The Mother Load
Mother Angry After Daughter Vaccinated
Why is this the title of the article? I can easily (and have) thought of a few other title options.
School Nurse Crosses the Line: child suffers from vaccine given at school
Schools Unsafe for Students: school nurses allowed to stab and jab at will
Officials Pass the Buck and Hide Behind Vague News Releases for Involvement With Student Vaccinated Without Consent
You won’t see a retraction of the story to use those headlines. The entire article would have to be rewritten as well.
We start reading about this horrid event with the following emotional sentence: “Sighle Kinney is fuming after her 14-year-old daughter was given four shots by the school nurse at Marcus Garvey Academy without her permission.” Really? That’s the opening sentence? Of course it’s warranted and depicts some of the truth—a teenager was just assaulted--but, why isn’t the nurse strung up the proverbial flag pole in the opening sentence? She’s the one who made the mistake. Why isn’t the school also part of the main focus of this story? They’re the ones who opened the doors to the nurse who made the mistake. Why is it that the child and her “fuming” mother make the headlines instead the actual people who caused the problem?
This type of story is not new. Here’s another mis-titled article for you. This one happened last year.
Ohio Boy Given H1N1 Vaccine Against Mom's Wishes Worse than the title is again the opening paragraph: “A furious mother says her 7-year-old son, who has problems with medications, was vaccinated for swine flu at school against her wishes.” Damn that furious woman for being so, so…so furious! How dare she!
Of course the mother is furious. Her child was just medically assaulted. The media twisted the actual news and turned a terrible situation into a sensationalized, train-wreck styled article. They should have targeting the perpetrators (the school, the school nurse, and health care system contracted by the school) but instead focused on reaction.
Better titles suited for what happened to the young boy rather than the ones that centered on distraught, hysterical mother madness could be:
School Allowed Health Department To Vaccinate Young Boy At School Clinic – boy’s vaccine exemption isn’t worth the paper it’s written on
Vaccine Given Despite Supporting Exemption – adults need remedial reading courses to know what their own forms say
I’m sure you won’t see those in print though.
In both news stories it’s not the educated, professional administration who have made a huge mistake. It’s not the school system who allowed unwanted and unsafe practices on school grounds. And, it’s not a health care system, nor their employees, who haphazardly acknowledged an oopsie, something bad might’ve just happened. The media instead circles over the emotional women who have every right to be irate. They should be vocal about what just happened to their children. They both were trying to get answers about who messed up and why. Up to the terrible damage done, they both did everything right to protect their children: they made a decision for their child’s health. They filled out forms to support their decision. Their forms were filed for future reference. They trusted their kids would be safe and exempt from vaccines at school where they probably hoped kids would be able to do what kids do at school—that is to learn, not to get vaccinated. But, the kids were vaccinated. Vaccinated at school. Vaccinated against their will.
Instead of outing the person wielding the vaccines on school property, Mother is to blame. She’s labeled as furious. Fuming. Angry. Why isn’t she being called informed, knowledgeable and thoughtful? That is truly what she is, isn’t she? It takes all of that and more to make the decision to vaccinate or not. But, that’s not what the media wants to focus on.
As a Mother who has learned a great deal about vaccines, I walk away from an article like these two with great sadness. I carry a huge load of responsibility for my children as their Mother. Mothers all over the world do the same. Many of us are learning as we go, collecting information to make future decisions. We make life-changing and even life-saving decisions several times as we parent the children in our care. Our children depend on us to be attentive, supportive and protective. Mothering is a calling we feel very strongly about. It’s shaped by our actions, our attitudes, but most importantly by our children. With this, we might find a sense of calm as we Mother. I have a feeling the Mothers in these two articles at one point in their lives thought they were composed and at peace with their decisions for their children. But, the Mothers were described as anything but peaceful in the news articles. They were downright furious.
