Pretty scary if this bill passes the House. Huge compromise of civil liberties and frightening to think that the government can mandate that ALL children get injected with a biological agent. It's just a matter of time before they'll be mandating we vaccinate adults as well - otherwise it makes no sense since we know that most vaccines do not offer lifelong protection. This is just a massive fear mongering campaign by the pharmaceutical companies to generate more revenue. Wake up people! Big brother is invading our bodies!

I agree w "Worried". Taking away informed consent and my choice in what I put in my body and my children's bodies is worrisome. I get the public health aspect but this is not the Black Plague we are talking about here. The bill states the government can require "any vaccines deemed necessary" which is, in essence, a black check. That scares me. What's next? I don't like the government to have blank checks.

I choose to vaccinate my children but I opted out of Hep B b/c it's spread through sex and needle use. Didn't think they needed until they were older. But now if I don't get that one vaccibe I have to homeschool, and we can't afford that. Irony is if my kid had Hep B, he could go to school. I find this all so weird also strange that the media is only presenting one side of the vaccine story. It all seems fishy to me and yes, I think lots of money is behind all this.

@worried

I was so close to a win on anti-vax bingo with your post. Next time, try making using the not-an-actual-word, "sheeple" somewhere in your post.

Besides, vaccines aren't even all that profitable. Quite frankly, *not making vaccines*, and instead selling all the drugs to treat new cases of infectious diseases a lack of vaccines would soon lead to would be a far more profitable venture than selling vaccines has ever been.

I suggest everyone look up the Dunning-Kruger Effect. The average anti-vaxxer is a walking poster child for it.

@worried is worried about an erosion of civil rights and whatnot. But this situation here isn't really anything new. First off, as the article says, most states do not have this protection. Though the article doesn't say it, attempts at getting this 'protection' at a federal level have pretty much all failed. Plus, we have many situations where we as a society have decided that the good of the society is more important than letting people do certain things that they may otherwise be able to do.

TLDR: This isn't the opening part of a conspiracy to inject mind controlling microbes into you.

(apologies if repost, I think it failed first)

Are you guys serious? Vaccinate your kids, or get them out of my kids' schools.

"Scary" my foot. This should have been implemented DECADES ago.

The people who insist that this is about their personal, family decisions are willfully burying their heads in the sand (not unlike, say, Sean Hannity insisting that the recent violently disrupted Pamela Geller exhibition in Texas was only about "free speech"). If it were all about personal choices, the issue would never have come up, and I'd certainly oppose such legislation.

It is about public health, making the schools safe for OTHER children. There was already far too much needless disease spread in Bay Area schools this past Winter by parents who refused to vaccinate. They should be sued. (The way "anti-vax" people cling wishfully to grossly discredited unscientific notions about risks from the vaccinations themselves serves just to marginalize these people even further in the informed public's eye.)

There are two sides to every debate, and we would all do well to remember that.

In the case of vaccines, on one side there is science, data, actual, accredited education, and reality, and on the other side, there's everyone that's wrong.

Godwinned in only 2 hours. Not bad...

Guess we better close the discussion.

@Also Worried Hep B&C are bloodborne pathogens and are NOT exclusively spread by sex or needles. Hep C is not easily spread through sex, like Heb B. It would involve direct blood to blood contact during sex. Hep C can be spread through any open wound, even a minor one such as a needle puncture including a bleeding scrape or cut on a piece of playground equipment that has Hep C on it. Hep C can live outside the body for days, unlike HIV which dies in minutes, and is much more likely to be spread from single minute amounts of exposure unlike HIV. A recent case in Oklahoma saw spread of Hep C through dental equipment that had not been properly sterilized. The same thing could happen through toothbrushes, nail clippers that draw blood (the reason I do not get my nails done in salons any longer) and a host of other things. I suggest you educate yourself about both of these via a reputable source such as the CDC.

