Vaccination has been an interesting issue to me for a long time. When I worked at local public school, I would occasionally see paperwork being sent out to parents warning them that unless records were produced, that their child wouldn't be able to attend school. In every case, the parents got with it and got their children vaccinated. I was surprised to hear of an interesting case in Prince George's County where a judge threatened jail time for parents who didn't produce vaccination records on a given date.



Questions for debate:

Its excellent, no debate about it.

Just because parents are ignorant about certain things should not allow them to let their
kids pay the price for it. I hold the same with religion (should be illegal to indoctrinate your child)
and all other harmful things.



It should not only be a requirement for schools, but for everything, why not? Makes no sense. As
long as its not harmful, and for the good of the child (depends on vaccine, timeperiod etcetera).



Eh, no?

We have these fanatics, a certain fellow called Kent Hovind (currently in jail for tax fraud) comes to mind, refusing to vaccinate himself and children because there was "small robots", and it was a government conspiracy etcetera.


Look, we have certain vaccines which are CURRENTLY unnecessary. One of them is TBC for example (depending on were you live). In New Zealand and Australia, as well as United States TBC is something you should be vaccinated for, whiles in Western Europe, were it is practically abolished, it is considered that the side effects are higher then the risk of getting it.


See, it all depends. But NOT vaccinate your kids because your ignorant or paranoid should be illegal.

I'm not sure what TBC is? If it's the tuberculosis vaccine, it isn't of much use. That vaccination doesn't work very well at all. That's one they are still working on. If it did work, I think everyone in the world should be vaccinated with it (Europe has this problem too...lots of immigration, sometimes illegal). Often foreigners who have taken this vaccine have some problems when they enroll their children into the US school system. The schools here sometimes require a TB test, which determines if a person has ever been exposed to the bacterium. However, anyone who has received the TB vaccine in the past will test positive in this screen, even if they were never exposed otherwise.

Per the topic questions...It depends on the type of vaccines. Polio (when it was prevalent) yes, for instance. If there is a legitimate public health concern and the disease is easily transmitted, the parents should be obligated to vaccinate their children. Chickenpox isn't one of them, in my opinion. In fact, vaccinating a child for chickenpox could be harmful to them later in life because it doesn't last, and contracting chickpox as an older person is a much greater health risk.

Hepatitis B should be obligatory for healthcare workers who might be exposed to blood, but it isn't easily transmitted...only via sex or blood. Personally I think it is way overboard to place parents in jail for failing to vaccinate their children for either of those things. The vaccines should definitely be available to students, but vaccinations for diseases that aren't very harmful and/or aren't easily transmitted shouldn't be mandatory.

Edited to add: I think it should be noted that some vaccines actually do more harm than good. This is rare, but the case for tuberculosis and anthrax for instance. Neither of those vaccines work effectively, and both can have some adverse health consequences. In the case of anthrax, the health consequences are direct which is why they stopped forcing these shots on military members. In the case of TB, the health effects are less direct but undesireable because the vaccine inhibits the screening process (gives a false positive on all future tests for TB).

As an EMT student, I can say with confidence that it is a requirement for healthcare workers in the EMS field. I had to get a few folks due to misplaced paperwork. I am rather perplexed as to why the Hep. B vaccine is given to infants. My state encourages infant Hep. B vaccination despite the fact that only 35 people a yar contract it. I'm at a loss as to how my infant will be exposed to the virus through what is essentially, adult activities and/or severe trauma. We held off on the vaccine because we didn't see the logic in overloading an infant with more than two shots at a time. Seriously, how good can that be?

The full story is that this was a last resort for parents who had ignored all pervious demands to obey the law. Makes sense to me and it worked.


Absiolutely – unless you want to see kids dying again from diseases we couquered decades ago.


You have a far better chance of dying in a car on the way to school than you do of having a vaccine hurt you. It is simply foolish to not gets kids vaccinated. Our whole family, kids and all, get the flu vaccine every year.


“Understanding Vaccine Safety: Immunization Remains Our Best Defense Against Deadly Disease
by Michelle Meadows
Smallpox and polio have been wiped out in the United States. Cases of measles, mumps, tetanus, whooping cough (pertussis) and other life-threatening illnesses have been reduced by more that 95 percent. Immunization against influenza and pneumonia prevent tens of thousands of deaths annually among elderly persons and those who are chronically ill. As a result, millions of lives have been saved. But don't let the success of vaccines fool you into thinking we no longer need them. Most vaccine-preventable diseases aren't gone.

Steve Berman, M.D., president of the American Academy of Pediatrics and a pediatrician in Denver, says he and his colleagues were devastated to recently see an infant die of whooping cough. "This was a case where the family thought the risks of vaccination outweighed the benefits," Dr. Berman says. The baby was exposed to the disease by two older brothers who hadn't been vaccinated.
Vaccines contain a weakened (attenuated) or killed (inactivated) form of disease-causing bacteria or viruses, or components of these microorganisms, that trigger a response by our body's immune system. For example, vaccines stimulate our bodies to make antibodies--proteins that specifically recognize and target the bacteria and viruses against which the vaccines are designed, and that help eliminate them from the body when we encounter them. “
http://www.fda.gov/fdac/features/2001/401_vacc.html


http://www.vaccinesafety.edu/cc-flu.htm

Chickenpox? These parents are going to jail for not vaccinating their children for chickenpox. And most everyone over the age of thirty who hasn't worked in the healthcare field hasn't been vaccinated for hepatitis B. It's not like hepatitis A, which can be contracted more easily yet isn't mandatory to have a vaccination against.

Some interesting vaccination news as of late. It turns out that Bob Jones University had toclose early due to a whooping cough outbreak. The media stories I've seen have let BJU off the hook by point out that South Carolina requires vaccination for school aged children. What they don't point out is that religious exemptions are a viable option for South Carolina parents to use. Oh the irony of it all......

This is individual versus group risk. To state obvious, by not being vaccinated you are not just endangering yourself you are endangering others i.e. putting others at risk. In any population there are some who have not yet been vaccinated (perhaps they are just about to be so or have a valid medical reason to delay, e.g. are not old enough), these people are put at risk by those who deliberately chose not to be vaccinated by raising the overall percentage of non vaccinated persons in the popoulation unnecessarily.

Being not vaccinated without a valid medical reason is reckless endangerment of others and is valid subject for legislation. Since most countries put prevention of the endangerment of others above the freedom of individual choice.

So obviously the judge is correct and vaccines should be a requirement.
question 3 is absurd from both a individual and group basis.
On an individual basis not to take a vaccine is to misunderstand the statistical risk you run and even more seriously if your behaviour becomes are part of a group behaviour your risk to your heath grows dramatically.
On a group basis - Vaccines have formed a vital part of modern health and have enabled the modern world to exist. To go to world without vaccines is literally a return to 17th century.
To promote the removal of vaccines is more culpable that promoting terrorism (by numbers of deaths)

I had it as a kid not fun. And if it is spreading around and an adult gets it as (who has chickenpox as a kid) shingles can be the result. Not a joke at all.

http://www.revolutionhealth.com/conditions...ngles|858417594


Ya and this is the reason why universal vaccination is so important. Get enough un protected kids and this will happen and whooping cough is no joke.