Preschoolers’ parents protest required flu shots

[Ladywriter 7,783]

N.J. policy is first in the nation to require the vaccine for small children

Hilary Downing, left, of Readington, N.J., holds a sign as she stands in a large crowd in front of the statehouse in Trenton, N.J., during a rally for vaccination choice.

updated 4:07 p.m. ET, Thurs., Oct. 16, 2008

As flu season approaches, many New Jersey parents are furious over a first-in-the-nation requirement that children get a flu shot in order to attend preschools and day-care centers. The decision should be the parents’, not the state’s, they contend.

Hundreds of parents and other activists rallied outside the New Jersey Statehouse on Thursday, decrying the policy and voicing support for a bill that would allow parents to opt out of mandatory vaccinations for their children.

“This is not an anti-vaccine rally — it’s a freedom of choice rally,” said one of the organizers, Louise Habakus. “This one-size-fits-all approach is really very anti-American.”

New Jersey’s policy was approved last December by the state’s Public Health Council and is taking effect this fall. Children from 6 months to 5 years old who attend a child-care center or preschool have until Dec. 31 to receive the flu vaccine, along with a pneumococcal vaccine.

The Health Council was acting on the recommendations of the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which has depicted children under 5 as a group particularly in need of flu shots. But no other state has made the shots mandatory for children of any age.

“Vaccines not only protect the child being vaccinated but also the general community and the most vulnerable individuals within the community,” New Jersey’s Health Department said in a statement. It has depicted young children as “particularly efficient” in transmitting the flu to others.

'Parents have a right to decide'

Opposition to the policy is vehement. Assemblywoman Charlotte Vandervalk, one of the speakers at the rally, said she now has 34 co-sponsors for a bill that would allow for conscientious objections to mandatory vaccinations.

“The right to informed consent is so basic,” she said in an interview. “Parents have a right to decide for their own children what is injected in their bodies.”

State policy now allows for medical and religious exemptions to mandatory vaccinations, but Vandervalk said requests for medical exemptions often have been turned down by local health authorities. She said 19 other states allow conscientious exemptions like those envisioned in her bill.

New Jersey’s health department has come out strongly against the legislation.

“Broad exemptions to mandatory vaccination weaken the entire compliance and enforcement structure,” it said.

The department also contends that New Jersey is particularly vulnerable to vaccine-preventable diseases — with a high population density, a mobile population and many recently arrived immigrants.

“In light of New Jersey’s special traits, the highest number of children possible must receive vaccines to protect them and others,” the department said.

Several hundred people attended Thursday’s rally, some with signs reading, “Mommy knows best.”

Among the speakers was Robin Stavola of Colts Neck, N.J., who said her daughter, Holly, died in 2000 at age 5 less than two weeks after receiving eight different vaccines, including a booster shot.

“I am not against vaccines, but I do believe there are too many,” she told the crowd.

Divide over vaccine safety

State health officials and the CDC insist the flu vaccine is safe and effective, but Vandervalk and the parent groups who support her bill contend there has been inadequate research into the vaccine’s impact on small children. Critics note that flu vaccines contain trace amounts of thimerosol, a mercury-based preservative; the CDC says there’s no convincing evidence these trace amounts cause harm.

More generally, many of the parents mobilizing against the state policy believe various types of vaccine are being overused, resulting in more cases of autism, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and other neurological problems in children.

“There’s not been a response from the government that is credible in terms of doing the scientific research that will screen out vulnerable children,” said Barbara Loe Fisher, a speaker at the rally. She is co-founder of the National Vaccine Information Center in Vienna, Va., an advocacy group skeptical of vaccination policies.

“There’s an acknowledgment that prescription drugs can cause different reactions in people, but there’s a blanket statement by health authorities that we all have to vaccinate, all in the same way,” Fisher said.

Fisher is a prominent player in a nationwide movement challenging the scope of vaccination programs. She was harshly critical last year when school officials in Maryland’s Prince George’s County threatened to impose jail terms and fines on parents whose children didn’t get required vaccinations.

Many of the activists in New Jersey accept the need for mandatory vaccinations for certain highly dangerous diseases, such as polio, but argue that the state went too far in requiring flu shots.

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Learn more about vaccinations. Protect yourself and your family from unnecessary poisoning.

[DeathscytheX 9,732]

I haven't had the flu since I was 11 or 12. I've never had a flu shot. People I've seen that recieved one, were miserable for a week. Screw that, might as well suffer through the flu itself, rather than pay to suffer though it.

[Kite 3,263]

ive had the flu , and it is really shitty, but i stay in the house, and get better, (time off work / school is a total w00t)

i dont think mandatory vacinations is unethical, we wiped out small pox didnt we??

but with potential side effects like autism, the person who tried to inject my daughter better have a seditive gun for me 1st

[Ladywriter 7,783]

I'm anti mandatory vaccination. I think the freedoms we have (or had before W) give us the right to choose if we want to gamble at being poisoned or not. I have never ever not once had a flu shot and never will. The only shot I keep up on is tetnus, but fuck it I'm done having kids.

I've been leery of shots for years and the more I've learned the more pissed and paranoid I get. I look at the people in my age group and see all the fucked up mental disease, a by-product of the shots they gave our parents. I look at all the fucked up shit that resulted in my age group getting shots and what is wrong with our kids as a result. In my own family bi polar, ADD and autism. I can see with my own eyeballs the progression of the shit storm. My parents mostly okay, me my sis our cousins; not so okay and our kids defiantly not okay. My father was practically a pin cushion he had so many shots durring his military career. My parents don't smoke, didn't use substances, my mom never really drank and my dad gave up all alcohol after being diagnosed with diabetes. Their biggest carconigen intake comes from diet soda. My dad fought through prostrate cancer a few years ago and my mom has a form of lukemia. Did all of that come from Diet Pepsi?! I dunno about that

[Sledgstone 8,672]

I can't find a direct source, but I remember hearing about how 1 out of every 6 kids born in the USA have autism, ADD, ADHD, Asthma, deadly food allergies or a learning disability.

1 out of every 6 is fucked up in some way or another. And seeing as babies are given required vaccinations usually within days or months of their birth, any one of the vaccinations could be causing all these issues as side effects that are life altering. A couple vaccinations are even linked to possibly causing diabetes later in life. How messed up is that? You get a shot when you're a couple weeks old and great, it just might have/might not have prevented you from getting a disease, but at the same time, you'll be more likely to get a completely different disease that'll mess you up just as bad when you're older.