I suppose you folks who are concerned about control of what you put in your body are also opposed to chlorine in your water supply.

@medical professional
Let me see if I understand this. You want to avoid vaccination against highly contagious, potentially life-threatening infections because of the infinitesimally small risk of acquiring a Hepatitis infection from an injection by a medical professional.

This is not a new concept. When I was a child in the 70's and 80's you couldn't go to school if you couldn't produce a complete shot record. I lived at times with my Mother and other times with my Father and my records were lost on several occasions which meant that I had to repeat vaccinations before being allowed in school. When I entered into school for my chosen profession I had take them all again (lost shot records) and have had to take regular boosters. I have never experienced any issues with vaccinations, neither have my own children (now grown), and I have never had a patient (10+ years of practice) or anyone that I know personally that has. I HAVE known people who suffered from polio as children and were crippled or who lost loved ones to measles, had countless past patients who have been diagnosed/died of Hep B or C, and in my state 113 people died (by direct cause alone) of the flu last season...the flu! No vaccine is going to be 100% effective and children are going to die no matter how much we try to protect them, because that is life, but shouldn't we give them the best possible chance we can? If we lose herd immunity we are without a doubt opening the door the diseases that our parents and grandparents watched kill children they knew. How stupid is that?

@Jerry you misunderstand. I am without a doubt FOR vaccination. I was responding to an earlier post by someone who was not concerned about Hep B or C because in their post they said it was only spread through sex or needles.

First, all this is doing is going back to the way it was before the exemptions became so easy to get. Second, no one is forcing you to protect your kids. You only have to do so if you want to send them to the public education system where they might expose others.

That said, I will believe this will happen when I see it. Even if it passes as a law, it will be tied up in court by the anti-vaxxers forever.

And to the ignorant people who believe Hep is spread only through sex and needles, perhaps you should talk to all the people who died from exposure by infected food preparers and other situations.

I don't think I'm in favor of a law mandating vaccinations. I do think that vaccinations should be required though to send a kid to public school.

@Medical Professional Mom
Sorry that I misunderstood. It was confusing.
It's reassuring that the majority here support vaccination.

Most vaccines are NOT safe!
Since 1988, the Federal Vaccine Injury Compensation Program has awarded almost $3 billion to over 4,000 families who were harmed by vaccines—even though the window to file a claim is so tight that many families miss it. In addition, the Department of Health and Human Services’ Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) receives an average of 30,000 reports each year, 13% of which are considered “serious”—that is, associated with “disability, hospitalization, life-threatening illness, or death.” One recent article pointed out that adverse events from vaccines are significantly under-reported, since healthcare providers, doctors, and vaccine manufacturers—all of which have major incentives not to submit adverse events—account for 73% of the VAERS reports. There have been estimates that perhaps less 10% of doctors report hospitalizations, injuries, deaths, or other serious health problems following vaccination. There are no legal sanctions to doctors for not reporting.

@SteveC

The science says you're wrong.

The info on VAERS proves nothing. Here is an excerpt from the VAERS web site.

"A report to VAERS generally does not prove that the identified vaccine(s) caused the adverse event described. It only confirms that the reported event occurred sometime after vaccine was given. No proof that the event was caused by the vaccine is required in order for VAERS to accept the report. VAERS accepts all reports without judging whether the event was caused by the vaccine."

This is the link to the site.
Web Link

@SteveC

Here is info from the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program web site.

"What does it mean to be awarded compensation?

Being awarded compensation for your claim does not necessarily mean that the vaccine caused the alleged injury. In fact:

Over 80 percent of all compensation awarded by the VICP comes as result of a negotiated settlement between the parties in which HHS has not concluded, based upon review of the evidence, that the alleged vaccine(s) caused the alleged injury."

Here is a link to the site.
Web Link

So, my humorous "Liberal bingo" post got yanked down, but @"Tired of the bull$#it" personal attack post mentioning anti-vax bingo stands. Seriously?