Vaccine bullies in the public schools
I’m sure you’ve all heard by now about the parents in Prince George’s County, Maryland, who were threatened with jail time by public school officials if they didn’t get their kids vaccinated with chickenpox and hepatitis B shots. Hundreds of moms and dads lined up at a local courthouse over the weekend–many pointing out that it was the school system’s paperwork errors that were to blame:
The families appeared at the request of Judge C. Philip Nichols Jr. of Prince George’s County Circuit Court, who is in charge of juvenile issues. Judge Nichols had sent letters this week to the homes of more than 800 households with children in public schools, strongly recommending that the children be immunized Saturday at the courthouse, where health department workers had set up tables to process paperwork and give shots, or that parents prove that the children had already been immunized in accordance with state law.
This year, the State of Maryland added the requirement that children have shots for hepatitis B and chickenpox in addition to other vaccinations including polio, mumps and measles.
That letter came on the heels of another sent on Nov. 1, by the Prince George’s County state’s attorney, Glenn F. Ivey, informing parents that their children would be withdrawn from school until the school received proof of vaccination. The letter also informed parents that if their children were not attending school, they might be subject to criminal charges with a maximum penalty of 10 days in jail and a fine of $50 per day of absence…Some said they had already had their children immunized and had sent that information to the school. One such parent, Jerome Lofton of Fort Washington, arrived early with his family and stood in the cold amid television cameras and photographers until officers allowed people to enter the building, through metal detectors.
Mr. Lofton, who said his son had been immunized, was infuriated. “We shouldn’t have had to come here,” he said as he left the building after proving to health care workers that his son had all of his shots.
WaPo has more:
By about 8:30 a.m., the line of parents stretched outside the courthouse in the county on the east side of Washington.
Many of them complained that their children already were properly immunized but the school system had misplaced the records. They said efforts to get the paperwork straightened out had been futile.
“It was very intimidating,” Territa Wooden of Largo said of the letter. She said she presented the paperwork at the courthouse Saturday and resolved the matter.
I’ve experienced the intimidation of the vaccine bullies firsthand. I wrote about getting dropped by my son’s pediatrician in 2004 for questioning conventional wisdom about giving the hep B vaccine to babies in 2004:
Why on earth should we vaccinate our newborn baby against Hepatitis B – a virus that is contracted mostly through intravenous drug use and sexual contact? That is the question my husband and I had for the doctors and nurses at the hospital where our son was born two and a half months ago.
We didn’t get very good answers. It was “convenient,” “recommended” and “routine,” the medical staff assured us. We wanted more information. A nurse gave us a brochure, which explained that babies whose mothers had the Hep B virus were at high risk of developing acute Hep B infections. Well, I tested negative for Hep B. The Centers for Disease Control named unprotected sex, IV drug use and being stuck with a needle on the job as the likeliest routes of Hep B transmission. Well, my husband and I both work primarily from home, our two children stay at home, and neither we nor our 3-year-old daughter nor our baby (for heaven’s sake!) live the Kid Rock-and-Pamela Anderson Lee lifestyle.
When we told the hospital staff that we simply wanted more time to think about giving the Hep B shot to our son – doesn’t “informed consent” mean we should be truly informed? – we were badgered aggressively. Some lectured us about the need to “get on the proper vaccination schedule.” Others warned that Maryland, like more than 40 other states, requires all schoolchildren to be vaccinated for Hep B. Teachers, however, are not subject to the mandate, which is driven not just by altruistic concern for children’s health. Ohio legislator Dale Van Vyven snuck the Hep B mandate into a 1998 hazardous-waste bill at the behest of profit-maximizing vaccine manufacturers’ lobbyists.
The “everybody does it” and “for the greater good” arguments worked when we were overcautious, over-trusting, first-time parents who submitted our daughter to every single vaccine without question. This time, we resolved not to be rushed or bullied. We declined to give our son the politically correct Hep B shot, decided to do more research, and then took up the issue with our pediatrician.
Boy, were we in for a rude awakening. Our doctor parroted the American Academy of Pediatrics line and mindlessly emphasized the efficacy of vaccines in eradicating childhood diseases. Well, we weren’t questioning their collective efficacy. We questioned what the individual health benefits and health risks to our newborn were. Physicians have blindly plied vaccines before that have done more harm than good. A childhood rotavirus vaccine, for example, was approved for widespread use in 1998 and withdrawn from the market less than a year later after causing an increase in the incidence of painful bowel obstruction among infants.
Our doctor, however, pooh-poohed our inquiries about potential side effects. He seemed to have no idea what those risks were and no interest in finding out. He was also incredibly condescending: “95 percent of what you read on the Internet” is unreliable, he sermonized, as if we were too dumb to separate scientific fact from fraud.
In the end, we concluded that some of the vaccines were more worth the risks than others. At my son’s two-month checkup, the pediatrician expected him to receive a triple-combination shot called “Pediarix” (consisting of Hep B, inactivated polio, and DTaP, which covers diphtheria, tetanus and acellular pertussis), as well as HiB (for certain bacterial infections) and Prevnar (for meningitis and blood infections). I reiterated my refusal of Hep B, accepted DTaP and HiB, and asked to put off polio and Prevnar. In response, I received a threat: Get all the vaccines or get out of our practice.
“Informed consent”? Ha. This was uninformed coercion.
We’re leaving for another practice, a little bitter but wiser. The strong-arm tactics of the medical establishment mustn’t intimidate parents from challenging the universal vaccine orthodoxy. When it comes to protecting our children’s health, skepticism is the best medicine.
