it is not a religion but has a different view of the role of illness in the overall health of the person, it looks at the entire life, not the convenience of this moment, there is value seen for the role of normal childhood illnesses and also to allowing fevers during an illness. Since there is a whole systems approach to this style of medicine, it is likely very different from someone just saying " I dont want vaccines" in that the anthroposophical treatment of the illness and the sick ( and the well) child is also very different than the mainstream, so it is not just putting off the vaccines the whole health approach is different. If one was to forgo vaccines without having the full approach to health, likely their outcomes would be much worse.
