Vaccinations and schools

There's something that's been bugging me for awhile now.

I belong to a forum for moms in my area. A LOT of them are into natural living and attachment parenting, which doesn't bother me at all, as I follow a few principles from each myself.

But a lot of them don't vaccinate their kids. Or they selectively vax, or are on delayed vax schedules. I don't necessarily have a problem with that, either. I understand the concerns that a lot of parents have. For the record, my son is receiving all of his vaccinations, and on schedule as well.

The problem I have is, here in NC, in order to send your kid to public school, they must be vaccinated...unless you have a valid medical reason (with a doctor's note) for not vaxing (or delayed/selective vaxing)....OR you can sign something saying that it is against your religious beliefs.

I KNOW that not all of these parents are choosing not to vax because of actual religious reasons. Do you think it's right that these parents are lying in order to be able to send their kids to public school?

(I hope no one minds that I put this in the health forum....seeing as how I could have easily placed it in religion or even education...but since the vaccinations are at the heart of it, I felt this was the better forum for the topic).

I feel it is doing us all a disservice.

I would like to get these laws changed, but if a significant portion of the population chooses to simply ignore laws they disagree with, the incentive for change is diminished.

Stace said:

There's something that's been bugging me for awhile now.

I belong to a forum for moms in my area. A LOT of them are into natural living and attachment parenting, which doesn't bother me at all, as I follow a few principles from each myself.

But a lot of them don't vaccinate their kids. Or they selectively vax, or are on delayed vax schedules. I don't necessarily have a problem with that, either. I understand the concerns that a lot of parents have. For the record, my son is receiving all of his vaccinations, and on schedule as well.

The problem I have is, here in NC, in order to send your kid to public school, they must be vaccinated...unless you have a valid medical reason (with a doctor's note) for not vaxing (or delayed/selective vaxing)....OR you can sign something saying that it is against your religious beliefs.

I KNOW that not all of these parents are choosing not to vax because of actual religious reasons. Do you think it's right that these parents are lying in order to be able to send their kids to public school?

(I hope no one minds that I put this in the health forum....seeing as how I could have easily placed it in religion or even education...but since the vaccinations are at the heart of it, I felt this was the better forum for the topic).

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I know there are alot of parents that are concerned about vaccinations putting their child's health at risk. However all these parents choosing to not vaccinate their kids really can only safely do so because of all of us that do vaccinate! If everyone stopped vaccinating it would be real problematic for our society.

As far as the school goes with the religious angle I feel that if the school is willing to allow the religious to opt out of vaccinating than anyone should be free to opt out for any reason as schools aren't supposed to give certain religions more privilege over other beliefs. So I don't see a problem with parents lying. I do however see a problem with schools allowing an "opt out" for religion but not for other reasons. I also believe if too many began opting out the schools and the government would take that option away. It's fine to be the 1 in a thousand that doesn't vaccinate a child against polio. However those parents should recognize and respect the only reason they can do so with any degree of saftey is because so many of the rest of us do vaccinate our children.

talloulou said:

I know there are alot of parents that are concerned about vaccinations putting their child's health at risk. However all these parents choosing to not vaccinate their kids really can only safely do so because of all of us that do vaccinate! If everyone stopped vaccinating it would be real problematic for our society.

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Please explain.

Say 50% of a children didn't get a polio vaccination. How are the 50% that chose to have the vaccination at risk?

Now go 99.9% without vaccination. How is the .1% that complied anymore at risk?

I'm missing something.

ARealConservative said:

Please explain.

Say 50% of a children didn't get a polio vaccination. How are the 50% that chose to have the vaccination at risk?

Now go 99.9% without vaccination. How is the .1% that complied anymore at risk?

I'm missing something.

Click to expand...

The percent who got the vaccine arn't at more risk. But the unvaccinated are more at risk the higher the percentage of the total unvaccinated population is.

When the majority of the population is vaccinated against a disease that keeps the diesease in check and in some cases makes it so the disease virtually disappears in that population all together as it can't get a strong hold since the majority of people can't carry or spread it. So if you send your unvaccinated child to a school where 95% of the children in the school are vaccinated it is unlikely your child will be at high risk despite not having been vaccinated. However if you decide to not vaccinate your child and then place your child in a population where the majority are not vaccinated that is a population where the disease can gain a stronghold, spread quickly, ect.

Now there are some exceptions. For example sometimes a batch of vaccine is bad. My MMR shots that I received as a child were bad. Anotherwards some of the people who got vaccinated from that batch got the measles and mumps and when I had my titers checked it showed I wasn't immune and had to be revaccinated. So if you get a bad vaccine or your batch isn't as effective than you are at higher risk of contracting the illness depending on the percentage of people who arn't vaccinated or have a bad vaccine like you did. If your vaccine didn't work but you spend all your time in a populace where 98% of the people have working vaccines it's high unlikely the disease will be prevelant in that population and thus you won't ever come in to contact with it. In those cases the vaccinated people around you are protecting you.

There is a risk to those who are vaccinated, because vaccinations are not 100% effective. Don't assume that if your child is immunized that he has no risk of contracting the disease!

The other risk is to the siblings of the kids in the school, or other vulnerable family members. Younger children are not fully immunized, and they are also at a higher risk of mortality or complications from the illnesses. Even though your school age child may be immunized, that doesn't prevent him bringing the germs home with him to infect other family members....like his baby sister.

People are foolish to take risks, IMO. There are enough things that can't be prevented, it only makes sense to reduce your child's risks as much as you reasonably can. However, if people have a religious reason for not immunizing their kids, that has to be respected. I tend to think that those religious reasons would become less important to people if we had a outbreak of one of these diseases, though.