Now, as I’ve said before, I’m no anti-vaccine absolutist. My kids are up-to-date, but I refused to be coerced or bullied into anything over the past three years. The Prince George’s County parents should take the same position. The problem lies with the physicians who are unwilling to discuss the risks of vaccines, the pro-vaccination groups that provide incorrect information about the duration of protection, and the physicians who refuse to care for children who are not “fully” vaccinated. The problem is compounded by policymakers who pass laws barring children from school if they have not received the Hep B vaccine.
Mandatory chickenpox vaccination is also questionable:
Scientists said on Thursday that immunising children against varicella could increase the risk of shingles in adults.
The team, at Britain’s Public Health Laboratory Service, said that although vaccination would save thousands of lives over time, thousands of elderly people could also die from the complications of herpes zoster.
Writing in the journal Vaccine, they called for a re-evaluation of the policy of mass varicella vaccination that has been introduced already in the United States and is imminent in many other countries. In 1995, the varicella vaccine was approved for use in children older than 1 year in the US and is now required for school entry.
Dr. Marc Brisson and his team report that adults living with children have more exposure to the virus and enjoy high levels of protection against shingles. Being close to children means that adults are exposed to the varicella, which acts like a “booster” vaccine against reactivation of the infection, they believe. But if all children were vaccinated, adults who have had chickenpox would not receive ongoing exposure, and would therefore be at greater risk of developing shingles.
The researchers worked out a mathematical model that predicts that eliminating chickenpox in a country the size of the United States would prevent 186 million cases of the disease and 5,000 deaths over 50 years.
However they said it could also result in 21 million more cases of shingles and 5000 deaths.
Parents are being treated like child abusers by the Maryland public education system, but who’s exploiting whom? If you’re wondering why the schools didn’t simply threaten to kick the kids out of school–as opposed to jailing and fining their parents–the answer is all in the money. The schools are funded based on average-daily-attendance. Every body in a classroom is cash in their pockets.
But never question the motives of the Nanny State, right? It’s for the children.
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I can understand vaccines for polio and other serious diseases, but chickenpox?
I’m also one of the people who get sick whenever I get a flu shot. Every time I get a flu shot, I come down with the flu. And yet when I avoid it, I enjoy the year without the flu.
Vaccines may work, but there’s a risk that comes with them. If you don’t feel like taking that risk, you shouldn’t be forced to do so. And no friggin’ school should be telling parents how to raise their children.
Period.
Not all Children have health care insurance…many get the “free” health care promised to them.. thus the state has to carry the burden.
So perhaps it is quite acceptable for the “nanny state” to make sure kids don’t fall sick from very costly diseases.
I regularly hear ads on the radio stations in Ontario asking parents to get their grade 8 girls vaccinated for the HPV virus.
If the vaccine is approved for ages between 9 and 26, then why force it on 13 year olds, aside from the money.
sausage
I believe Michelle’s comments were pointing out the strong arm tactics involved in vaccinating our children. She is in favor of vaccinations as I am too, but to force parents to vaccinate without adequate information on possible risks is not acceptable. If a parent wants to take advantage of this service that is their choice, but the operative word is choice, informed choice at that.
This whole fiasco could have been avoided. The parents claim to have provided the appropriate paperwork to the school. The school subsequently lost or misplaced the documents…yeah, right. If you believe that I have a bridge I’d like to sell ya. Yet, they have the temerity to send out threatening letters to these parents!!
This is simply to much. In one vein people talk about the nanny state being a necessary evil because of all those bad parents out there who don’t properly care for their children. And this will be trumpeted as one such case. However, these parents didn’t neglect their parental duties and not vaccinate their children. They did just that. How can the school justify inconveniencing these parents for their own mistakes. Why is that when the schools screw up it those same parents that they claim care nothing for their children who are left to clean up the school’s mess. Why on God’s green earth is this allowed to happen?
I find it peculiar that when I “googled” vaccinating against chickenpox, article after article were either from Canada or the UK. Interesting…
I’ve dealt with Doctors and nurses who appear to have attended medical school at Dachau. Arrogance and the “I know best” syndrome is drilled into them as part of their training. Some do not like to be questioned or challenged.
Firing your doctor for being a jerk is the only recourse you have left.
There are plenty of younger doctors have been trained in “malpractice avoidance 101″ which could also be called “beside manner 101″ — or how to act like a human being and not try to pretend to be a demigod in front of people who don’t give a darn who YOU think you are.
And many doctors can, for good reason, provide waivers that will satisfy the state.
Melvin Belli, the so-called “King of Torts” wrote a book once that explained WHY people sue for malpractice. Most people understand that sometimes medical outcomes do not go the way we want them to. Most people are adult enough to understand that sometimes a patient can’t be saved and that they die.
However, according to Belli, people sue because either they or their families were treated like ignorant dogs by the medical staff and that their concerns were not addressed, even perfunctorily. When a doctor or nurse insults your intelligence by blowing you off, HE increases his chance of being sued for malpractice by an order of magnitude. It is to everyone’s benefit for a doctor to remember that both his patient and patients family are human beings, not entries on a chart.
One final note: I once had a doctor who told me to my face that I wouldn’t understand a particular illness, that I lacked the educational capability. So, I told him 3 things: I had a college degrees in match, physics, and computer science; that I could READ, and that I had a copy of the Merck Manual of diseases at home. And then I demanded a complete etiology of the disease and recommended course of treatment. He shut up and sang.
