From Newsday:
A Bayport mother has asked the Bayport-Blue Point Board of Education to allow her son to enter the sixth grade without being immunized, saying that vaccinations are against her religious beliefs.
Rita Palma has requested a religious exemption from the James Wilson Young Middle School for her son, Jakob, 11, who will enter the sixth grade in September.
"I'm pro-choice," Palma said Tuesday night during a school board meeting, "and my choice is to keep my body and my soul and the bodies and souls of my children clean."
The board did not make a decision Tuesday night.
"Vaccinations represent fear, anxiety and mistrust in God," Palma, a Catholic, said in a letter to school officials. "Mankind states that if we do not vaccinate our child he/she may become sick and die. Mankind also states that an unvaccinated child may cause others to become sick and die. This principle contradicts the peace and balance that I seek in my journey to God. It also contradicts the love I feel for mankind as an instrument of Jesus Christ."
The Vatican Curia has expressed concern about the rubella vaccine's embryonic cell origin, saying Catholics have "a grave responsibility to use alternative vaccines and to make a conscientious objection with regard to those which have moral problems." The Vatican concluded, however, that until an alternative becomes available, it is acceptable to use the existing vaccine.
Palma had applied for a waiver for another son, Lucas, now 8, in 2006 when he was entering the first grade, but was denied. She appealed, but the board's decision was upheld by the state Commissioner of Education. She has since had Lucas and another son, Joseph, now 12, immunized, a decision that she said caused her great pain.
Now, she is requesting the waiver for Jakob for the so-called Tdap booster shots. New state health regulations instituted in 2007 require that 11-year-old children receive a vaccination for diphtheria, tetanus and acellular pertussis, also known as whooping cough.
David Cohen, an attorney for the school district, said the district has granted religious exemptions in the past.
"The practice of the board of education has been to meet with the parents, to ask them questions with regard to their religious beliefs," Cohen said.
To enter public schools in New York, children are required to have had certain vaccinations. The two exemptions from these rules are medical, with a physician's letter, and religious.
State Assemb. Marc Alessi (D-Wading River) has introduced a measure to create a philosophical exception to vaccination requirements. "There are different issues surrounding the mandated vaccines program," Alessi said. "As a state, we have to sort through all those questions and answer them."
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6 comments:
This is utter nonsense! This kind of reasoning "Vaccinations represent fear, anxiety and mistrust in God" is very similar to the one the Devil uses to tempt Jesus to throw Himself down of the temple. Jesus replies "You shall not put the Lord, your God, to the test." We have not only the right but the responsability to care for our children's life with all the modern scientifical methods available(provided that they are moraly acceptable). Trust in God has absolutely nothing to do with this. If she is so "trustful" in God, why not sell everything and trust in God to provide for their children? Utter nonsense. God works through the parents to provide for the children, has He works to modern medicine as well.
Luís
"as He works through modern medicine as well" I meant.
I applaud this woman for standing by her convictions. My wife and I have 3 children current on vaccinations and 2 that are not. Good thing we homeschool so that the vaccination police or Luis aren't beating down our door, which I would lay my life down defending. We have religious and moral problems with the origins of some of these vaccines (ie. aborted fetuses). One vaccinated son is mildly asthmatic (connection? no way to know!) Awful rise in asthmatics these days!? Actually, his health has been much better when not using or relying on the medications peddled (Pushed!) his way (I would love to see the bottom line on those products!) I have a problem with something foreign being put into a body that is so young and pure, getting mom's natural antibodies, and especially with very little long term publicized evidence supporting or negating its intent.
I have to laugh at the notion and the laws for the chicken pox vaccine! How many of you and your siblings were rounded up and taken to the outbreak of chicken pox??? What short or long term affect is there to be vaccinated for the chicken pox or not (autism-do we know for certain? no! or a greater susceptibility to shingles?, yes!)? How come 2 of my kids vaccinated for chicken pox got it anyway??? I now prefer to dip my foot in the water before I jump in the pool. That Luis is looking out for the best interest of my children. Just because the FDA aproves, do I want leaky bowels because it may make my hair grow back or lose weight?
I wish that you could converse with my wife's 73 year old uncle that went into a coma 8 years ago and had to learn to walk and talk all over again because of the reaction to the flu vaccine, Guillain Barre Syndrome. Have you ever noticed that they anticipate this flu strain but it's another that spreads? Or how about we pump our "tween" daughters with a vaccine that MAY prevent vaginal warts (Human papillomavirus, HPV) so that they won't get cervical cancer? I once bought an LED light that claimed it would last 25 years, how do they know???
Finally (it's about time, huh?)don't knock her faith, it is as plain as day that she has moral issues with this. How you can not see this I have no idea! I also believe that the woman stated that she was Catholic and not Christian Scientist. God bless you Deacon Greg and your bench.
Peace, Graubo
I think there is a point in which parents ought to be able to use common sense. I also think some vaccines are a darn good idea.
There are some very serious diseases I definately do NOT want in my house. The 'choking death' of diptheria being one (read about the way its victims suffer before dying to get a grasp on that)
Our kids were exposed to whooping cough & I had newborn. I was glad my tiny baby, who had heart problems and pulmonary hypertension, didn't have to suffer whooping cough, too. The strain would likely have killed him.
Now, I don't want my kids getting some of the vaccines. I don't think giving a newborn a hep B vaccine is necessary. It's stupid unless the mother is a drug addict or a prostitute (and maternal blood is screened for all sorts of things. Why not screen for hep b and give the vaccine only if the mother is infected?) Of all the hepatitis virus' its the least contatious and least deadly, and there are some serious studies showing it *may increase* or possibly cause neurological disorders. "May" is good enough for me, especially since our chances of getting it are slim to none as we live our lives right now, and my family has a history of ALS (Lou Gerhig's disease) which has a 100% mortality rate.
Chicken pox - I'd rather my kids get the virus than the vaccine. Much better immunity that way, nothing immoral about it and the chances of the vaccine doing harm are about the same as the virus doing harm.
I don't want my children to die from some horrible choking or suffocating death or crippling impairment that we can prevent, but I also don't think my children need 16 or more injections that include vaccines for diseases they aren't likely to die from (and especially where the vaccine is as likely to cause harm as the disease)
My state of West Virginia does not allow parents to opt out for religous reasons. If a doctor won't give a note stating that a vaccine is likely to cause immediate death or harm, there is no way to enroll a child in any public school program (even speech therapy or kindergarten - a child isn't even allowed in a public school building without all mandatory injections. So much for 'no child left behind' huh?)
I don't know about "trust in God," but I don't like the idea of all the vaccinations either.
And I can tell you that if they think they are going to require my 11-year-old daughter to get the Gardasil vaccine, I will fight it.
In my opinion, it has a lot to do with drug companies making more money....again. There's the moral issue.
Shana- I'm mostly with you. My parents (Great Depression babies) always said the word diptheria with a shudder. When I got hold of a medical txtbook, I understood why they were still fearful, decades later. And one of my older brothers nearly missed life, much less 1st grade, because of whooping cough. I think because we live in a country where such diseases have been controled -- via vaccines--we are deluding ourselves that the vaccines are unnecesary; after all, no one we know has ever caught German measles. However, with the situation of undocumented immigrants, that could change. If these people did not get the vaccines in their homeland, who knows what is floating around out there? And if we have not protected our children...I would hate to have a niece or nephew come down with a disease that could have been easily prevented. A DPT shot beats getting diptheria, tetnus or whooping cough. Chicken pox is more than survivable, however. Let's not allow paranoia over government controls put our young ones in danger. Polio still paralyzes, you know. And once you get polio, there is NO CURE.
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