If Teen Consents to Vaccination without Parental Approval Who is Liable in Case of Injury
USA Today has an opinion piece titled, Doctor: Teens who want vaccines shouldn't need parental consent.
The doctor says he works with critically ill children. Bless his heart. He may well see children with measles more seriously affected than their healthy peers. Could he document some of these cases and prove that he knew the children were not vaccinated? What was their outcome - as related strictly to the measles infection versus their pre-morbid diagnosis?
Vaccinations have zero product liability. You can not sue the administering doctor or nurse for an injury. You can not sue the medical practice or the hospital. You can not sue the grocery store on Minute clinic. You can not sue the vaccine manufacturer for an injury. The vast majority or lawyers, doctors and lay people do not know that there is a special government run vaccine "court" was created in 1986 to funnel through a minute number of injuries. To date, the court has paid over $3B, and vaccine injury, like rape, at least in the past, is vastly under-reported.
If a teen boy or girl gets a Gardasil vaccination because he or she wants to become sexually active, and suffers an adverse reaction like fainting, falling, paralysis, anaphylaxis, how are Mom or Dad to know? Or the emergency room that treats the teen? Or the school where the child falls ill? This is similar territory to getting birth control or an abortion. Where to teen privacy rights and parental right to know meet or diverge. It's not an easy question. Most of us are pro-vaccine choice. The Anti-Vaxxer label is a slur meant to diminish us. If Johnny wants an MMR at 15, who protects him from the possible adverse affects? How about at 18, still living under Mom and Dad's roof and on their health insurance until age 26?
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How should doctors like me approach teens like Ethan Lindenberger, who asked to be vaccinated against his mother's wishes?
Should we refuse a teenager the right to protect himself from a preventable disease or respect the authority of the parents for raising their child as they see fit?
As a physician who cared for critically ill children for more than 30 years at Phoenix Children's Hospital in Arizona, I've taken care of several young children who were not vaccinated and who developed measles, leading to advanced medical care.
Despite parents seeing their child stricken with a preventable disease, they all stood their ground and still refused to vaccinate. There was no recourse on our part to change their mind or intervene. Parental values and their best interest regarding their children trumped the evidence of the outcome of their decisions. Read more here.
Benedetta,
Maybe the state would try to not pay. But hospitals are required to give emergency treatment to anyone who needs it, which is what we're talking about. Then they'll try to get it back from the insurance company, if there is one, or the patients, if they have assets. In this case, I'm assuming that 18-year old Ethan has very few assets in his name, which would mean that if he gets emergency hospital treatment which he couldn't pay for, then he declares bankruptcy and he doesn't have to pay. Hospitals say that that's why they charge those who can pay so much, because they have so many that they have to just write off.
I think we need an NHS-style system in the US, but, of course, no one would HAVE to take any treatment, which I think is the case with the NHS. Vaccines are not required, just recommended. I think, unless there have been recent changes.
Posted by: cia parker | March 20, 2019 at 01:38 PM
Get the state to pay for it? How? LOL; I've been to the max and there was nothing forth coming from our state. IT must be a which state thing? Perhaps they sneak and look into what the parents earn and if they have a bit of middle class wellllll
Posted by: Benedetta | March 20, 2019 at 11:05 AM
Bob,
Theoretically you're right. You might be able to get a lawyer to represent you, but it's not certain. I doubt you could get any court to agree, though, since it's the reflex belief that vaccines are always the right thing to do.
I'm really glad they're doing away with the individual mandate for health care. That being said, it continues to be the case that we're the only advanced country in which the government doesn't provide universal health care through taxes, and then the government gets to control costs. I saw the other day that an unvaxxed boy got tetanus and racked up hospital bills of over a million dollars. And that's ridiculous. They give you antibiotics, antispasmodics, muscle relaxants, tranquilizers, possibly assisted feeding or breathing. It may take over a month of intensive care in the hospital to recover from tetanus (or not). How could any of these measures, even all together for a month, add up to a million dollars? Why do we permit hospitals to take advantage of sick people like that? Another reason why a judge, and most people, would say it's always a good idea to get the tetanus vaccine. And I myself think it's usually a good idea, although my daughter and I, who both got boosters in 2005, took the graduated series of tetanus nosodes for two months recently, and are not planning to get another tetanus booster. But this probably influences the public as well, the very high costs if you get some of the VPDs, while the costs of autism, a seizure disorder, etc., caused by vaccines, I doubt many would factor in. I'd really like to see the results in a population which got only the tetanus series after two years old, and no, or few, other vaccines.