I read things like this, and I think a few things:
1) I am extremely glad I was born when I was. I was also only required to have my MMR (measles, mumps, and rubella) vaccination for school. It was only in the Navy that I became a pin cushion and received others, including the polio vaccine.
2) I am glad that DH (dear husband) and I waited until we moved away from the DC area to even contemplate having kids. Between this in PG County, the “donating” of supplies in Fairfax County schools, and similar issues in the DC Metro, I’m not sure I would have been comfortable sending any child of mine to schools in the area.
3) On the other hand, I’ve moved to Texas, home of Katy ISD, with more info found at ZeroIntelligence.net. Private school is starting to sound very good right now.
Socialism rears its ugly head in many ways, including attemtping to take away the parent’s rights to make healthcare decisions for their children. At such an early age, how much is too much for a young child without having repercussions? I’m all for asking questions and being wary of medicine being forced onto children.
A friend of mine’s child was having problems in school and the first thing they recommended was drugs. She refused and chose other options of working with her child instead. The problem resolved itself. Drugs are often the quick fix to problems that would otherwise take time and effort to resolve. Parents need to stay alert.
However, as a parent, I resented my children being needlessly exposed to illness from children whose parents did not make sure their kids had the proper necessary innoculations and healthcare or who simply refused it all for whatever reason. It’s a sticky issue. When should medicine be forced on the unwilling for the common good?
Michelle raises the issue of “informed consent.”
Informed consent has legal consequences to the medical establishment. And in the case of mandatory vaccinations, to both the school district (if local policy) or the state (if state mandated), as well as the doctor and vacine manufacturer.
Bullies is an understatement. We routinely refused these state dictates, signing whatever waivers had to be done to satisfy the bloated, puss-oozing bureaucracy. It’s sickening.
Just think, with all the discussions about micro-chipping people, they could easily suspend some kind of nano-sized medium in the vaccine and start tracking or mind-controlling us immediately.
Most physicians are products of “brainwashing” through thier educational process. When I searched for a new doctor to replace my retiring family physician of 30 years, the new potential doctors had a script-like response to my question, “What kind of medical care can I expect from you?” Most had a template for a man of my age, without even questioning my history, reviewing a file, or inquiring about my health. They were haughty and reluctant to spend any time with me. The general response was to put me on one aspirin per day, probably start me on Lipitor, set me up for a colonscopy and get me in for a complete physical.
Medicine is a business, and unless the physician is a friend or family member, or he/she’s impressed with your celebrity status or wealth, you’re screwed.
It’s my way or the highway in today’s medical practices. What happened to the day when you would go to the doctor if you were sick or injured? Now it’s all “preventive care” to keep those diagnostic machines and lab employees working.
They are all bullies in a way, so I’m not surprised by the arrogance of the vaccine police. It isn’t right but it’s what ’s happening.
Michelle, with an 11 week old son we had a similar experience. I did research a few years ago when my work offered the Hepatitis B vac as part of the “facility emergency response team”, and decided that there wasn’t value in me taking it.
Prior to my son’s birth, my wife and I discussed it and decided to waive the hep B. We signed off saying we didn’t want him to get the Hepatitis B vaccine, and the doctor and nurse came into my wife’s room at 3 or 4 a.m. and talked her into it with the same lines about the vague risks of Hepatitis B.
It’s not like I’d argue with the polio vaccine or something like that, but Hep B in particular is virtually unnecessary.
I met an 9 year old girl who was vaccinated for Hep-B that was tainted with mercy & it triggered brain damage so bad that it caused developmental problems & grand mal seizures. The highlight came when the mother disclosed how stem cell treatments began to cause improvements.
Thimerosal the perservative that was used in Vaccines, is there a relation to the Autism Epidemic? This is easily googled and there has not been a satisfactory answer to the question. There was a watered down bill into Autism investigation in our legislature sometime back. The Autism rate in children keep rising in this country.
Imus was discussing this issue at length on his now defunct morning show. As I recall Senator Hillary Clinton was a proponent of Children Vaccines, when she was First Lady.
Snausage:
Last time I checked, chicken pox was just a lot of calamine lotion, and Tylenol in the majority of cases. My mom sent me over to a friends house so we caught it and got it out of the way young. Uncomfortable, yes. Costly, not that i am aware of?
Besides, Shingles is nothing to joke around about. It is extremely painful and often times life threatening to the patients that get them.
Let the kids get the chicken pox, and keep the risk off of the seniors. I watched my grandmother go through it.. It was really difficult to watch.
Us kids, were back and kicking with in a week.
When should medicine be forced on the unwilling for the common good?
Universal vaccination is a public health “goodness.” Tis true. It limits the number of hosts a disease can find to spread, and it protects YOU and YOUR family from the disease especially when you and yours are vaccinated.
However, there are those that cannot be vaccinated for whatever reason, be it allergy, religious sentiment, or whatever. Universal vaccination protects THEM as well, by making it less likely they will be infected via epidemic because of the paucity of hosts to habor and transmit the pathogen.
We live in an interconnected world, and if you don’t protect yourself and those you love, then you have to rely upon the kindness of stangers to do the right thing. That’s an iffy thing for me. Hence, I had no problem with vaccinating my kids when they were younger.
Public schools have a waiver a parent can sign. At least they did 3 years ago when I signed one to get the school off my back. My daughter was up to date but getting her records required a physical trip to the doctors office 50 miles away. When you’re that far from town you don’t just “pop over to the office”.
