Vaccine controversies are public debates around the medical, ethical and legal issues related to vaccines. These controversies have occurred since almost 80 years before the terms vaccine and vaccination were introduced.
Here in the Pacific North West, both in Vancouver and now in Portland, a Measles outbreak has occurred of late. There have been 50 confirmed cases and more suspected. The PNW is also a center for anti-vax parents who, for many reasons, refuse to vaccinate their children against the common or now mostly not common at all childhood diseases.
(Personal note: In spite of WCG sentiments on immunizations, I personally took responsibility for the immunizations of my two children in the 1970's and had them vaccinated according to schedule. When members asked for the exemption forms I always asked them if this was their own conscious decision or were they feeling they had to not vaccinate due to church "teachings"? Some asked if I "minded" if they went ahead with getting their children immunized and always told them that was their decision and had nothing to do with me (or the church in reality). On the entire topic of doctors and medicine, I always encouraged, in some cases begged, members to get to their doctor and hospital if need be. I'd anoint them there and later and especially quickly if it involved their children. My lifelong "ministerial" view was that while an adult can make any faith filled medical decision they wish FOR THEMSELVES, they should not make those kinds of decisions or exhibit their own faith FOR THEIR CHILDREN. I only mention this so those who would like to criticize me for my past coming this conclusion NOW will understand it has ALWAYS been my conclusion and I lived it with my own family and congregations from the start. As is the custom of some, their projections of their own experiences on to myself would be mistaken)
Because of this rare but aggressive outbreak of Measles here in the PNW the controversy about not only parents withholding vaccinations because of religious beliefs but also for the belief, real or imagined of the dangers of doing so has erupted afresh.
On top of that there is a new phenomenon now of children old enough to think it through up through teens getting vaccinated on their own without parental permission or even knowledge of doing so. The availability of information both pro and con is much more available to children and teens now through their own devices than anything we, as children, ever had access to. Some adults whose parents, when young who also withheld vaccinations, are also leaving the guilt, lack of information or choice their parents enforced on them and getting themselves vaccinated as advised.
Parents and adults can live their adult faith for themselves however that expresses itself.
Whether it be immunizations or medical care, no parent has the right to inflict their faith, as if it were also a child's faith, in such matters. With proper medical and doctor advice and counsel, this should not be the problem some few parents, both in a religious context and the ever present conspiratorial context make it out to be.
If a parent has the faith, for the child, to not protect their child with vaccinations, perhaps they could have the faith to protect them with them?
After all, how many times has one said "And bless and cleanse this food to the nourishment of our bodies"
Proverbs 17:22
If a merry heart makes GOOD like a MEDICINE, perhaps the Bible at least admitted to the benefit of MEDICINE long before WCG came along
Just sayin'
When I was a teenager, I spent all my babysitting money on vintage clothes, Manic Panic, and clove cigarettes. I thought I was so cool, but I was nowhere near as cool as the Ontario teen who took her health into her own hands and went and got herself vaccinated against the wishes of her anti-vaxxer parents.
Her mother, of course, was furious, and turned to Reddit’s
/r/legaladvice forum to ask whom she was allowed to sue about this. She wrote:
None of my children are vaccinated. Totally by accident I came to find out that my oldest daughter has been fully vaccinated (Tetanus, diphtheria, pertussis, polio, measles, mumps, rubella, hep a and b, menengitis a and b and hpv) without mine or my husband’s knowledge or consent. In Ontario we have socialized medicine and publicly funded vaccines. She admitted she went to clinics run for school aged children run by our local health public health unit to get her shots and also got a few at a local walk in clinic that are not yet publicly funded paid for with her babysitting money. When I called public health and the clinic to complain they both said that because she is age 16 they cannot release any information to me – and I’m her mother! My husband and are livid that she was vaccinated without our consent. What kind of action can we take against public health and the clinic for vaccinating a child without parental consent? Do we have a case for a lawsuit?
Reddit, of course, enjoyed a delightful summer shower in anti-vaxxer tears over this post, because the poster’s teenage daughter is smart and awesome and deserves a high-five for taking her health into her own hands. Also Ontario deserves a high-five for its socialized medicine and publicly funded vaccines that allowed this 16-year-old to get up-to-date on all her vaccinations.
High-fives for everyone!
