Do parents have a choice?

[Sassy]

Get Kids Vaccinated Or Else, Parents Told
Pr. George's Threatens Legal Action

By Nelson Hernandez
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, November 14, 2007; Page B01

The parents of more than 2,300 Prince George's County students who failed to get needed vaccinations could face fines of $50 a day and up to 10 days in jail if their children do not meet the state's immunization requirements, county officials said yesterday.  con't @ link
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/11/13/AR2007111301408.html

The Real World of Vaccinations
http://www.newswithviews.com/health_care/health_care5.htm

[StinkerBell]

Hmmmm, I am not familiar with Canadian Law. However a Wisconsin mom went to jail for giving her two boys 12 & 16 a talk on the birds and the bee's. She plead guilty in order to spare her kids any trauma in testifying against her.


http://www.wiscnews.com/pdr/news/255942

[Homegrown_Tomatoes]

To me, that talk sounds like more than a birds and bees talk, but it seems wrong to jail someone... even if I don't agree with her methods.  Heck, when I was in high school we had a substitute teacher who decided to give us a birds and bees talk without permission (in history class, no less) that was way over the top.  I got up and walked out of class because she was so foul-mouthed, but even though multiple parents complained, the woman was back subbing within the week.

As to the vaccinations, I think that even in the US they try to make you feel like a total criminal if you don't vaccinate your kids or if you're behind on the vaccinations.  I had a nurse bawl me out over being late with my second daughter's vaccines.  I did get my kids' vaccinated, but mainly because we travel overseas and I don't want to accidentally expose them to something that is way more common in other countries than it is here.  I made sure I had all my hep shots before I went to India, and after seeing the poverty and disease, and seeing how ridiculously easy it is for disease to spread there, I was really glad I did.  Some of the folks I was with were afraid of even shaking hands with the poor people in some of the villages because disease was so rampant... I shook hands and hugged little kids, but have to admit that after we left I washed up with hand sanitizer.  I never got sick.  Those who got far more vaccines than I did, and who were cautious to the point of OCD about what they ate there, all did get sick.  I ate what was offered to me without any problems at all... though in general I tried to stay away from raw vegetables and fruits unless I saw them prepared.  However, there were a few instances where our hosts would have been offended if we didn't take the food offered, and their English wasn't good enough for them to understand why the others didn't accept the food, so I ate and made them happy.  Thankfully, with no ill effects.

[Homegrown_Tomatoes]

Sadly, I think parents face more and more loss of authority in many realms... We were going to host an exchange student this fall, and we'd gone through 8 months of home studies, background checks, tons of paperwork, interviews, etc.  Well, we got a student assigned and the only step was to get her into the local school system.  We sent our paperwork into the school, and waited and waited.  Then when I finally got a hold of the principal, he said that they were denying our student admission because our kids were too young, and since the student wouldn't have a sibling also in the school, they wouldn't be able to make friends, and of course, we couldn't be good parents to a teen because our kids were too young.  So, I went to the super and tried another route to get our exchange student enrolled, and he also said that our student wouldn't have friends because she didn't have a host sibling in the same family.  I said, "Oh, I'm sorry... I thought your goal was to EDUCATE students, not to make friends for them!"   He hatefully told me to wait ten years and then we could host a student when our kids were in his school.  So, I replied, "So what you're saying is that if in ten years I am still homeschooling my kids, don't even bother trying to enroll a student in your school?"  Then he just went off on me and said, "Well, now that I know you're homeschooling, absolutely no!!!  If you think your own kids are too good for the public school system, why would you enroll a foreign kid in school?  No, they would be even more isolated and unsocialized if you are homeschooling!"  (Give me a break!!! My kids are only 4 and 3, not even legally school age!!!!!)  I began to fire off questions for him... what if I had a foster child who was in high school, but my own kids were still pre-school age?  What if I had an only child (without siblings enrolled in the same school?)  What if we took custody of a relative's child from Korea and tried to enroll them in public school?   Would he enroll them then?  I informed him that because of the No Child Left Behind Act, he couldn't legally deny access to a student who was in the country legally, whether they would make friends or not, but that after discussing it all with him, he didn't have to worry about litigation because I wouldn't send a cat I liked to his school.  I also informed him that he never had to worry about having to deal with my unsocialized homeschool kids because they will never attend his school.

[Sassy]

Way to go!  Bet he'd never had anyone speak so honestly with him before    What a jerk  

[Homegrown_Tomatoes]

It was funny after the fact, but during the conversation it was all I could do to keep my voice at an even keel... of course, I was polite, but straight.  When I got off the phone, I was shaking so hard that I could hardly dial the number for the exchange program to tell the coordinator about what had happened... she ended up basically black-listing the school and saying that they would not send students from their program to that school district.  I wrote letters to the state secretary of education (they have a different name for it in WI, but I forget what it is...) and actually got a reply which basically said, "Yes, you're right, and you have a right to homeschool your own kids without facing discrimination, but basically we  dion't have the guts to go against the school administration."  I wrote them back again and never got another reply, but I pointed out that I pay taxes in this district (exorbitant ones, IMO) and that if they would do nothing, I'd contact the local school board and demand a change of administrators.  

[glenn-k]

Fighting evil with all of her might, Wonder Tomato.

You are my hero, Homegrown.  Tell those *&^%$%$'s off.  

As I mentioned before-- they had a cop with his hand on his gun at the last parent teachers conference I went to - I was really impressed and intimidated at the same time -- nearly wet my pants.  Not.

[Homegrown_Tomatoes]

Wonder Tomato?  I like that... now all I need is a costume and a cape... and of course a small mask that only covers my eyes but magically makes me unidentifiable as a superhero when I'm not wearing it... and right now, I've kind of got the build for it.  Is that a bird, is it a plane?  No!  It's a pregnant woman in a flying tomato costume!  

[glenn-k]

Ahhh, Sexy.

[Homegrown_Tomatoes]

Think I'll get t-shirts and action figures made up.

[glenn-k]

Order an extra for me - I'll send you a check and wear it with pride.

Wonder Tomato.  Searching out abusive officials on power trips wherever she can ketchup with them. :-/

[Homegrown_Tomatoes]

 ::)groan    that was really bad!

[glenn-k]

I tried to do better but it just wasn't working out. :-/

[Sassy]

Vaccines Found to Cause Diabetes in Children
(NaturalNews) "Two new studies showing that vaccines increase the risk of diabetes have been published in the Open Pediatric Medicine Journal.

In a prior study, published in the journal Autoimmunity, Dr. J. Bartholomew Classen of Classen Immunotherapies and David Carey Classen of the University of Utah compared more than 100,000 children who had received between one and four doses of the hemophilus vaccine with more than 100,000 unvaccinated children. The Classens found that after seven years, children in the vaccination group had a 26 percent higher risk of developing diabetes than children in the non-vaccine group. This amounted to an extra 54 cases of diabetes per 100,000 children vaccinated.

The Classens noted that the vaccine itself is only projected to prevent seven deaths and seven to 26 cases of permanent disability per 100,000 children."   con't at link
http://www.naturalnews.com/023902.html