Conscientious objection to vaccinations

Catholic Culture ^ | February 4, 2015 | Phil Lawler

[NYer]

Following an outbreak of measles that was traced back to Disneyland, public-health authorities are ramping up their campaign to persuade all American parents that their children should be vaccinated. This campaign places pressure on some parents who have moral objections to the use of certain vaccines.

We should not underestimate the vigor of the public-health campaign. Writers from RealClear Science and from Fox News-- not outlets ordinarily inclined to favor the expansion of government powers—have called for mandatory vaccination of all children, and even jail time for parents who resist.

Nor should we underestimate the seriousness of some parents who are determined to resist the campaign. Some oppose vaccination on scientific grounds, claiming that it can have harmful effects. Others resist on moral grounds, because some vaccines are derived from the cells of aborted babies. It is on the latter category—the conscientious objectors—that I want to focus in this essay.

This is not an essay on the effectiveness of vaccines. I am not a scientist; I have no standing to address that issue. But before setting aside the question of public health, let me raise a simple practical question: How many vaccinations should be mandatory? Should parents be legally obligated to use every vaccine that public-health officials consider desirable? Or should some be mandatory, and others elective?

Just a few years ago, Governor Rick Perry of Texas (again, not ordinarily known for favoring government intervention in private lives) issued an executive order requiring that all 6th-grade girls in the state be vaccinated against the human papilloma virus (HPV). The Centers for Disease Control opposed that move, saying that mandatory vaccination was not warranted. More recently, some medical experts have questioned whether the vaccine, Gardasil, actually works, while others have cited serious side-effects. Were parents in Texas being unreasonable, then, when they opposed the vaccination campaign?

More to the point, since we are talking about an outbreak of measles, would it be unreasonable for parents to decide that they would like their children to be vaccinated against measles and mumps, but not against rubella? For American parents today that is nearly impossible, because Merck, the company that dominates the field, decided in 2009 that its drugs for measles, mumps, and rubella would be bundled into a single MMR vaccine. This creates a serious moral problem, because Merck’s rubella vaccine is derived from the tissue of aborted babies.

So we return to the question of conscientious objection. Can parents have their children vaccinated with the MMR vaccine without compromising their pro-life principles—without cooperating with the Culture of Death? The National Catholic Register addressed that question this week, and although I cannot find any clear error of fact in the article, I think it creates a very inaccurate impression.

Relying heavily on analysis by the National Catholic Bioethics Center (NCBC), the Register explains that parents who choose to have their children vaccinated are engaged only in “remote material cooperation” with abortion. Given the potential risks of disease, the article reports, the Vatican has stated that parents can be justified in chosing vaccination.

That’s all perfectly true. But reading the Register article, one might conclude that the Vatican has said parents should vaccinate. That’s not accurate. The Pontifical Academy for Life, in a statement released in 2005, said that parents could be justified in choosing vaccination. The statement did not say that this choice was preferable, let alone mandatory.

What the Vatican did say, with undeniable clarity, was that parents have a moral obligation to insist on vaccines that are not prepared by immoral means: vaccines not derived from fetal remains. The Pontifical Academy for Life wrote that “there remains a moral duty to continue to fight and to employ every lawful means in order to make life difficult for the pharmaceutical industries which act unscrupulously and unethically.”

That was in 2005. It was in 2009—four years later—that Merck decided to stop making available the morally untainted vaccines for measles and mumps. The Vatican had called upon American Catholics to fight for the development of morally acceptable vaccines. Sad to say—with the honorable exception of parents who resisted the immoral vaccines, and groups such as Children of God for Life that supported them—we did not fight hard enough to dissuade Merck from taking a giant step in the opposite direction.

The Register story conveys the impression that Catholic parents should vaccinate their children, but might also choose to lodge an objection against the use of morally tainted vaccines. The Vatican’s statement, in effect, tells parents the reverse: You may vaccinate, but you must object.

