This new world order is dopey.

These bills coming up in Florida are idiotic. One actually requires that all school kids be ritualistically be secularly baptized, but cautions that vaccine viruses are resistant to chlorination.

Check this one out:

http://www.flsenate.gov/data/session/2009/Senate/bills/billtext/pdf/s0146.pdf

This is a Jim Crow law that actually prevents any unvaccinated Floridian child sticking so much as a single toe into the water of a public swimming pool, but nothing requiring international Disneyworld tourists desiring a dip in the "Dumbo" pool to produce their shot records. Germ Nazis?

"Immunizations shall be required for poliomyelitis, diphtheria, rubeola, rubella, pertussis, mumps, tetanus, and other communicable diseases as determined by rules of the Department of Health. The manner and frequency of administration of the immunization or testing shall conform to recognized standards of medical practice.

The Department of Health shall supervise and secure the enforcement of the required immunization."

"Each district school board and the governing authority of each private school shall establish and enforce as policy that, prior to admittance to or attendance in a public or private school, grades kindergarten through 12, or any other initial entrance into a Florida public or private school, each child present or have on file with the school a certification of immunization for the prevention of those communicable diseases for which immunization is required by the Department of Health and further shall provide for appropriate screening of its students for scoliosis at the proper age."

Check these interestingly naughty provisions out:

"No person licensed by this state as a physician or nurse shall be liable for any injury caused by his or her action or failure to act in the administration of a vaccine or other immunizing agent pursuant to the provisions of this section if the person acts as a reasonably prudent person with similar professional training would have acted under the same or similar circumstances."

"No member of a district school board, or any of its employees, or member of a governing board of a private school, or any of its employees, shall be liable for any injury caused by the administration of a vaccine to any student who is required to be so immunized or for a failure to diagnose scoliosis pursuant to the provisions of this section."

More to come....

Our local representative to our state government is holding a breakfast to brief constituents on important issues. I figured I'd take advantage of the invitation and ask him to make our state one of the "conscientious objection" states. Maybe we can all take a step like this one, and give parents back the right that has been taken away from them.

Here's my letter...

Dear Representative Dally:

I am looking forward to attending your breakfast meeting on Friday, May 8th.
In advance of this meeting, I would like to take this opportunity to share with you a request for legislation that is important to me: a philosophical exemption from Pennsylvania Department of Education vaccination requirements. Such an exemption would supplement the health and religious exemptions currently available.

For too long, the debate on the issue of vaccination requirements has been framed unproductively: as a question of whether vaccines contribute to autism. Certainly, any drug or biological product will have an adverse effect on some percentage of the population—consider, for example, the portion of our population who are allergic to penicillin—making universal vaccination mandates tantamount to state-sponsored assault, Russian roulette-style, on our citizens. Thousands upon thousands of unsuspecting vaccine-injury victims are listed in VAERS (the Department of Health and Human Services Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System, located at http://vaers.hhs.gov).

In light of the undeniable health risk, I ask you to consider every parent’s right to raise a child as he sees fit, regardless of that parent’s religious beliefs. For example, any parent should have the right to refuse a vaccine targeting a sexually transmitted disease (such as the hepatitis B vaccination, which is currently given on day one of a baby’s life and mandated for entrance into public school), and to choose instead to teach the child other ways to avoid sexually transmitted diseases (like abstinence or condom use). Any parent, regardless of religious beliefs, should have the right to opt out of the state’s campaign to develop “herd immunity” to nuisance illnesses like the chickenpox.
There are those who would argue that the public health benefits of universal vaccination (and its ever-expanding schedule) outweigh the personal freedoms at stake. I would respond that I am unaware of any other situation in which an individual not in the Armed Forces is compelled to take a drug or undergo a medical procedure for the public good. Certainly, organ shortages would be eased if the state chose to compel, for example, convicted felons to “donate” non-essential organs (like one kidney, a portion of a liver, or one lung), but even convicted felons have sovereignty over their medical choices.

Citizens of Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Idaho, Louisiana, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, New Mexico, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Texas, Utah, Washington, and Wisconsin already enjoy the freedom to object philosophically to vaccination for their children. Isn’t it time Pennsylvanians were given this choice?

Thank you for your attention to this concern of mine. I look forward to your response.