Vaccines are loaded w/ Squalene.
http://search.yahoo.com/search?fr=ytff1-cclean&p=squalene%20dangers&ei=UTF-8
I am a homeschooling parent who trusted our pediatrician. My child’s OCD began w/ a vaccination. I subsequently read other article from parents of OCD children saying the same thing but I cannot find these articles.
There is no reason why any child should have to get the Hepatitis B vaccine since it is a sexually transmitted disease. If you don’t take drugs and don’t have loose morals, you won’t get Hepatitis B.
Whenever a doctor says “greater good,” it is time to find another doctor. For example, you have many young, liberal doctors refusing to give antibiotics to very sick children because of the “greater good.” Time to find a doctor who will.
We had to change doctors when we moved after having physicians we trusted for over 20 years. It was extremely difficult. We have found that referrals from other people can be very beneficial. That’s how we found our new doctors, who are outstanding…from new neighbors who recommended them.
It’s hard to get over the arrogance of some doctors. They intimidate at a time when frequently the patient is scared to question the wisdom of what the doctor advises. My husband, who is a senior, claims one is better off with a young doctor as they tend to listen, be less arrogant and be more sympathetic than those who have been in practice for a long time. I think he has a valid point.
We have a woman as our family physician now and are extremely happy. Better than the doctor we grieved leaving. If you don’t like your doctor, shop around. It’s way too important to settle for the doctor who isn’t attuned to what your needs and concerns are.
Have you ever wondered what’s in those vaccines?
That’s just a small list.
Did you ever notice that with liberals, “My body, my choice” only applies to abortion?
There is a growing public health risk associated with illegal immigration that has not been addressed that is more serious than worrying about Hep-B infection of infants.
While immigrants entering the country are supposed to be screened for diseases, those entering illegally obviously are not and we are seeing rapid increases in the prevalence of third world diseases as a result.
In Southern California the detection of chagas in blood samples (an uncurable disease infecting 11-21 MM people in Mexico and Central America and killing 50,000 annually)has increased fourfold in 10 years. Seen once in roughly 10,000 samples in 1996, it is now seen once in 2300 samples.(CDC statistics).
Outbreaks of TB are also worrisome, with treatment resistant strains appearing across the U.S. in immigrant communities.
These diseases can be spread through coughing and surface contamination (TB) and blood supply contamination (TB & chagas). Given the prevalence of illegal aliens in agriculture and food service jobs, perhaps public health officials could better spend their time screening all food workers for these and other serious diseases.
The schools are actually not telling parents how to raise their children. Parents have the option of obtaining physician opt-outs when children have reacted to vaccines, or to declare they have religious reasons for refusing.
Vaccines are a requirement of federal and individual state health departments, to which public schools are required to submit by law. Private schools follow suit by choice in requiring shot records also.
Vaccines are less than perfect, but are nevertheless the best defense we have against large outbreaks. Varicella became a requirement in the 90s in an attempt simply to limit outbreaks in elementary schools of chickenpox, and it has worked, but varicella is not as effective as actually contracting chickenpox at a young age when it is not usually as dangerous as it becomes the older we age.
Polio is now gone in the US, but not Pertussus. And every Winter we hear of infants and toddlers especially suffering among those who were never given a DTaP. Whooping Cough, once nearly erradicated, is a very ugly disease and 100% preventable by a vaccine that DOES work exceptionally well.
Had our parents had modern fears of vaccines, you and I would possibly not be chatting on this site having escaped so many diseases that decimated populations in our history.
Complicating matters today is that most countries from which our immigrants and visitors arrive from do not provide the vaccines we do…so the need is not diminished, but clearly increased. And that is why people working in healthcare or in jails, for example, have much greater vaccine requirements than others — because of their likely interaction with and exposure by those not vaccinated.
The schools are merely the messenger in this case and do not deserve to be shot. This school sent two separate letters to these parents in this school year, giving them a couple of opportunities to correct records and/or update the federally-required vaccines — these parents chose not to respond.
Further, that letter you received from your pediatrician, Michelle, was his only means of documenting your requested deviation from standard practice. He may well have personally agreed with your own logic on delays, etc., but his liability insurer absolutely required him to write you, document your wishes, and state his refusal to be responsible thereafter.
I know of one case in which a 2-yr-old child died from Whopping Cough and the parents sued their pediatrician for not “fully informing” them of the necessity of vaccines, even though said physician had them sign their workup sheets in the child’s chart stating their refusal of a vaccine each time they had refused. Said physician closed his doors on a wonderful 15-year career after his liability insurance carrier denied any help and physician, who prevailed in the suit, had to pay a $500K defense.
Regardless of “the money” motivations cited, vaccines have done much, much less harm than their irrefutable good.
Michelle, you must learn the politicians know more about what is good for you and your family than you do. What percentage of the doctors practice is paid from the government? /sarcasm
I did not get my children vaccinated for chickenpox. I figured this was one vaccine that was not absolutely needed. I had read that it doesn’t last for a lifetime immunity, and I was afraid my kids would get it when they were older after the vaccine wore off. Then they would be in for a world of hurt. I had the chickenpox when I was a kid. It was itchy, and I was miserable for a time, but got over it. My husband had never had the chickenpox, even though he had been exposed to it numerous times from his siblings. Our kids got chickenpox about 2 years ago. My son broke out with a total of 11 bumps, my daughter had about 30. I was worried that they didn’t get it bad enough to give them immunity to it, but had been told that since my husband seems to have a natural immunity to chicken pox, they should be ok.
