Get Kids Vaccinated Or Else, Parents Told

Washington Post ^ | 14 Nov 2007 | Nelson Hernandez

[my3centseuro]

The parents of more than 2,300 Prince George's County students who failed to get needed vaccinations could face fines of $50 a day and up to 10 days in jail if their children do not meet the state's immunization requirements, county officials said yesterday.

The threat of legal action is a last resort after months in which Prince George's has struggled to get its 131,000 students immunized for chicken pox and hepatitis B, as mandated by the state.

More than 2,300 students have not been immunized and have been barred from attending schools, almost two months after a Sept. 20 deadline for meeting the requirement.

"We can do this the easy way or the hard way, but it's got to get done," Prince George's State's Attorney Glenn F. Ivey (D) said at a news conference in Upper Marlboro.

"I'm willing to move forward with legal action." School officials have made calls, sent letters and conducted home visits to make arrangements for free appointments for the needed shots.

But often the students' addresses and phone numbers have been outdated, making contacting them difficult. Other students have received the vaccines but failed to get the necessary booster shots.

The school system turned to the justice system as a final option and received the backing of Circuit Judge William D. Missouri, the county's administrative judge, and Circuit Judge C. Philip Nichols Jr., who handles juvenile matters.

"This is an educational crisis," said R. Owen Johnson Jr., chairman of the school board. "This is a public health and a children's rights issue."

[SamuraiScot]

You’re thinking of Hep C, not Hep B. Hep B is caught from either blood or stool and is passed along really easily because kids don’t always wash their hands and they’re always getting cuts and scrapes.

HepC is usually from contaminated food. HepB needs fluid contact for the virus to survive, as I recall, so in the playground scenario, you'd need an open cut or scrape meeting another open cut or scrape for transmission to occur. Pretty unlikely.

HepB is the homosexual-and-drug-related one, and no kidding, early on, that was in the sales pitch for it—because after all (the argument went), who are you to say what "lifestyles" your kid may choose?

I don't care for that reasoning, any more than I think my daughters should be given the HPV vaccine, with its various risks, known and unknown—on the pretext that they might become tarts when they grow up.

HepB vaccination is a particularly touchy issue because the vaccine carries some risk of causing the disease itself, which in turn heavily increases the risk of liver cancer.

for your new hat, should the foil be made out of aluminum, tin or steel?

As for metallic hat fashions, I'm hoping for a golden crown one day. But in the meantime, maybe you're blessed with a particularly honest school board and local government, but let's just say I'm not. Besides living here, I've done some trustee work, and I'm not exaggerating about the affinity groups that exist among professionals and officials—understandable and normal human behavior, by the way. But these folks are pack animals, and their judgments on scientific issues are often skewed as a result.

[Moose4]

I’ll bet you, in that county, they’re probably half illegals who can’t speak or read English (and probably don’t do THAT well at Spanish), and half welfare families. Prince George’s County MD is, for the most part, a septic tank. At least it was when I lived in the DC area 18 years ago.

}:-)4

[Tired of Taxes]

I wish my eldest had caught chicken pox when he was younger. Now I’m left with the decision whether or not to vaccinate before he hits adolescence. We’ve been discussing it recently.

[Tired of Taxes]

I share your cynicism.

[glide625]

Face it; most of them are clueless idiots. With luck the cocktail of vaccines will sterilize a large percentage of the wee bonehead offspring.

[Politicalmom]

Actually, that depends on the state. In some states you have to have a clergy statement that non-vaccination is a tenet of your belief.

One of the few things I miss about California was that they had a philosophical exemption.

[Dasaji]

Wow - sounds like you have a great pediatrician. What she says makes sense.

[goodwithagun]

A lady my mom works with refused to have her third child vaccinated. Children numbers one and two where both diagnosed with autism. Child number three is completely normal. Any coincidence?

[aberaussie]

I know people who have chicken pox parties. When one child catches it, they bring their children to visit and catch it so that they won't catch it later in life. I always thought chicken pox parties was a terrible idea. But your comment makes me wonder if they have the right idea after all...

My brother-in-law got chicken pox in college. He was very, very sick. I have heard that chicken pox in children even can have ugly complications, but all four of mine had it very young and it was not much of a problem. Lots of people used my kids to expose their kids since the vaccine came out shortly after my last one had it. I had it as a child and never had to worry about it again, at least so far.

[af_vet_rr]

I know people who have chicken pox parties. When one child catches it, they bring their children to visit and catch it so that they won't catch it later in life. I always thought chicken pox parties was a terrible idea. But your comment makes me wonder if they have the right idea after all...

We didn't call it that, but when I was a little kid, a couple of kids on base caught it, and because school was out (and no chance for us to get exposed at school), my mom and a lot of other moms dragged us around to their houses, so that we all caught it.

It was a miserable experience, but in retrospect I'm glad she did it (especially given that I've visited some really crummy third world countries). While I've gotten every vaccination under the sun because of my travels, I've never had to worry about chicken pox.

I knew somebody that got it as an adult and it made my experience as a kid pale in comparison.

[ari-freedom]

I think it is important to have lots of exposure to fresh air and dirt and eat yogurt and kefir.
btw a helminth is a parasitic worm :)

[annelizly]

she got it because the vaccine doesn’t work!