But it's more grist for the mill, more to put on the risk-benefit balance.
I would definitely take Ethan off my insurance policy, though. He's independent now. If he got sick, I'd nurse him, but I wouldn't pay for it. He could get the state to pay it and declare bankruptcy, if necessary.
Posted by: cia parker | March 19, 2019 at 05:51 PM
Responsible by law; legally answerable, is what liable means.
Ethan will not find any support of any kind from the manufactures of vaccines, nor from the doctor, or pharmacist, or nurse, or Rite Aid worker that gave him the vaccines.
There is no liability from a work place that insisted on vaccines either as they fire that adult child, and send them out the door with out even the work place health insurance.
There will be nothing from anyone. Certainly not the government that is for dead sure either; How come you got fired, they would ask. There is no government policy that will help Ethan.
The only ones that will be there to catch him, help him; his parents even if he is all grown up. His mother will stroke his head, and say poor thing, all the while of paying his medical bills, or bills for clothing, food, shelter, and a few personal items. She will even be there at Ethane's hospital bed, spending entire nights in some reclining chair; if he goes into psychosis; or fill in the blank of vaccine injuries. There are plenty of injuries one can suffer from vaccine injuries, but psychosis is the worse, cause it is all in Ethan's head you see, and thus he could control it.
Ethan's parents will be there when he has no job, no way to support himself even though he is full grown. They will pay every month his private health insurance until they figure out it is going up higher each month, and it is just best to pay medical bills right out of pocket, and forget the health insurance. They will pay off his credit cards, that might be high. Since vaccines can and do cause brain injuries that lead to mental illness, poor financial judgement is involved. Not only that but drugs is what people wants when they are in pain from vaccine injuries. Opioid epidemic is here up on us for a reason, along with the need for anxiety medications, so illegal drugs might have been ordered on that credit card as well. Ethan's parents might just have to tear up that credit card, and then pay it off to keep the high interest rates from making it finally out of reach to pay it off. Ethan's parents will have to drive him to all the doctor visits, and since it seems to cause brain problems some of those visits will include psychiatrists, psychologists, and neurologists.
After all of that, there is the vitamins to be bought; expensive vitamins; and some one -- some one standing there with them in hand shoving them into Ethan's mouth cause he will not do it for himself.
Vitamins like mitochondrial things expensive Co enzyme Q 10, D ribose, PQQ, Methyl B 12, B6, inositol, L carnitine. The diets. All the family must be convinced to go along with some special diet. The special Atkins diet, the ketogenic diet, the gluten free, milk free - casein free diet. The Mother is usually the one that has to stand in the kitchen all the time getting that next meal on the table so the family won't go out and eat out and ruin it all.
Did I leave anything out? I am sure I did.
Posted by: Benedetta | March 19, 2019 at 03:24 PM
@ Cia
"The parents need to take whoever gave their underage child a vaccine without permission to court if adverse reactions occur. If no obvious reactions occur, I don't think there would be grounds for a lawsuit"
With all due respect .. I think a good lawyer could find justified legal grounds to SUE anyone who gave an underage child a vaccine without PARENTAL permission .. even if no discernable adverse reactions were obvious .. because no one can say for certain how long it may require before serious adverse reactions are suffered.
In a more perfect country .. it would be the Attorney General in each one of all 50 States that would prosecute the unauthorized admission of a vaccine to a child absent the parent's consent … after all .. PROTECTING CITIZENS FROM UNLAWFUL CONDUCT OR ACTIONS OF OTHERS IS WHAT THESE ATTORNEY GENERALS HAVE SWORN TO DO.