(Seinfeld: Season 8; “The Package”)
Elaine walks in
Elaine : You are not going to believe what happened to me at the doctors office today .
Jerry : Not the gown again .
Elaine : No , no . I was looking at my chart and it said I was difficult . Why
would they write that ?
Jerry : They have gotten to know you .
Kramer leaves with Jerry’s stereo
Elaine : Then the doctor writes more stuff down and doesn’t even look at my rash .
George : Why don’t you find a doctor that doesn’t know you’re difficult .
Elaine : Oh come on . I’m not difficult . I’m easy .
Jerry : Why because you dress casual and sleep with a lot of guys .
Elaine : Listen to me you little shi……..
George : Smile .
OK…..this just in:
http://www.vaccinetruth.org/kim_medlin.htm
There is a vaccine injury compensation system but nobody talks about why it’s necessary when your child is up for vaccinations. I can tell you vaccinations are not harmless and their value in eradicating diseases is overblown in part for financial motivations fueled by the fire of do-gooder zealotry.
Doctors are in the middle and the best you can hope for is they tell you to search the topic on the Internet.
Once in a while a child dies after vaccinations and when it’s yours the loss is not acceptable.
Sausage said.
Sausage, you are making the argument against universal health care. Once the government “nanny state” is in charge of your health care you say it is perfectly acceptable for them to make sure you do not fall sick with costly illnesses. It is then acceptable for them to tell you what to eat and what to smoke? How about activities? It would then be perfectly acceptable to tell you whether you should go skiing or not since they would be paying for the cost if you were to break your leg. Can’t drive a motorcycle as it’s too dangerous and could cause expensive hospital bills in the event of a crash. It could go on and on until we are unable to walk out of our house without permission from the government.
I have mixed feelings about the issue of vaccination. On the one hand, HPV or Hep B is totally unnecessary for a child. I realize some parents are concerned that immunizations might be behind autism or other problems.
On the other hand, do you really want to send your kid to school without immunization when there’s an outbreak of measles or mumps? Do we really want to see again large numbers of children crippled from polio?
I’m not sure what to think of chickenpox vaccination. I never had it but I was for a long time very resistant to it. Finally at the ripe old age of 23, I got it. *Shrug.*
Feebs,
Great stuff on the c-pox! One of my best friends had c-pox and, as an adult, it is far worse then letting your kids get it. When my friend’s kids got c-pox, I took my daughter over to play with him. Got that out of the way quick and she did just fine.
……………….
My problem with this whole “required” vaccine doctrine is; every time a new vaccine comes along they want to make it “required”.
Take the HPV vaccine (please). Having to force our girls to take it is unnecessary. We brought them up believing in abstinence. All of our girls knew the price you pay for “play”. They made the right choice and decided to wait. Why should they be forced to be injected with a mutated virus without knowing the risk (then and in 30 years) when they were at zero, nada, zippo risk? Because.
Give us all a break.
Krykee doodle! What the heck is in the water up there in the N.E. that breeds this grotesque big brother pathology?? If it ain’t birth control for tweens, its fascist health regs with no redress of grievances.
To err is human, but to really foul things up apparently requires government, and I don’t call ‘em govt. schools for nothing.
But, like we all know, the oppressive NEA and its willing accomplices in govt. don’t exist for service to the parents & excellent educational opportunities, but for the maintenance and extension of govt. school POWER.
Just remember, the NEA is the most powerful union lobby group in Washington D.C. and ranks at the top of all professional groups who send their own children to private schools. Yet they seek to force other citizens to fund NEA employment institutions and benefits while denying those same citizens free market educational choice. And you’re paying for it!
The only way to kill this govt. monster is to starve it! Remove the massive infusion of public dollars (your money) that feeds this grotesque, inefficient, and often hazardous govt. school leviathan.
VOTE SCHOOL VOUCHERS – VOTE SCHOOL CHOICE.
Their your children.
When my (now 26 year old) son was a baby, he had a very bad reaction to his first shots. Even though they gave fewer immunizations then than they do now, I refused to let him get any more until he was older. I stonewalled the doctor until he was 5, when he could better handle the immunizations. I never regretted it, either.
I know a Pediatrician who was awfully selective about which vaccines his own kids got.
It’s about the money – oops I mean the children.
“Here kid, have another beef jerkey.”
For once, I disagree with you, Michelle. You are putting schools in a no-win situation. If a disease breakout takes place at a school, the officials will be asked why they didn’t require vaccines.
We felt the same way as Michelle when we researched vaccines for our children. It quickly became clear that there are some long term protective vaccines that have been in use for many years. They are safe, and worth the risk. However, there were other vaccines that seemed to be recently rushed in to the process. And it was clear that they were far less useful as they were not to protect from airborne diseases, but instead from disease contracted through sex, etc.
The herd mentality of vaccination might be useful in eliminating some really dangerous diseases like Polio. But like with everything, careful consideration of all risks vs. rewards, opportunity costs, etc. is always in order.
We skipped certain vaccines. We also skipped the combined vaccines in favor of individual vaccines. We reasoned that it made no sense to subject a young immune system to an onslaught of inactive or partially active viruses all at once, especially considering the possibility that something might be wrong with any given batch of the drugs. It is a no-brainer to adopt a more conservative schedule if one has the discipline and care that a good parent will have. The all-in-one vaccines are clearly meant as a means to visit patients that may never be seen again due to the poor cultural issues of their parents. That’s not my problem.
