Why signing a waiver to avoid vaccines can be considered abuse

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From: " MCC-FHC " <email@...>

Subject: Why signing a waiver to avoid vaccines can be considered abuse

Why signing a waiver to avoid vaccines can be considered abuse

by Anai Rhoads Ford

Recently, The Washington Post printed an article about vaccine waivers that

could jeopardize your parental rights.1 In the article was the following

comment: " The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that doctors ask

parents who refuse to vaccinate their children to sign a waiver indicating

they are aware of the risks of refusal. "

Despite the fact that vaccines have been linked to asthma, autism, diabetes,

and sudden infant death syndrome, the author implied that parents are being

overly theatrical about the shots.

Know Your Rights

By endorsing this particular waiver, parents would essentially be signing an

admission of neglect and/or " abuse " for refusing vaccines. The language

contained in this waiver could put parents and caregivers in jeopardy later

if they should ever find themselves in the courts due to their child's

health problems, when confronted with child protective services, divorce, or

just about any matter pertaining to their child that could be used against

the parent(s).

Please read any waiver provided by your child's doctor, daycare or school

carefully before signing. Instead, offer a formally written and signed

letter that simply states that you do not wish to vaccinate your child. If

you are unsure of the language in the waiver, buy some time by telling your

doctor or the school that you need to consult with a lawyer before signing

it.

Know your rights-say no to vaccines. Your doctor will try to bully you-you

have the right to refuse anything you feel is harmful to your child. If your

doctor won't listen, go to another doctor who will.

Check your state's laws regarding vaccine exemptions. Most states will allow

you to avoid vaccinations if you have a religious or ethical reason.

However, keep in mind that it is your right not to disclose your faith or

your full reasons for not wanting to vaccinate your child.

Regarding School Admission

A signed document can and will be used as a legal document even in a public

school. Unfortunately, private schools have a different set of rules not

dictated by the government.

Do Vaccines Work?

Example One:

According to a report printed by The Lancet (9/21/91), a polio outbreak

began in Oman between the years of 1988 and 1989. This is significant

because a polio outbreak occurred despite the children being vaccinated

prior to the outbreak. Curiously, the region with the highest attack rate

had the highest vaccine coverage, while the region with the lowest attack

rate had the lowest vaccine coverage.

Example Two:

Sweden abandoned the whooping cough vaccine in 1979. Why? Out of 5,140 cases

of whooping cough in 1978, it was found that 84 percent had been vaccinated

at least three times. You may find this report in the British Medical

Journal (BMJ) (283:696-697, 1981).

Pay-outs

More than $1.1 billion in claims have been paid by the National Vaccine

Injury Compensation Program to parents of children affected by vaccines. On

average, each family received nearly a million dollars each. Sadly, the

claims by the parents had to fit in the program's extremely narrow

definitions in order to qualify for compensation.

Naughty CDC

The majority of members of the CDC's Advisory Committee on Immunization

Practices get money from vaccine manufacturers.

They own stock in vaccine companies and get paid to conduct research.

As of 2003, the CDC has had 28 licensing agreements with companies and at

least one university for vaccines.

Vaccines once endorsed by the CDC have been pulled off the market after

infants (and even some adults) had serious reactions. People had to die for

the CDC to admit wrongdoing.

Why your doctor may not care

Your doctor gets paid by the companies that supply the vaccines for each and

every vaccine administered.

The Comprehensive Child Immunization Act of 1993 gave States more than $400

million in vaccine incentives and a $100 bounty for each child vaccinated

with the shots the federal government recommended.

You should know that, according to the February, 1981 edition of the Journal

of the American Medical Association, 90 percent of obstetricians and 66

percent of pediatricians refused to take the rubella vaccine and, in 1990, a

British survey showed that over 50 percent of doctors in the UK rejected the

Hepititis B vaccine (BMJ, 1/27/90).

1. The article, entitled " Feuding Over Vaccines " by G.. Boodman was

printed in The Washington Post on November 8, 2005 on page F1.

©2005 Anai Rhoads Ford.

Note: If a doctor, school, daycare or public health official insists that

you vaccinate, you can insist that they sign an acceptance of liability form

in case of adverse reactions. Go to www.vaclib.org for a template for such a

form.

From the March 2006 Idaho Observer

http://www.proliberty.com/observer/20060321.htm

The Idaho Observer

P.O. Box 457

Spirit Lake, Idaho 83869

Phone: 208-255-2307

Email: observer@...

Web: http://idaho-observer.com

http://proliberty.com/observer/

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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/04/AR2005110402193.\

html

Feuding Over Vaccines

Doctors Vexed by Parents' Refusal

By G. Boodman

Washington Post Staff Writer

Tuesday, November 8, 2005; HE01

It's a situation Northern Virginia pediatrician R. Baugh says he and

his partners find themselves confronting with increasing regularity: A

parent, usually a mother, refuses a scheduled immunization because she has

read on the Internet that it could cause her baby to develop autism.

" My last patient just did it, " said Baugh, who estimates he and his 11

partners each grapple with parents who refuse some or all immunizations

about twice a month. Most recently, he said last week, the mother of a

2-month-old said she didn't want her daughter to receive the vaccine against

measles, mumps and rubella or any other immunization federal health

officials recommend to protect children from childhood diseases, some of

them fatal.

Baugh said that in this case he did what he usually does when a parent

refuses shots. He referred the woman to a Web site maintained by the

Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, a source pediatricians regard as one of

the most informative; reassured her that vaccines are safe; and reminded her

that multiple studies by prestigious scientific groups have found no

evidence that vaccines cause autism. Then he made a follow-up appointment,

hoping the mother wouldchange her mind.