Posted by: Bob Moffit | March 19, 2019 at 01:24 PM
Was it vaccine strain measles that infected the unvaccinated children, or was it wild type measles? I'll bet the doctor at Phoenix Children's Hospital doesn't know or care. Sad. And pathetic, too.
Posted by: Someone | March 19, 2019 at 01:01 PM
It is clear--a teen like Ethan Lindenberger will sue his mom for failing to protect him.
Posted by: michael | March 19, 2019 at 11:58 AM
In Scotland, the schools are trying to mop up those teenagers who were smart enough to dodge the initial Gardasil vaccine rounds . They come into the schools unannounced, there are no letters home to parents. They target the children without any consent of the parents now. 2019
And not a word about it anywhere ? So much for Labour or the SNP ?
All children are now wards of the state ! Parent rights are being fully eroded.
Did anyone ever mention this was the plan ? Aldous Huxley George Orwell Bertrand Russell
We did get warned that this was the plan.
Posted by: Hans Litten | March 19, 2019 at 10:37 AM
The parents need to take whoever gave their underage child a vaccine without permission to court if adverse reactions occur. If no obvious reactions occur, I don't think there would be grounds for a lawsuit. Once the child is 18, they are a legal adult and have and should have the authority to get or refuse vaccines on their own. The parent should not have to pay the medical expenses in the case of a reaction, and should tell the adult child ahead of time they will cancel any insurance they may have on him if he decides to get one or more vaccines without their approval. And then follow through.
Posted by: cia parker | March 19, 2019 at 08:54 AM
Uploaded by ginger Taylor :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XvQEEkhs5b8
Maine State Senator Robert Foley Testifying in Opposition to LD 798 To remove religious and philosophical vaccine exemptions and in support of LD 987 to expand medical vaccine exemptions On the death of..
Senator Robert Foley on the Death of his Daughter Following the Pertussis vaccine
Posted by: Hans Litten | March 19, 2019 at 08:45 AM
"As a physician who cared for critically ill children for more than 30 years at Phoenix Children's Hospital in Arizona, I've taken care of several young children who were not vaccinated and who developed measles, leading to advanced medical care."
I would have more respect for the opinions of this "physician of 30 years at Phoenix Children's Hospital" that, in addition to the "several young children who were not vaccinated and who had developed measles" .. he at the very least mentioned the number of times he treated children for suffering severe adverse reactions to a vaccine? Was it just an honest oversight on his part not to mention any adverse reactions he treated .. or .. was it a deliberate attempt to avoid any inconvenient truth that ALL vaccines have RISKS .. as evidenced by the 3 BILLION dollars in compensation awards to parents by the Vaccine Court.
In any event .. I find it extraordinarily suspect that he did not clearly state that he had NEVER treated … let alone had reason to report .. a severe reaction a child suffered as a direct result of a vaccine? NONE? In 30 years? Really?
The physician further states: "Despite parents seeing their child stricken with a preventable disease, they all stood their ground and still refused to vaccinate. There was no recourse on our part to change their mind or intervene. Parental values and their best interest regarding their children trumped the evidence of the outcome of their decisions."
Again .. I would have appreciated the physician's observation on the numbers of parents who "saw their child stricken with a preventable disease and still refused to vaccinate …….. had given as their main reason to remain resolute in their decision not to vaccinate .. because … THEY HAD ALREADY SUFFERED THE TRAGIC CONSEQUENCES OF VACCINATING CHILD ONLY TO HAVE THAT CHILD SUFFER SERIOUS … LIFE-THREATENING … LIFE-LONG … CHRONIC AUTOIMMUNE DISORDERS?
The fact this physician with 30 years experience in a children's hospital .. failed to mention he witnessed, reported and treated ANY serious adverse reactions to vaccines .. is improbable at best .. deliberately misleading at worst.
Posted by: Bob Moffit | March 19, 2019 at 07:00 AM