The Pontifical Academy for Life ended its statement this way:

To summarize, it must be confirmed that:

• there is a grave responsibility to use alternative vaccines and to make a conscientious objection with regard to those which have moral problems;
• as regards the vaccines without an alternative, the need to contest so that others may be prepared must be reaffirmed, as should be the lawfulness of using the former in the meantime insomuch as is necessary in order to avoid a serious risk not only for one's own children but also, and perhaps more specifically, for the health conditions of the population as a whole - especially for pregnant women;
• the lawfulness of the use of these vaccines should not be misinterpreted as a declaration of the lawfulness of their production, marketing and use, but is to be understood as being a passive material cooperation and, in its mildest and remotest sense, also active, morally justified as an extrema ratio due to the necessity to provide for the good of one's children and of the people who come in contact with the children (pregnant women) ;
• such cooperation occurs in a context of moral coercion of the conscience of parents, who are forced to choose to act against their conscience or otherwise, to put the health of their children and of the population as a whole at risk. This is an unjust alternative choice, which must be eliminated as soon as possible.

This is not a call for passive acceptance of the vaccines derived from fetal remains. (And by the way, chicken-pox vaccine falls into that category as well.) It is a clear call for action to remedy an injustice. If Catholics mobilized to demand ethical vaccines, the pharmaceutical industry would be forced to respond. If Catholics are content to say that they can be justified in using these vaccines, the injustice will continue.

Meanwhile, what about those Catholics (and other conscientious objectors) who have taken a firm stand? Some parents have decided that although they could be morally justified in vaccinating their children, they will bear witness to the dignity of human life by refusing even a remote cooperation with abortion. They deserve our support.

[NYer]

Some of us predate the MMR vaccinations. We ‘survived’ measles, mumps and german measles, along with chicken pox. And we are here to comment on the contemporary approach, ping!

[skeeter]

More nuance on the issue of the day.

Which will be totally lost on the more obtuse among us.

[Chainsawj]

If they can’t FORCS you to get the shot, how are they going to give you the TINY tracking chip at will allow the government to control your every move?

Freedom of choice: what an OLD FASHIONED concept.

[AnAmericanMother]

WE survived . . . but some of our contemporaries did not.

And many more suffered lasting aftereffects. A school friend's baby brother was blinded and brain-damaged as a result of measles encephalitis.

The other problem is that refusing to vaccinate, if it reaches critical mass, enables an epidemic to spread far and wide. The campaign to eradicate measles in the U.S. relied on vaccinating enough folks so that if one person from a measles area (like, say, the Philippines, which had an awful epidemic in the early 2000s, and some infected individuals came here) won't cause the disease to spread like wildfire.

[goodwithagun]

Children of God for Life’s chart of vaccines containing aborted baby: http://www.cogforlife.org/vaccineListOrigFormat.pdf

[AnAmericanMother]

I don't think it's wise to have criminal penalties for failure to vaccinate. That is NOT necessary.

But public health is a classic government function.

Public health information campaigns have always worked in the past. We didn't have the internet or as many "government conspiracy theorists" as we do now . . . and the Public Health Service, by and large, was viewed as politically neutral.

I blame the Democrats for politicizing the federal PHS by using it for political purposes such as gun control, etc. They have poisoned the well.

But I think most people still view the *State* PHS as fairly neutral and even-handed.

A good first step as far as compelling vaccination would be to require it for school admission. That still gives a choice - but if you don't vaccinate, you'll need to home school.

[NYer]

A school friend's baby brother was blinded and brain-damaged as a result of measles encephalitis.

I still vividly recall the day I brought my adopted daughter to the pediatrician for her first MMR shot. While sitting in the waiting room, I flipped through an issue of Time magazine with a fairly lengthy article on that particular vaccination. While it praised the benefits, it also noted that some children fared poorly including a few who died following the 3rd dose. Left in a quandary, I decided to follow the doctor's recommendation and she received the first of 3 injections.

My daughter struggled through elementary school, eventually assessed with dyslexia and later, ADHD. In speaking with her birth mother, who had 2 other children, she said there was no history of dyslexia in the family and neither of her other children were handicapped with this condition, nor did they have ADHD. While I cannot prove anything one way or the other, gut feeling still tells me that something transpired through administration of that vaccination series.

[IchBinEinBerliner]

How is it that a vaccine that makes you immune from a virus requires the action of any one else for it to be effective? If the vaccine truly makes you immune, then it should not matter what someone else decides to do. If you are immune from measles, then someone with measles should be able to cough, slobber on you, or kiss you(or just live peacefully without the government and it guns imposing its will on them) without having an adverse effect on your health.

