I am infuriated over what I just read. A 13 year old diabetic girl was given the new HPV vaccine at school against her parents’ consent and against her own wishes. Unbelievable! Where have parents’ rights gone? The worst part about it, from the parents’ perspective, is that the vaccine has not been tested on diabetics so they have no idea what the possible side effects could be for their daughter. The school was apologetic and said that the doctor administering the vaccines was to blame, but it doesn’t change the outcome.
My son’s school was giving the flumist vaccine today, which I refused to sign the consent form for and told him to reject if offered to him. I have no hard feelings towards those who choose to do it, but he already has a myriad of allergy and dietary issues, and I don’t want to complicate things further by putting more foreign substances in his body. Also, with the flu vaccine, I feel like it is a hit or miss situation since they never know if they’ve chosen the right strain for that year anyhow. Better to eat your veggies and get a good night’s sleep to fight off most viruses, in my opinion. But, if my son comes home and I find out he received the vaccine against our wishes, the fur will begin to fly. Not because I think his health is in imminent danger, though it could be because we never know what he will react to, but because it represents a trumping of governmental herd-mentality thinking over individual parental rights. Just because I send my child to be educated in a public school does not mean that I give up my rights as a parent regarding his medical care.
Okay, I’ll take a deep breath now and hope for the best. And I’ll pray for TallSkinnyKiwi and his daughter that she will suffer no long term effects from this outrageous abuse.