Lastly, we made a strong effort to draw out the schedule of the vaccinations and to wait until our child was older. It’s pretty obvious that an infant human is still developing in many ways. The last thing they need is a blast of viral drugs to interfere with all of the intricate and not-at-all-understood organic chemistry of human development. So we delayed and scheduled a more appropriate path that allowed our children to grow up a bit, and to process each vaccination, while still staying within the proper guidelines of frequency. This is how it used to be done, and most of us are still here.
All of this knee-jerk, least-common-denominator, herd mentality is a result of progressive policy and has very little to do with the common sense and good practice of medicine. Ask around, good doctors will tell you the same.
While vaccinating the herd for diseases may have some long term benefits for the total population, vaccinating the doctors with collective intuition instead of the judicious practice of medicine on each unique individual, is a recipe for disaster.
My argument’s against the draconian “Get the shots or go to jail”. What next?
Doesn’t everyone know by now that children are the property of the state?
One more reason for home schooling.
Also the moonbats can use their kids as human shields against biological warfare.
Obviously, we parents are too stupid to decide for ourselves when our children will be poked….
I have an autistic son. I refuse to blame vaccinations for his autism. But I am also (in conjunction with my doctor) spacing the shots out more carefully.
And HepB, a sexually transmitted disease (or by sharing drug & tattoo needles), can be wiped out in a single generation by teaching our kids self-control.
We currently have an 8 month old and another on the way. This issue could not be more important to us. My wife is a Teacher and I am an Attorney. After a ton of research and even more soul searching, we have decided to delay or even avoid as much as possible.
There is no reason whatsoever for a baby to get a Hep vaccine. The same is true for the Chicken pox vaccine. If our children do not contract Chicken pox naturally, then they can get the vaccine when they are older and their immune systems have fully developed. In addittion to seniors, there are more and more cases of vaccinated children contracting shingles. The entire chicken pox vaccine issue is one of convenience and money.
I feel the same way about many of the other vaccines. Are the harms from which they “need” to be protected really imminent from birth to 4 or 5 years? How much better for the children to have that time to fully develop their immune systems.
Even more egregious IMO is the attacks on parents who are trying to do the very best for their children. Usually it is Dr.’s and ignorant school officials. Now the Courts are getting involved as well?
can you imagine what will happen if the dems get their way and our ‘doctors’ work for the government. well, i see black-market health care on the rise.
the DMV, Post Office and social security are just examples of government control versus private sector free market. i don’t want a government workerg controlling my health care insurance or my health, period.
OT, when my children were in public school their babysitter was in the same district. she has never had a shot, period, her parents stated it was against their ‘religion’. she even was able to pass this into the University of Texas when they made a stink about her never being vaccinated. Now, get this, her parents were an atheist and a new ager. Hmmmmmmmmmm..
I guess those who know how to work the system just don’t have to succumb to the ‘nanny’ state mentallity.
How many vacines contain MERCURY? How many kids are permanently damaged because of the vacines that cause autism? When BIG BROTHER decides, it is politically incorrect to even question the decisions of the STATE.
How long do you think it will be before the schools start requiring vaccinations against pregnancies? What makes us think that it will be only school children that are forced to get vaccinations?
Another shining example of the government thinking it can tell everyone how to raise their kids. This is the reason I cringe at public schools, which my kids currently attend but am thinking its time to either homeschool or private school.
I’m not against vaccines really, just against the government trying to force it on people who are not comfortable with it.
Although I understand the public safety angle of having all children vaccinated against common diseases, this whole incident has rubbed me the wrong way. I really hate having to live under the oppression of a police state. Even in conservative Idaho your children belong to the state instead of the parents, not that we have a dog in that fight because we are now an empty nest. We are on a slippery slope to totalitarian rule at the rate we are slowly losing our freedoms.
This is just another part of the war being waged by secular socialists who believe in a government knows best philosophy. It is no surprise that Maryland is up to their eyeballs in this – it is a captive of the federal government and a pawn in social experimentation.
The only way to get rid of this problem is to get rid of the public school system, and give each and every parent a full tuition voucher for whatever school they chose.
I feel so much better after reading all these comments what passes for information on children vaccines in the MSM is laughable. I wonder if this is a case of new tech to the rescue again. What would the liablity $$$$ be to Big Pharma if something in these vaccines, were causing irreversible damage? Who lobbies OUR congress, hint it isn’t us.
The Prince Georges schools are being used as a pilot study for legal precedent.
Anyone know who the main producers of these vaccines are?
Follow the money.
That’s a great question Bear. I looked it up and Merck came up both times. This is the same pharmaceutical company that makes Vioxx.
Since my career began I have worked in the pharmaceutical industry. So, I am not taking to kindly to what this may develop into…and I am not exactly certain of the connection here but I’ll keep my eyes peeled.
Follow the money indeed.
Good question. Merck is the manufacturer of this vaccine along with Gardasil you know, the mandatory HPV vaccine…
Since my career began I have worked in the pharmaceutical industry. So, I am not appreciating the negative light Merck is potentially placing on an already scrutinized-to-the-hilt industry.
http://www.mothering.com/articles/growing_child/child_health/chickenpox_party.html
Meanwhile, a parade of disease-carrying illegals invades the country daily.
Thank you for this post and the comments.
My husband and I currently have no children, but we are planning. I have serious concerns about some vaccines (I’m not against all vaccines, I just have questions about some.)
I have mentioned this to some friends, parents of young children, to see what people who have recently had children think. In our very liberal town, apparently questioning the good of vaccines is just not done.