[lavaroise]

Jews a avoided the bubonic plague using proven sanitation and quarantine methods. Abuse of science, medicine and vaccines is a reality. I would not be surprized if the AIDS virus was a direct result of adaptation against the traditional vaccine immunization reaction technique. In fact STDs have multiplied not only in quantities of affected but in kinds. Never did we hear of HPV and what not before. Every year a new plague appears.

This vaccine campaign is a smokes and mirror for the reality of the depraved and abusers of health care, another way for saying Christians bar people from science, when it is them who are completely irrational and murdering each other. My doctor does not like Hepatitis vaccine for children as he says it is more to protect the pedophiles and incestuous from scrutiny, just like Planned Parenthood and abortion operate.

[lavaroise]

It is a Big Brother ploy, because they consider us their possessions, their cattles, not God’s. It should be a State issue, and besides they are not checking illegals.

We should not be forced, per say, to be compelled to be healthy for them, to hand over weapons and science to savages at the helm, just as Jesus could have used His powers while extorted to go down the cross, but instead let truth speak for itself instead of bribing Himself and absolving them in the process - because his murderers did not want to be charged for their crimes.

[IchBinEinBerliner]

I am curious as to why you would view this as a State issue?
I see it as an individual issue. If your immunization makes you immune(ie invulnerable) to what I may or may not be cultivating in my body(which has been the claim of “science” for my adult life), it is of none of your concern what I do with my body as it has no effect on anyone else. I should not have say over your body even if I can profit from it. So long as your choices have no bearing on my outcomes, I should not have any say in your choices.

[lavaroise]

I make it a State issue as it is the State which makes the Federal, and not the reverse. States join or do not join. An individual, or a county, should also have the right to secede and divorce from a State or a Federal infringing. Thus it is a State issue. I cannot force people to be free, but they cannot force me to belong to their plantation either.

[WriteOn]

Friend of ours lost a child to brain damage from the vaccine. Hair tested far in excess of normal for Mercury. Government would not recognize the claim. Just saying, there is a number they are willing to trade for herd immunity. It isn’t called herd immunity for nothing.

[IchBinEinBerliner]

I agree the State makes the federal, but what makes the State?

[lavaroise]

Lincoln touched on it. He did two things at once. He implicitly seceded and then attacked what he saw was a hegemonistic South, imposing their slave counts as votes just like the Unions do it today.

What happens is that he actually supported people within the Southern States to secede from the South. The same issue is happening with Shariah trying to gain influence in Texas with the help of Democrats - intent on changing the State and making it impose Shariah on the rest.

What makes the State would be a new State created out of the Red Counties separating from the slave antigod blue counties.

That is how I see it because I cannot force people to be individuals who decide cor themselves, but they should not be able to force me to be within their scope of business.

The State, it is a process, more than a sort of asset as communists want to ascertain it.

[AnAmericanMother]

The problem is that correlation is not causation.

Many developmental problems (e.g. autism, ADHD, etc.) first manifest themselves around the time that kids go through the vaccine cycle. It's quite natural to think that there must be a connection . . . but there's no evidence of a causative connection.

My youngest (also adopted) has ADHD as well. Lots of theories but not much hard science. My personal observation is that geek-on-geek marriages produce a lot of kids with ADHD and autism spectrum disorders. Look at the rates in Silicon Valley. I've also seen it in my own family --

[AnAmericanMother]

It's a general social issue. Read the second half of my post again.

If you don't care about anybody but yourself, you won't catch it (or if you do, it will be a mild case). Good for you. If you care about others (people with immune disorders, children too young to vaccinate, children whose parents don't believe in vaccines) then if herd immunity breaks down you are going to see a lot of people suffering in an epidemic.

If that doesn't concern you, no problem. But I'm old enough to remember polio epidemics before the vaccines . . . the closing of the swimming pools, the kids in braces, and so forth. I didn't get polio - but a kid in my carpool did. So did a very good friend who spent his life in braces.

[IchBinEinBerliner]

I read your whole post fully the first time. On second reading it still raises the same questions which you did not address.

How is it that a vaccine that makes you immune from a virus requires the action of any one else for it to be effective?

Herd immunity??? Seriously??? That is the pro-vaccine crowd(or vaccine apologist) version of switching from Global Warming to Climate Change. In the history of vaccines, herd immunity has only reared its head when vaccines failed to protect a multitude of individuals the way medical science claimed it would). Can you show a single scientific article that references “herd immunity” that was published before this millennium? The isolation of small pox was something totally different since it was an approached that targeted areas in which small pox was actually active.

