Necessary Roughness

Maryland Forces Parents to Buy Vaccines
November 17th, 2007 at 11:46 pm

AP reports that a Maryland Circuit Court judge ordered the parents of 2,000 students to appear in court Saturday with their kids, to get their school-age children vaccinated or possibly face 10 days in jail.

Any children who still lack immunizations could be expelled. Their parents could then be brought up on truancy charges, which can result in a 10-day jail sentence for a first offense and 30 days for a second.

I’d like to know if they sent letters to homeschooled children.

I can understand expelling a kid because he might present a risk as a carrier, but throwing the parents in jail for not buying vaccines? That’s got to be nice for Merck, GlaxoSmithKline, and others.

This entry was posted on Saturday, November 17th, 2007 at 11:46 pm and is filed under government. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

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4 Responses to “Maryland Forces Parents to Buy Vaccines”

1. Dr. Luther in the 21st Century Says:
   November 19th, 2007 at 9:57 am

   Speaking as one who is decidedly pro-vaccination, I can’t say as I am a fan of the Judge’s ruling and think it ought to be struck down.

   I am not familiar with Maryland law, so I could be wrong on this point, but depending on how his ruling is worded it could be thrown out. Most states do make exemptions for religious reasons and if he didn’t allow for that exemption his ruling will be tossed.

2. Dan Says:
   November 19th, 2007 at 10:15 am

   From the article:
   

   White said the school system, with about 132,000 students, has been trying for two years to get parents to comply with state law. That law allows children to skip vaccines if they have a medical or religious exemption. It was unclear how many medical or religious exemptions were involved.

   One of my questions is how does lack of vaccination constitute a truancy charge. Another is when did it seem reasonable to throw the parent in jail for 10 days if a kid is truant? How is the parent supposed to make the kid go to school when he’s in jail?

   But again, the main point seems to be that vaccinations have risks that need re-examining, and the state wants to throw people in jail before those risks are re-examining and force parents to buy vaccines where they may not feel comfortable with them.

3. Starfox Says:
   November 20th, 2007 at 9:38 am

   Also, what really is the risk if a few kids don’t have vaccinations? Some vaccinations have non-trivial side effects, even death. Granted that percentage is really low, but it isn’t zero. If I had a child I would want to know absolutely everything about the vaccination, it’s side effects, what’s it’s composed of, etc etc.

   So if a kid isn’t vaccinated and gets the measels, how is that a threat to the school district where the vast majority of kids are vaccinated?

4. Lawrence Says:
   November 20th, 2007 at 7:29 pm

   Starfox is right. The parents need to be the one’s giving concent, not the public school administration.

   Isn’t it ironic that the school nurse can’t give my kid an aspirin without my permission, but major vaccinations are the purvue of the government school?

   Oh… and who’s paying for all the forced vaccinations? And… who’s benefiting from the payment of all the vaccinations? The drug companies selling the vaccinations? Follow the money… and it starts to smell a bit fishy.

   BTW. My kids attend a private Lutheran grade school. We don’t have to deal with these kinds of threats from the government school system.