One of my kids came home from school the last day of preschool with chicken pox and then my other two got it. It wasn’t anymore inconvenient than a bad cold and now their set for life. no worries.

only problem is when the school questions me about why my kids don’t have the vaccine and i tell them they had the chicken pox and they want proof....uh....good thing i took a picture of them at the time!

[metmom]

So where’s all the research going on to create a vaccine against TB?

I haven’t heard a thing about that, ever, and yet it seems to be a bigger threat as a health issue than many of the other diseases kids are required to be vaccinated against.

Why are they spending all their money on stuff like HPV that’s transmissible primarily through behavior than for something that’s highly contagious through casual contact with far more serious consequences?

[ari-freedom]

autism could be genetic

[metmom]

Parents where interrogated in hearings and where not allow to bring lawyers.

But an illegal can be freed of charges for a crime because of a legal technicality.

I keep telling myself this isn't Nazi Germany or Communist Russia but I'm having a harder and harder time convincing myself.

[af_vet_rr]

Thing is, these parents that think they know what’s best for their children are not trained medical professionals nor have even a slight knowledge about medicine.

I'm not the biggest fan of George Carlin, but he had a funny bit about the immune system:

When i was young, living in the 1940's, we swam in the Hudson River. And it was loaded with raw sewage. That's right, we swam in raw sewage. You know, to cool off. And back then the big fear was polio. Thousands of kids every year were dying of polio. But you know what, in my neighborhood, nobody ever got polio. No one. Ever. You know why? BECAUSE WE SWAM IN RAW SEWAGE. It strengthened our immune system. The polio never had a chance. We were tempered in raw s***.

Granted , that's a bit of an exaggeration, but I've seen the lengths parents go to these days to keep their kids clean - wiping off high chairs with antibacterial wipes, bringing their own silverware, etc., and it really makes me wonder what we are doing to these kids....if their immune systems aren't getting a work out when they are kids, I just can't imagine that it's a good thing further down the road for them.

We have a neighbor who homeschools, and she cited as one of the main reasons, not exposing her kids to illness. I can think of a lot of reasons to homeschool, but that would not be one of them. I cannot imagine what the immune system of a kid who's rarely exposed to anything would be like. Any FReeper Doctors care to discuss it?

[elc]

I’d find another new doctor because that medical assistant is full of crap. All kids who get the vaccine get a second dose at about 4-5 years of age.

Either she’s lying about them getting bad - most doctors see very few cases of chicken pox these days. Or the cases of chicken pox are getting worse because the vaccine is leading to new, stronger strains. And pushing more vaccine will just make that worse.

Either way, she’s needlessly pushing 2 shots. To get more money from the insurance company? Or because the pharma company is pushing them in her?

[PrairieLady2]

The really oddball thing about these immunizations is that they are even being pushed on children who have already HAD the disease! No kidding! I know somebody right now who is battling the school over immunizing her children against chicken pox, and the all of her children have already had them....thank goodness for chicken pox parties!

I can see having vaccines available, but really, why settle for an immunization when you can have lifetime immunity?

Today, we have the means to control body fluid levels and fever controls which didn’t exist when measles (for example) were rampant. Today we can treat whooping cough with an antibiotic if it’s discovered within the first 5 days. If it’s dangerous for a child to acquire childhood diseases, how much more dangerous will those same diseases be for them when they reach adulthood, and no longer have any immunities for those diseases? I think immunizations set people up for future difficulties with a few rare exceptions such as diptheria and possibly rubella. Even after experiencing rubella, ones immunity can fluctuate thereby producing danger to an unborn child.

How many newborns are exposed to the listed conditions in the other post for HepB? Their most dangerous exposure time is during their stay in the hospital during and immediately after their births. Perhaps the main purpose of giving HepB vaccines at that time is purely to cover the hospital’s liability.

My personal opinion is that people have the God-given right and responsibility as parents to make decisions for their own children, and they should not be cooerced by governments to have medical care forced upon kids. I don’t believe that the government is in a position to make better personal decisions for families, than families make for themselves.

I realize that a lot of young people today don’t seem to know what a bonnet is for on a 20 degree day, but if the government wants better decisions made for children, then they need to make sure that those who attend gov. sanctioned education incarceration camps, are better taught, from the get-go.

[af_vet_rr]

Or because the pharma company is pushing them in her?

In Texas, our Democrat-turned-Republican-but-still-acting-like-a-Democrat Governor tried to cram an STD vaccine down the throats of parents of 12 year old girls. Turned out to be lots of links between him and the pharmaceutical company making this vaccine (or rather his friends).

[Gabz]

The doctor told me right up front there was still a possibility she would come down with a mild case of them anyway if exposed to someone with them. I still chose to have her caccinated.

She got a mild case of them when she was 4, it was far less severe than the case I had at 13, 30 years prior to my daughter.

Her getting the vaccine when she did had absolutely nothing to do with school issues, we made the decision based on discussion with the pediatrician.

I have no problem with those who choose to opt out of it, none whatsoever. In 2 years when she is headed for 6th grade I will be opting her out of the HPV vaccine.