Seen, while I have an almost paranoid distrust of the government, I'm not sure I can disagree with forcing parents to address the health needs of their kids. Can someone please refresh my memory as to what the required immunizations are for school age children? Since I don't have kids, I haven't really paid attention to stuff like this before.

it seems so many people these days are so very ready to force things on others. for their own good, of course!

anyway, its a good time to think about it. it's a good thing to look into, if you haven't. by the time you have kids will be too late. (not that you will necessarily). the medical community is very good, on the whole (there are always personal exceptions) at making you feel you have no choice but to submit to their will once you are in the game and the ball is rolling.

Health care is something to encourage, not browbeat. While I personally disagree with the idea that immunization shots have anything at all to do with autism*, this is ridiculously heavyhanded.

I mean, a threat of jail?

* My impression is that the rise in autism diagnoses is more due to refined diagnostic criteria and not because the actual rate of autism is increasing.

By "encourage" I mean "inform people and educate." Now that I've posted, "encourage" looks like the wrong word.

i understand concern for disease that could take hold of a community. but once you sign on to police enforced serums, you sign up for a whole lot of potential slip on that slope. aside from that "health care" can mean different things to different people. it is ethnocentric to assume that anyone who disagrees with vaccines necessarily only needs to be educated. their beliefs and their brand of "health care" may very well include no vaccinations.

vaccines are kill our nation's young and the rest of the human population as they were intended to do in the first place...

wake up before its too late
read on the interent its there if you want to find it

vaccinations are a farce and make you sick!

I have to disagree. I know, as gringos, we have a libertarian streak built into us, but we also expect the state to promote our common welfare. That should include our health as a matter of course. I know life is not risk-free, but there doesn't seem any other way. Interesting enough, a few weeks ago, it was National Immunization Day in Mexico, when there is an attempt to immunize every child in the country. And it's largely successful.

I understand parents' reluctance to immunizations, but here in South Texas, we have regular outbreaks of spinal mennigitis usually caused because kids are not immunized -- either because Texans are notoriously independent and don't like being told what to do, or because we're dirt poor and can't afford the doctor.

i understand concern for disease that could take hold of a community. but once you sign on to police enforced serums, you sign up for a whole lot of potential slip on that slope. aside from that "health care" can mean different things to different people. it is ethnocentric to assume that anyone who disagrees with vaccines necessarily only needs to be educated. their beliefs and their brand of "health care" may very well include no vaccinations.

That's not what I meant, and I guess I was doomed in trying to phrase it that way. My apologies for saying it badly.

I am 100% in opposition to police enforced vaccination. It's scare tactics and oppression. No one should go to jail or be in danger of going to jail for this.

When I said "educate," I didn't mean "there's one way to do this, and everyone should learn the right way." I think people should know what their choices mean, not be coerced one way or the other. I realize that "encouragement" can be "coercion," so I tried to rephrase, but my new word wasn't so good either.

Also, both my "encourage" and "educate" statements sounded - and most likely are - privileged. Sorry about that.

I think people should know what their choices mean, not be coerced one way or the other. I realize that "encouragement" can be "coercion," so I tried to rephrase, but my new word wasn't so good either.

I generally agree with this sentiment -- for parents, there should be an informed consent policy about some (not all) vaccinations. And if parents do not consent to vaccinations, there should be viable alternatives to protecting that child and all children from infections and diseases. Jail should not even be a consideration in protecting someone's health, as a matter of public policy and common fucking sense.

I know that a large part of the problem in Baltimore when they were trying to have schoolchildren vaccinated was parents either did not have the money or the time to take off from working to take their kids in. It wasn't a direct revolutionary act against the medical system; however, the city found itself having to coordinate massive vaccination drives because nearly half of all the public schoolchildren were being turned away.

I don't think vaccination should be taken for granted; parents should investigate the studies conducted, etc., because I think we know that often certain medications and treatments are formulated to help a medically determined "normal person affected by X," and everybody doesn't have a body that functions "normally" as construed by the medical community. (In other words, that anecdote about the child suffering from depression is a very real danger to guard against.)

it's cool, lisa. i get you. always appreciate people being thoughtful about their language. its something i watch over in a few areas, too.

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Richard, you bring up a good point.

