Spokane7
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May 11, 2011 in City
Vaccine law gets stricter for kids
Exemption certificate required to opt out of school immunizations
A new state law is making it more difficult for parents to send their children to school without first getting immunized against diseases.
The bill, signed into law by Gov. Chris Gregoire on Monday, would require parents to receive a written certificate of exemption by a licensed health care provider to enroll their children in public schools without the recommended battery of vaccinations designed to protect children.
“For too long Washington has had an easy way for parents to opt out,” said Secretary of Health Mary Selecky. “All it took was a simple check on a form.”
This extra requirement for parents opposed to vaccines for their children is expected to bolster the state’s vaccination rates, which have historically lagged behind most other states.
Some parents oppose vaccines on religious grounds. Others continue to believe that vaccines are harmful despite a multitude of studies supporting the safety of vaccines for children.
Health officials are counting on medical professionals, including physicians, physician assistants, osteopaths, naturopaths and advanced registered nurse practitioners, to stress the importance of immunizing children against many diseases.
Selecky noted that pertussis – commonly called whooping cough – along with measles are two diseases that have spread among populations of children who have not been vaccinated.
Keeping a registry of immunized children at schools helps staff protect vulnerable students in case a contagious disease is diagnosed.
Washington’s immunization rates have gained in recent years, although it ranks 34th among the states. The state’s historically poor showing has been especially evident in Eastern Washington, where vaccination rates have been among the lowest. It’s much the same in North Idaho.
Health officials, though, say the bill follows recent progress.
For example, the standard 15-dose series vaccination rate for Washington toddlers ages 19 months to 3 years old is now 70.3 percent, bumping the state up 15 spots to 17th.
“We want parents to really think about the health of their children,” Selecky said.
Parishes giving $1.5 million toward settling sex cases 
Isuth on May 11 at 4:13 a.m.
My oldest son was immunized with no problems, yet my younger son and daughter both had severe reactions to the first series of shots. When it was time to start school, they just had me sign a form stating that for religious reasons the kids were not vaccinated. I wished they could have been. They are both grown now and I still worry about them not having the protection those vaccines offer.
Babs9 on May 11 at 3:30 p.m.
“Selecky noted that pertussis – commonly called whooping cough – along with measles are two diseases that have spread among populations of children who have not been vaccinated.”
–Actually this is not true. A majority of the Pertussis and measles cases were among vaccinated individuals.
“to stress the importance of immunizing children against many diseases.”
— are the risks being stressed as well
saynot on May 11 at 9:54 p.m.
Vaccination is preventative medical treatment which does come with it’s risks and benefits.
It is a medical decision and parent should have a right to refuse a treatment.
What this new law does it restrict parents right to make this decision. If you have kids you know that your doctor will talk to you about vaccination first thing you bring you child for well-check and if you refuse or delay vaccination he/she will continue talking to you about it.
What this new law does is making parent to schedule a visit to doctor to get “educated” on vaccine benefits and pay for that visit every year as it’s required by law to have this form signed every year. This law required that parent gets doctor’s signature but it doesn’t say that doctor will sign it. Actually I suspect many doctors will refuse to sign it since they will be encouraged by medical board to not sign it.
I believe this law will not have much or any effect on vaccination rates but it will help doctors to intimidate parents who made a decision not to vaccinate.
This new law is civil rights violation and hopefully will be challenged.
This discussion should not be about autism connection since I agree it’s not proven but it’s proven that children were harmed by vaccines and vaccines are not risk free. There is a special vaccine injury court and it awarded millions of dollars to injured children and that’s not a secret.
aloof on May 12 at 12:23 p.m.
If we could just look at the vaccine debate rationally, there would be no debate.
In eight years, between 2000 to 2008, 166 children under six months died from pertussis, an highly contagious disease that is now on the rise because of this anti-vaccine movement.
These infants were not given the chance to receive the full schedule of immunizations for pertussis.
Other cases of pertussis occur in older populations because a large number of people do not realize that they need a booster.
Hence, there is a need for more education provided by medical professionals.
And measles?
In the United States, mortality from measles decreased from 25 per 1000 reported cases in 1912 to 1 per 1000 reported cases in 1962.
There has been a recent uptick in measles fatalities during the past 13 years, to about 3 per 1000 cases of measles, coinciding with the growth of the anti-vaccine movement.
A good number of those deaths are attributable to people suffering from HIV and thus unable to cope with the disease - another argument in favor of vaccination compliance.
I could go on with the statistics for meningitis, rubella, influenza, smallpox, polio, Hepatitis A, and Hepatitis B.
The point is that vaccinations have saved millions of lives worldwide.
Vaccinations have prevented horrible complications from diseases - mental retardation, deafness, spinal cord damage, encephalitis, etc.
And when you do not vaccinate your children, you do more than just put them at risk for serious diseases. You put others at risk.
How can anyone justify putting other people at risk based upon a thoroughly disproven idea that vaccinations are bad for children?
saynot on May 14 at 3:57 p.m.
Vaccine Researcher Indicted for Fraud
http://drdavidbrownstein.blogspot.com/2011/04/vaccine-researcher-indicted-for-fraud.html