Since the pro-vaccine crowd is pumping newborns full of vaccines, how young are these children that are too young for vaccines. Also, are you familiar with the immunity boost that breast feeding babies get from their mothers?

Parents that don’t believe in vaccines take the risk of these diseases upon themselves and their children. As I have done for myself and for my children.

I am not unsympathetic to your view. It is clear that you have witnessed people damaged by diseases for which there are vaccines, but there are plenty of us who have loved ones that have been damaged by the vaccines themselves. Be grateful if you have not witnessed this, but is as real as the waste of the diseases that you saw.

I have adhered to a diet that has radically improved my health without antibiotics or vaccines since my career exposes me to most of the ailments that so many in the public are spreading about. Should I be able to impose that diet on others? Are you as selfish as you are trying to paint those who choose to not to inject themselves with whatever is in vaccines by not adhering to this same diet? It really is a simple diet, don’t eat starch, disaccharides, or precessed foods.

[IchBinEinBerliner]

I have driven through stop signs and red lights without causing a traffic accident. I have driven well above the speed limit without causing an accident. I have written not just texts, but long emails while driving without causing an accident. Therefore, none of those things cause traffic accidents. Are you going to recommend that your children ignore all the advice to ignore those behaviors while they drive since they clearly don't cause accidents they merely correlate to them? The vaccine cycle start when they are newborns and continues for years, so yes many issues do not manifest themselves except from birth through the first several years of life which happens to be when you want them inject with vaccines. How many combo(ie MMR) type vaccines studies on newborn or infants do you think there have been? The CDC has been shown to have mislead the public on vaccine safety already. Search the linked document from the FDA and see if autism occurs in the side effects. In full disclosure, I have not searched for a link between autism and geek on geek breeding(or marriage) Perhaps you could link an article on this particular issue. In personal experience, I see just as many autistic spectrum disorder children among the "cool and stupid" as I do among the "geeks". Though intelligent parents with greater resources are usually able to bring medical and psychological professions to bear earlier in the child's life

http://www.fda.gov/downloads/BiologicsBloodVaccines/Vaccines/ApprovedProducts/UCM101580.pdf

Here is an excerpt in case you don't have time to wade through the whole pdf:

Adverse events reported during post-approval use of Tripedia vaccine include idiopathic thrombocytopenic purpura, SIDS, anaphylactic reaction, cellulitis, autism , convulsion/grand mal convulsion, encephalopathy, hypotonia, neuropathy, somnolence and apnea. Events were included in this list because of the seriousness or frequency of reporting.

Then there is this

http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2012/06/25/mmr-vaccine-caused-autism.aspx Italian Court Rules MMR Vaccine Caused Autism

Valentino Bocca was given an MMR shot in 2004, at the age of 15 months. According to his parents, the change in his behavior was immediate. That same night he refused to eat, and he developed diarrhea during the night. It quickly went downhill from there. Within days he was no longer able to put a spoon to his mouth, and he spent nights crying in pain. His parents immediately suspected the vaccination, but were told this was "impossible." Valentino progressively regressed, and received the diagnosis of autism a year later. In the final analysis, the Italian Health Ministry disagreed with the initial conclusion of the pediatrician, conceding that the vaccine was at fault. As a result, a court in Rimini, Italy recently awarded the Bocca family a 15-year annuity totaling 174,000 Euros (just under $220,000), plus reimbursement for court costs, ruling that Valentino "has been damaged by irreversible complications due to vaccination (prophylaxis trivalent MMR)i." According to a featured article in the UK newspaper, The Independentii, about 100 similar cases are now being examined by Italian lawyers, and more cases may be brought to court. "Luca Ventaloro the family lawyer, said yesterday: "This is very significant for Britain which uses, and has used, an MMR vaccine with the same components as the one given to Valentino. It is wrong for governments and their health authorities to exert strong pressure on parents to take children for the MMR jab while ignoring that this vaccine can cause autism and linked conditions." The number of autism cases has risen sharply since the 1970s, with one in 64 British children affected," The Independent reportsiii .

Now, I am all ready to go with your personal observation, but the FDA and the Italian Court System seem to think there might be something to vaccines causing some undesired results for some people. So, that and my personal experiences and knowledge of vaccines causes me to realize that you might not be the Mona Lisa Vito of vaccines. So, you still have not swayed me.