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M, you pretty much sum it up as i see it. i'm not trying to say one way or the other for sure. i am against the police being used in this way. big time. i appreciate you talking about the specifics in baltimore. it's true i take things into a general or philosophical sense at times, that shape of thought is my nature when testing an idea out. i didn't mean to imply the people in the article shared the reasons, of course. just bouncing off of the Idea.

but in my world, medical treatment of any kind is a personal decision, not a state decision. and some of the reason for that lies in your final point. some just lies in my own notions of personal sovereignty.

My kids were never immunized and are now in their early thirties and late twenties, I also have a grandchild that was born at home underwater in a blowup swimming pool set up in the kitchen. That's my mindset and the kids seem to be OK with it too. If you want to vaccinate your kid, OK, if not, there are actually valid reasons why not including the fact that the shots {including the supposedly innocuous flu shot} can be fatal and that is not a rare thing. Yes, friends have died from the flu shot.
I claimed the exemption for the kids 30 years ago {this is not a new battle} but refused to have it categorized as religious or medical. My statement was that if the government could prove that A. They had the right to force the vaccination, OK, and we would leave the country first, and B. Could they prove that my children would not die or that they would, unvaccinated, be a risk for other children, and if not, then no vaccines, please.
I think the workers just checked off NUT, and let us go.

thanks for sharing that RC.

i've yet to share my story on the same conflict that took place in a manhattan hospital in 2005 between me and staff. but hey, gotta save some for later.

"conflict that took place in a manhattan hospital in 2005"

My son was born at St. Luke's, 59th street, 1979 by emergency Caesarian after my wife thought she might not make it at home. Small pelvis. You can imagine the situation at that time when the hospital wanted all the pre-natal records. Hippies don't have those and basically that was that. I think by 1979 the surgeon was a hippy, too. After my grandchild was born at home {in the pool in the kitchen, Columbus Ohio 2006 at Ohio State} the authorities investigated for weeks. It's not actually illegal to be outside of the system, but it seems the only time the system gets really involved is if you try to ignore it. They'll have none of that rejection from you Buddy! Who are you to say they are mostly superfluous?
Yes, a medical intervention when needed is a great thing, but few are really needed. Yes, the National Guard should be called out during emergencies, but they should not be drafted to perform Imperialist Wars.
And so on.

One thing about the police being used this way, I think there's been a gratuitous upswing in unnecessary police action over the past few years, with stupid stuff like a girl getting arrested for dropping a piece of cake, or the woman who was strangled in the Phoenix airport after she was arbitrarily detained.

It's like the police have latitude beyond simply enforcing the law, and it's a particularly disturbing development.

Also: I haven't had a flu shot since ages ago. Not from any moral decision, I just don't like vaccinations much.

There is plenty of research that can show that Austism, along with alzheimers and many cancers are indeed environmental. There are many suspects in the autism and alzheimers condition;, non-stick cookware surfacers and aluminum are the 2 biggie(there is aluminum in most deodorants). Some dentists and doctors are beginning to question the use of flouride. Chemical/petroleum based materials that make everything from clothing to carpeting are coming into questions too.

Its hard for people to start looking at these things as bad or with a critical eye, because it can be so overwhelming, but when we are at a point that diseases like diabetes are considered 'normal' and are becoming genetic, we need to make some serious changes.
Cancer really only started to become widespread in the early 1970's, which was just about long enough time for the 'advances' that we made throught the 1940's and up to develop their consequences.

It really is environmental. We all know what is happening to the people forced to live on reservations and in toxic ghettos in the southwest where toxic waste is 'disposed' of.I read somewhere that Native American women's breast milk is now considered a toxic substance by federal regulations. And lets not forget infant encephalitis along the border towns and cities.

As far as immunizations go, I dont think that all of them are a good idea. Polio is gone, but for other diseases children's immune systems need to be subjected to a regular bout of an illness in order to fully develop.

Yo no se...Just my opinions, however misguided they may be

thanks for those, goodbye kitty.

i've read for a little while on the environment, PVC, benzene, flouride, polyethylene glycol etc, and i feel as you do. there's no doubt in my mind we visit sickness on ourselves, disease and early death because of myriad pollutants and toxins we don't even consider. its something i hope to cover more of, should i win the MTV vlog gig, it's what i already focused on here.