My inquiries have been met with a variety of responses, ranging from the shock-that-we-would-consider-not-giving-our-future-child-every-vaccine-available response to the disgust-that-we-would-consider-not-giving-our-future-child-every-vaccine-available response.
I thought my mother-in-law would be a good source of information because she is head nurse in an ICU and a mother of four. I was wrong. She is liberal and we don’t see eye-to-eye on many things, but I didn’t think the health of one’s children was a political issue. She gave me an answer much like all of the people here have described. It’s like all healthcare workers are given a script. I should have known better. My teenaged sister-in-law recently, almost proudly, annouced to us that she got the HPV vaccine.
All that just to say this: It’s great to know that I am not alone and that I would not be a horrible parent if I question vaccines.
EHeavenlyGads and Dan708,
There is no reason at all for schools to require elementary school students to be vaccinated for Hepatitis B. The only way you can get it is from sex and drug use. There are not going to be any epidemics of Hepatitis B in schools. To require parents to have their kids vaccinated against Hepatitis B is offensive and obnoxious in a Big Brother way. Most adults are not even vaccinated against Hepatitis B.
Sorry for multiple posts of the same thing. It wasn’t working on my end when I hit submit
If schools are so damned worried about disease, why are they accepting illegal aliens?
One has to ‘admire’ the power of a single judge, on his own, to inconvenience under the cover of law and courts, so many people.
Maybe the swiftest of us can be ready for the next time — to work the lines, selling t-shirts and hoodies with the appropriate judge’s photograph and the words ‘held in contempt’. Coulda sold a bunch.
Question everything the doctors say is routine. I didn’t allow any of my children to be vaccinated “routinely” before they were 5 years old.
They were fine. And by the time they were “vaccinated”, they’d been through the garden variety mumps, measles, and chicken pox stuff. All were breast fed babies. None were raised on formula. All began eating solid food before they were two (I am one helluva cook, what can i say?).
None were vaccinated if they were immune system compromised with a cold at the time of the scheduled vaccinations.
With regards to Hep B vaccine, it never came up. That it is being pushed now along with the HPV nonsense, seems as though the longitudinal data collection process is beginning in earnest. Public schools track kids— these new vaccines need a database.
Feel lucky? A good attorney would stop this punk school district in its tracks.
The TB and untreatable strep outbreaks in hospitals are growing larger each year.
The only way to stay ahead is to bleach your bathrooms and kitchen each week. Religiously.
I never knew about Vaccinations and their side effects until my daughter nearly died from her 2 month shots. They bullied me into vaccinating her with hep b right after she came out of the womb even though my better judgement said..huh? why?
Had to go round and round with my daughter’s pediatrician trying to tell me that the shots had nothing to do with her seizure within a day after even though the hospital diagnosed it as such. Further reading helped cement my views. When I confronted the pediatrician with the manufacturer’s own packet insert that had my daughter’s reaction in the side effect area, she STILL denied it was possible. This pediatrician also went on to tell me how I needed to sell my guns and how dare I co sleep with my child because I will end up killing her.
Resources that helped me:
http://www.nvic.org
http://tinyurl.com/yrokxt
http://tinyurl.com/2fojds
http://tinyurl.com/68eb5
http://tinyurl.com/276rk7
Michelle,
This article talks about 40 percent of pediatricians will boot out their patients if they do not adhere to the vaccination schedule.
I know a few that had got kicked out and they switched to family doctors and there was a much different attitude about it.
Two weird points here: First, my daughter CANNOT receive the HPV vaccine from her gyno UNLESS she is 19. BUT, her family doctor CANNOT admin. it to her because the insurance won’t cover it from a family doc. Wha???? Also, there will be a newer version of the HPV available in about a year which covers more strains of the virus. They are trying to approve it for girls BEGINNING at AGE 2!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?! BTW: My daughter is 18 and we are considering it for precautionary reasons.
The problem that I see here isn’t about bullying doctors & nurses, it’s this right here:
Parents who have opted out of letting the State (in the generic sense) educate their children are still subject to this rule. The parents have removed their child from the System and so the System has come into the parent’s houses and taken control of the child anyway.
The problem is that even as parents are losing parental rights (i.e. parental notification for abortion) that the State is claiming ownership of children. And if the State can order parents (under threat of imprisionment) to take this proactive measure regarding their child’s health then why can’t it tell parents what the child can and cannot eat or wear or read? Each of these things can also be said to effect society.
A very important line is being crossed here. It’s one thing for the State to protect children from physical & sexual abuse but a completely different thing for them to demand immunization for children against something that isn’t an epidemic against the wishes of their parents.
Did someone say “natural immunity” above?
I think we are vaccinating ourselves into a little plastic bubble. I think it’s the same thing with overuse of hand sanitizers.
There are basic vaccines that children have been given for years, rubella, measles, mumps, etc…those are traditional vaccines that have been tested for 20-30 years.
The Chicken Pox is a relatively new vaccine that hasn’t had the 10-year, 20-year studies done on it yet. Nobody knows the long-term side effects.
I’ve heard rumors that getting the Chicken Pox vaccine makes you more susceptible to Shingles, than if you never had it. (Don’t know if that’s true or not, but just a rumor I heard).
Hep B is crazy to give to toddlers, but there’s lots of revenue in the Vaccine business, especially when the manufacturers sell to the Gov. at full mark-up
#64
demand immunization for children against something that isn’t an epidemic
The diseases aren’t epidemics because they are immunized against.
