Age of Autism
February 14, 2011
Managing Editor’s Note: Vaccine exemptions are under scrutiny in Washington State, and your state may be next. You might be a parent who chooses to fully vaccinate your child from the birth dose of Hepatitis B. Perhaps you just don’t want your daughter or son to receive the flu shot or the HPV (genital wart) vaccine called Gardasil, despite the child having been given all of his or her other childhood vaccinations with full compliance. You face the same threat at the parent who opts out 100%. The debate is heading toward level of emotion of Roe v. Wade. This is a hornet’s nest of politics, medicine, personal rights and a religion-like zealotry. Protect your rights. You might need them tomorrow. Kim
WA State Vaccine Bill Threatens Exemptions & Violates Privacy
By Barbara Loe Fisher
If you are a resident of Washington state, you should know that there is a bill quietly sailing through your state legislature that violates your privacy and threatens your right to make informed, voluntary decisions about vaccination. House Bill 1015 and Senate Bill 5005 also discriminates against parents by failing to give them equal protection under the federal National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act of 1986 (PL 99-660).
The proposed new law will legally require doctors and nurses to personally sign off on all religious or personal belief exemptions to vaccination filed with the state. Parents seeking non-medical exemptions will be required to include a signature from a vaccine provider on the exemption form stating that they have been given vaccine benefit and risk information. Currently Washington state mandatory vaccination laws only require signatures from medical personnel when medical exemptions are filed.
If this bill becomes law, it will put doctors, nurses and other medical personnel in the legal position of acting as inquisitors of religious beliefs held by fellow citizens, which is an invasion of privacy and a de facto violation of First Amendment rights. Americans associated with the medical profession will have the power to sit in judgment of, or interfere with, the free exercise of religious, spiritual or conscientious beliefs of other Americans. It will also make it easier for doctors to punish parents making selective vaccine choices by denying their children medical care, which is the official policy of many U.S. pediatricians.
The ethical principle of informed consent to medical risk taking means that you, as an individual or the legal guardian of an individual, have the human right to be fully informed about the benefits and risks of a medical intervention and make a voluntary decision without being harassed or coerced by anyone. The informed consent principle protects individuals in every society from exploitation by those in positions of power in medicine, government and industry.
The proposed Washington state bill makes it easier for doctors and other medical personnel to violate an individual’s informed consent rights and discriminate against those filing vaccine exemptions, who may hold different beliefs and values. Informed consent is especially important when it comes to vaccination because doctors and nurses cannot predict ahead of time who will be injured by vaccines. More than $2 billion dollars has been awarded by the U.S. Court of Claims to compensate vaccine victims, mostly children, whose doctors did not know they would suffer brain inflammation, immune dysregulation and become permanently disabled or even die after vaccination…..to read the entire commentary with references and watch a video, Click HERE.
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