" I used to get kind of angry " when parents refused to have their children

immunized, Baugh said, " but I've evolved. "

His equanimity in the face of what many pediatricians say are persistent

myths that circulate on the Internet -- that mercury used as a preservative

in childhood vaccines causes autism, that the dangers of immunizations far

outweigh their benefits, and that there is a conspiracy by drug companies,

doctors and vaccine makers to conceal the harm -- is not shared by other

physicians. In a recent study, one of the first to explore the ethically

explosive issue, a large number of pediatricians said they would consider

" firing " a family that refuses some or all immunizations.

A team of pediatricians from three major Chicago medical centers surveyed

more than 300 of their colleagues around the country about their attitudes

toward vaccine refusal. Slightly more than half of pediatricians said that

in the previous year they had encountered at least one family that refused

all vaccines, while 85 percent said they'd had a parent turn down at least

one shot.

More surprising to the authors were two findings: 39 percent of those

surveyed said they would consider turning away a family that refused all

shots -- researchers had expected the number to be about 20 percent -- while

28 percent said they'd think about severing a relationship with a family

that refused some shots.

" I think it speaks to a level of frustration among pediatricians, " said lead

author A. Flanagan-Klygis, a pediatrician and ethicist who practices at

Rush Children's Hospital in Chicago. " There is not enough time in the world

to address parents' fears in an office visit " -- or even several visits.

Equally surprising, according to the authors, whose study was published in

the October issue of the Archives of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine, were

the similarities between " dismissers " and " nondismissers. " They found no

differences between the two groups in age, sex, number of years in practice

or number of patients seen per week.

Finding parents who have been cut loose by their pediatricians for refusing

vaccines is difficult. A publicist for Safe Minds, a group founded by

parents of autistic children and dedicated to removing mercury from

vaccines, said she couldn't locate any. And Barbara Loe Fisher, founder of

the National Vaccine Information Center in Vienna, who claims vaccines are

unsafe and that her son developed attention deficit hyperactivity disorder

and learning disabilities after receiving a booster shot when he was 2 1/2 ,

said " parents don't want to discuss it with the media because of harassment "

by authorities.

Flanagan-Klygis noted that her study was of attitudes toward vaccine

refusal, not of physician behavior, so it remains unclear how many

pediatricians have actually dismissed patients. Several pediatricians said

they had done so, not just for refusing vaccines, but when it was clear that

trust had irretrievably broken down.

Termination, a touchy subject in medicine, is seen as particularly

problematic in pediatrics because of the fear that helpless children may be

deprived of care. Doctors are permitted to sever the relationship, according

to the code of ethics promulgated by the American Medical Association, only

after giving a patient sufficient notice and as long as other care is

available.

" One of the reasons I think we haven't heard more from pediatricians is that

[firing a patient] is not seen as a good thing to do, " Flanagan-Klygis said.

" It happens -- but it also takes a lot to get kicked out of a practice. "

" I think [dismissal] should be a last resort, " said S. Diekema, a

Seattle pediatrician and chair of a committee on bioethics for the American

Academy of Pediatrics. Several months ago the committee recommended that

doctors ask parents who refused immunization to sign a waiver saying they

have been informed of the risks.

Dismissal is permissible, the committee concluded, " when a substantial level

of distrust develops, significant differences in the philosophy of care

emerge or poor quality of communication persists. "

One of the ironies, Diekema said, is that vaccines have been so successful

that they have eradicated from the public memory the devastating effects of

childhood illnesses: paralysis from polio, blindness caused by measles,

deafness following mumps, and death that resulted from the overwhelming

infection caused by Hemophilus influenza.

" I've lost patients to things we immunize against now, " said suburban

Baltimore pediatrician J. Levy, who graduated from medical school in

1975.

Flanagan-Klygis said that her interest in vaccine refusal was sparked by the

two years she spent working in a private practice in suburban Chicago.

" This came up frequently, " she said. One day she asked a family to bring her

all the anti-immunization information on which they were relying. She said

she sat down and read the books and scrolled through the Web sites. " I was

blown away by how false it was, " she recalled.

Flanagan-Klygis said she agreed to have a series of meetings with the

parents to discuss their concerns and referred them to reputable sources of

medical information.

" The upshot was that over a period of six months we talked about it and I

told them I really felt strongly about vaccines, " she said. Ultimately they

worked out a compromise: a revised schedule of shots.

" By entering a dialogue, you allow parents to feel they're being respected, "

she said. " But what I did takes a lot of time and resources that practices

probably don't have. " Nor, she added, are insurance companies likely to pay

for such appointments.

Baugh, who has offices in Herndon and Fairfax, said that when he asks

parents to sign a waiver refusing vaccination, some acquiesce and permit the

shots.

One reason he is less affronted by refusal than he might have been 20 years

ago, he said, lies in the recent history of vaccines.

" There have been some catastrophes, " he said, citing the 1999 withdrawal of

RotaShield. The vaccine to prevent the gastrointestinal rotavirus was pulled

after it was linked to cases of intussusception, a serious intestinal

obstruction.

But that doesn't change Baugh's belief that vaccines are essential, one

reason his practice tries to weed out parents who object to them during the

prenatal visit. " If they say no vaccines, " Baugh said, " we'll say, 'We're

not the practice for you.' "

To comment on this article, send e-mail to boodmans@....

Randi Airola

517-819-5926

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