We are only a few days into the New Year and, already, there is another situation brewing where a militant approach is being taken by state education and health officials threatening parents that their children will be suspended from school for failure to get vaccinated. On Tuesday, Jan. 8, more than 100 middle school students in Bellport, NY could be suspended from school if they do not show proof that have gotten a Tdap booster shot and chicken pox vaccine, according to a Suffolk County Health Department official. Reportedly, a mobile medical unit is scheduled to come to the school on Monday to inject students who don't show proof they have gotten the vaccines.
Last November, the Vaccine Police in Maryland brought out the dogs at a Prince Georges County Courthouse to supervise lines of parents, who had been ordered under threat of jail time and fines to show up with their children to get the children injected with chicken pox and hepatitis B vaccines. That mass round-up generated national news. See CNN, Vaccines or else: Parents blast order for schoolchildren
Maryland education and health officials said that the parents had not responded to letters informing them that they were being charged under state truancy laws because their children had not been attending school after being suspended for failing to show proof of vaccination. But many of the parents said they never received the letters or the schools failed to keep proper records and lost the paperwork showing their children had gotten all the required vaccines. According to parents who exited the Maryland Courthouse in November with their children, there was no medical screening of the children getting shots and no information about how to monitor for vaccine reactions.
It appears that the militant approach to enforcing vaccine use is becoming very fashionable among state education and health officials, who are using it whether there is a disease outbreak or not. The only way for the people to counteract the nasty impulse of government officials to flex their muscles (sometimes with the help of dogs and guns) is to let government and elected officials know that intimidation, coercion and other strong-arm tactics are not an acceptable form of persuasion in America when it comes to vaccination.
The right to informed consent to use of any pharmaceutical product, including vaccines, becomes a human right when that pharmaceutical product can injure or kill. Defending the human right to informed consent to vaccine use is worth standing up for in every state.
The parents in New York are being threatened that their children will be suspended for failure to get a Tdap booster or chicken pox vaccine today. But tomorrow, these parents could well be summoned to a New York County Courthouse with their children under the threat of jail time and fines like the parents in Maryland were in November.
Parents should be given full information about the benefits and risks of Tdap and chicken pox vaccines and full information about the right to file a medical or religious exemption to vaccination in accordance with New York laws. Hopefully, the mobile unit medical personnel scheduled to vaccinate the children on-site at schools on Monday will screen the children for personal and medical histories and previous vaccine reactions, especially to the "P" part of the Tdap shot.
The pertussis (whooping cough) portion of the DPT, DTaP and Tdap vaccines has long been associated with neurological reactions such as brain inflammation, convulsions, shock/collapse, and high pitched screaming. Children who have had serious reactions to previous vaccinations containing pertussis vaccine could have more serious reactions if more pertussis vaccine is given. The same warnings, precautions and contraindications which apply to DPT, DTaP, DT or TD vaccines, apply to receipt of Tdap vaccine:
- moderate or severe illness on day of vaccination
- anaphylaxis (shock) or life threatening allergic reaction after previous doses of DPT, DtaP, DT or TD vaccine
- encephalopathy (coma, decreased level of consciousness, prolonged seizure) within 7 days of administration of a previous dose of pertussis containing vaccine
- evolving central nervous system (CNS) disorder, uncontrolled epilepsy, progressive encephalopathy
- Seizures with or without fever within 72 hours of a previous dose of pertussis containing vaccine
- temperature over 105 F. within 48 hours of a previous dose of pertussis containing vaccine
- collapse or shock-like state within 48 hours of a previous dose of pertussis containing vaccine
- uncontrollable crying lasting more than 3 hours within 48 hours of a previous dose of pertussis containing vaccine
- Guillain-Barre Syndrome (GBS) within 6 weeks of vaccination
- Serious Arthus-type hypersensitivity reaction after previous receipt of a tetanus containing vaccine
- serious latex allergy
- severe swelling or severe pain after previous doses of any vaccine containing tetanus, diphtheria or pertussis vaccine
Links to product manufacturer inserts for Tdap and chicken pox vaccines. See Link 1 and Link 2
An autism advocacy organization, A-CHAMP (Advocates for Children's Health Affected by Mercury Poisoning), has issued an Action Alert advising New York citizens to call Suffolk County and state education officials to express concern.
New York residents concerned about the right to make informed, voluntary decisions about vaccination should contact their elected representatives and make their voices heard. All elected officials in America at the state and federal level should be made aware that militant enforcement of public health policy which requires pharmaceutical product use, including forced vaccine use, violates the ethical principle of informed consent and will not be tolerated.