I know a good news story when I see one because I’ve been hunting down the truth for a long time now. Don’t get me wrong, stories like the young girl and the even younger boy being vaccinated against their will are very newsworthy. In fact every newspaper should have shared that information. But, the person writing the article missed the point completely when they focused on the Mothers. Parts of the truth were there but well hidden behind the image of a basketcase. That is not the image our society needs to see when it comes to mistakes being made with vaccines.
Instead of investigating what I think could be a potential criminal act (injecting known toxic substances into minors with no consent) the focus of the articles are way off. The media continues to ignore the plea of many Mothers when it throws around vaccine-related articles like these. Vaccine supporters, creators and promoters hail as the victor. The people who care most about the victim get trampled instead of praised.
We Mothers see all of this. We know it isn’t truth. The staged feeding frenzy on our emotions isn’t right. Fortunately, because of what I know, because of what has been done to my son, as Mother of a vaccine-injured child I am able to see the sham the media purports as truth. I cannot stand behind their fakery but promise instead to seek and always support the truth.
Cathy Jameson is a Contributing Editor for Age of Autism.
It is time for schools to focus on teaching the children and
stay out of the toxic vaccine business.The Nurse needs to be fired and taken to court.
Posted by: oneVoice | February 27, 2012 at 09:38 PM
My son has learned in martial arts classes how to protect himself from a bully meaning to do him harm ....
Enough said!
TJ
Posted by: TJ | February 27, 2012 at 05:52 PM
I just read about the admitted link between MMR and "sudden nerve deafness" and I remember that right after our ASD son's MMR shot, he suddenly acted like he couldn't hear us. We even went to an auditory specialist and had him tested in every way possible for deafness. The doctor thought it was the auditory nerve located in the brain itself, rather than the workings of the ear and cochlea that was damaged. Our son was diagnosed with hyperacousis (spelling?) and central auditory processing disorder. I just know that something had to trigger the damage. Maybe this is it. http://nbjour.wordpress.com/2012/02/26/simone-lost-most-of-her-hearing-in-the-aftermath-of-mmr-vaccination-3/
Posted by: Shelly Sulkoske | February 27, 2012 at 08:45 AM
But why the surprise? This is what the media does and will always do, until they are held accountable. How about contacting the school authorities? Better yet, find the phone number of the nurse and give her a call. I've emailed and/or phoned several school bureaucrats out here in CA and have had several conversations about parental rights, etc. I've been amazed as to what the feedback has been when I've done this.
Also, does anyone know for certain whether the Mom of the child who attended Marcus, had an exemption on file? If you listen closely to her interview, she states (and I'm paraphrasing), that she 'told' the school authorities she wanted nothing more than a band-aid and/or an aspirin for her daughter. But I did not hear her state, emphatically, that she has a written and signed exemption on file in her daughter's school records. IF she does, then I would think she would want to perhaps take legal steps against the school (and St. John's) for vaccinating her daughter against her wishes.
Posted by: Bayareamom | February 26, 2012 at 06:25 PM
I don't mind the "mother angry" headline. It's better than "Mother delusional about vaccines harming her child." Or "Anti-vax mother does not succeed in stopping her child from being protected from life-threatening disease."
If parents see the headline about a mother being angry, they might say to themselves "Maybe I should be angry too."
I agree with Cathy's point that the mother's anger is not the big news. But it does have stopping power.
Posted by: First Do No Harm | February 26, 2012 at 01:36 PM
I like the title "School Nurse assaulted in retribution for vaccinating child against parents' wishes; nurse also loses job and house" - that would be the headline in my local paper should anyone dare vaccinate my child against my wishes. My son's aide and special ed teacher know to take him out the back door and call my cell phone should the school nurse ever become over zealous or any loon from the dept. of health ever visit the school. So sad that these two children had no one at school (teacher, aide or principal) to protect them. They should all be ashamed.
Posted by: MelissaD | February 26, 2012 at 08:21 AM