OT but not too far.Three weeks ago ,Mrs blues finally chose to go to the doctor to have har knee looked at.Today I picked her and her new knee up at the hospital.Two sessions of physical therapy ,and she is walking up and down steps.I doubt that under Hillarycare a person could expect to have such surgery in three weeks,from diagnosis to recovery.
The fact is ,as has been stated before in this thread,the bottom line is money to beaurocrats.While it is true that immunization programs have done wonders for the overall health of the country we must vigilant in not giving too much control of our personal health to the government,or anyone else.Still people think that government control of health care is a good thing.I applaud you Michelle for taking the stand you did in taking responsibilty for your children’s health,going along with any program just because “that is the way it is done” is the first step in giving away your autonomy and freedom,and becoming a victem of the system,instead of a beneficiary of progess.
Where’s the vaccine against MRSA?
Not responding to anyone in particular, but hepatitis B and chickenpox weren’t epidemics before immunizations existed for them.
And now days we are being told that we have a “fat kid” epidemic in the country, so I guess it’s time to begin telling parents what to feed their kids.
BTW there have been, in the past, real-live troll outbreaks at this blog and no one has ever suggested immunizing against them.
Being in the medical field for many years, I understand Hep B and chicken pox, and can’t, for the life of me, understand why they require vaccines for them for small children. I remember, back in the 80s, being the only one willing to work with HIV patients, when everyone was hysterical over it. “If you don’t have sex with them, or exchange blood with them, what’s the worry?”…was what one doc told me in training. Hep B is a “bloodborne” disease. Chicken pox is a mild disease for children, age 5-15 (what we used to call the “golden age of resistance”), with the side effects of vaccination outweighing the disease progression. Yes, one could say that Shingles could be a future problem, but it is pretty rare, all in all. What is most important to see is a vision of the future, once socialized medicine comes into effect…a situation where lawyers and politically minded doctors dictate what the public needs and what is required, based on the “which way the wind blows”. Maryland is a hot bed of liberalism; the new tax increase is evidence. It always troubles me when people complain that people in the medical field treat them as idiots. That I’ve never done. Sometimes, I’ve even learned something from them! Medicine needs to be served on a one-to-one basis, with patients working with docs to achieve a reasonable goal. This vaccination program doesn’t do that.
I have serious issues w/CDC&P and NIH. In the 1980 epidemic called Yuppie Flu (and other misnomers) they concluded we were a bunch of “attention seeking fruitcakes”. Because routine medical tests are all negative, we were not believed. There is no diagnositc test, treatment or cure almost 30 years later. In 2007 they admitted it was a real illness.
There is too much political bureaucracy, prescription drug money, professional arrogance, wasted taxpayer dollars, etc., etc., in the field of health already.
The federal government cannot do anything better than private, competitive enterprise and it should not be so involved in our health. Frankly, they are not very good at it.
Gabe, I don’t disagree that HepB is unnecessary for elementary public school innoculations in the US, unless a patient falls into one of a very few risk categories (i.e., born to an infected mother, residing in a household with an active case.)
You are not entirely correct on transmission methods. In decreasing order of frequency, transmissions are through the exchange of body fluids (i.e., unprotected sex), by transmission of infected blood into a non-infected person (i.e., needle sharing, needle sticks), AND also by general household contact with persons with an active case (the virus does exist for a short time on surfaces, and is transmittable via sputum). Rarely, children are born to mothers who are active, but these are typically drug-abusers.
I also agree we’ll never see HepB epidemics in schools. But I never once considered staff infections would become airborne.
You are also right in adult immunization frequencies. For the most part, only doctors, nurses, nurses aids, hospital and clinical staffs, fire departments, police departments, penal institutions, the military, and school educators, aides and administrators are required to undergo the vaccine regularly. I may have missed a group or two in the list, but they are people with greater risk by virtue of the number of infected people they come into contact with. Most people come in contact with a much smaller pool of the population on a regular basis.
I strongly disagree with Michelle on this point for contagious diseases. Prevention is the best remedy to prevent epidemics and schools and the government have every right to require that parents get the proper shots in order to attend a school or participate in public events.
But that’s not what she’s saying.
Michelle was talking about jailing parents for not accepting the Govs vaccine regimen.
If the schools want to kick students out…..go ahead. But they are going beyond that and jailing parents for exercising Constitutional rights to opt out.
I really don’t think this is a partisan issue.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/deirdre-imus/over-medicated-and-overv_b_73300.html
I can’t let that slide. WC is NOT 100% peventable by the vaccine and the vaccine does NOT work exceptionally well. I’d also like to see the study that shows it was nearly erradicated.
When we were researching vaccines for our children, even the Smith/Kline website (the vaccine manufacturer at the time) said the DPT shot was only 30-70% effective. That’s a pretty lousy return for the risks involved. The website also said it should never be given to anyone over the age of 7.
Makes me wonder why it’s then safe for someone under the age of seven.
My daughter had WC as a child (oddly enough in an outbreak of it in a city with high WC vaccination rates) and yes, it was unpleasant, but now she has a lifelong immunity. I got the shot as a kid, then got whooping cough as an adult–as did the CDC gal who called to rail on me for “letting” my child get WC–and was dealthy ill for about 2 months.
The additives in vaccines (esp. squalene) are NOT benign. I’m not saying no vaccines are the proper route. I’m just saying that it’s shortsighted to simply swallow the company line and vaccinate without fully understanding the risks.
And I know exactly what Michelle’s talking about with the HepB shot. My pediatrician try to physically intimidate me when I balked at it. It made me wonder why he needed to resort to that when the facts should have been compelling enough to convince me.