Should Schools Require That Children Be Vaccinated?

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Vaccines pose serious risks. These hazards are acknowledged by vaccine manufacturers in their product inserts, documented in numerous studies, substantiated by the federal government’s Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS), and confirmed anecdotally by parents. For example, the MMR vaccine manufacturer concedes that diabetes, thrombocytopenia (a serious blood disorder), arthritis, encephalitis (brain inflammation), Guillain-Barré syndrome (paralysis), and death, have all been reported during clinical trials of its vaccine. Peer-reviewed studies link the haemophilus influenzae type b (Hib) vaccine to epidemics of type 1 diabetes, the hepatitis B vaccine to autoimmune and neurological disorders, and the flu vaccine to paralytic ailments. These are just a few examples. Medical and scientific journals contain hundreds of other peer-reviewed studies linking vaccines to debilitating ailments. In addition, every year approximately 14,000 people file vaccine adverse reaction reports with the CDC. In just the past 26 months—as of August 2008—more than 8,500 young American females filed adverse reaction reports after receiving the new HPV vaccine. Nearly 600 of these cases were labeled “serious,” requiring hospitalization, resulting in life-threatening disabilities, or death. VAERS is a passive reporting system, so the number of people believed to be hurt by vaccines is vastly underreported. According to Dr. David Kessler, former head of the FDA, “only about 1 percent of serious events—adverse drug reactions—are reported.” This is confirmed by the Thinktwice Global Vaccine Institute, which receives unsolicited personal stories of vaccine damage every day. The families telling these dreadful stories rarely file official reports. Of course, these stories do not constitute “proof” of vaccine damage—at least no more than a child’s cry after skinning his knee is “proof” of pain. However, patterns of adverse vaccine reactions are easily observed when unrelated families consistently report similar stories of healthy children prior to their shots, and hospitalized children after their shots. These patterns tell a larger story. A medical industry that errs on the side of denial rather than concern is backward and criminally negligent. In an enlightened healthcare community, we would listen to the larger story with sincerity, and opt to protect additional children from harm. Pretending that serious reactions to vaccines are rare does not make it true, incapacitates our children, and degrades our society. Since reputed vaccine risk-to-benefit ratios are bogus, and pharmaceutical shots are considerably more unsafe than officially acknowledged, it is morally unconscionable to mandate vaccines for entry into an educational institution.