Maryland Threatens Truancy for Unvaccinated Kids

"[Maryland] Officials say they are working with the health department to make sure the remaining students are vaccinated so they may return to school. "If they stay out of school for too many days, it becomes an issue of truancy," Mowen said. Officials have said they might use the court system to encourage parents to get their children vaccinated. Hanlin said before that option is explored officials are "trying to find out what the road blocks are" to being vaccinated." - by Erin Cunningham, The Hagerstown Morning Herald, Maryland, January 23, 2007, Deadline for Vaccinations Passes; School Closed To Some

Barbara Loe Fisher Commentary:

If you want to take a peek at what the future holds for those parents, who do not comply with federal health policies turned into state laws that require children to be injected with dozens of vaccines or be denied an education, just look at the recent strong arm tactics being used in Maryland. For failure to get chickenpox and/or hepatitis B vaccinations, state health and education officials have teamed up to use coercion and intimidation to force vaccination with the threat that the pre-teens will be barred from school and then they and their parents charged with truancy for disobeying state vaccine laws.

Economic and social barriers to vaccine access, which can include inadequate information or limited access to public health clinics, are sometimes factors when students have not received all state mandated vaccines. However, other factors may include (1) personal or family history of adverse reactions to vaccinations; (2) illness at the time of vaccination; (3) personal or family history of immune or neurological disease, which may place the child at increased risk for a vaccine adverse responses; (4) religious or conscientious belief objection to vaccination; or (5) wholistic health care preferences within the family that do not include vaccination.

How many of the children and their parents being hunted down in Maryland by needle wielding state officials are at high risk for suffering vaccine reactions? How many of these children being rounded up and given multiple vaccinations will suffer shock, convulsions, arthritis, asthma, GBS or other signs of vaccine-induced brain and immune system dysfunction shortly after vaccination? How many of these adverse responses to vaccination will be written off as a "coincidence" by health and school officials refusing to take responsibility for what they have done? And how many of the healthy partially or completely unvaccinated children come from families, whose parents have chosen to keep their children healthy with preventive health strategies that do not include drug and vaccine use?

Although citizens should have unimpeded access to vaccines they choose to us, they should also have the freedom to choose preventive health care alternatives to vaccines. Americans living in every state should look to their own vaccine laws and consider the following: If the state can tag, track down and force citizens against their will to be injected with biologicals of unknown toxicity today, will there be any limit on what individual freedoms the state can take away in the name of the greater good tomorrow?

Maryland officials are forcing hepatitis B and chickenpox vaccinations today. How many more will they be forcing on kids tomorrow?

No forced vaccination. Not in America.