January 2008

Parents told: vaccinate kids or go to jail

Maryland parents whose children are enrolled in the Prince George's County Public School were told this November that, thanks to the County's new get‑tough policy on vaccination, they 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.

Sounding to many somewhat like a B‑grade movie crime boss, Prince George's State's Attorney Glenn F. Ivey announced at a news conference: "We can do this the easy way or the hard way," adding "I'm willing to move forward with legal action."

The threat came after the school was unable to force parents of its 131,000 students to subject their children to chicken pox and hepatitis B vaccines. More than 2,300 students have already been suspended from school for failure to comply with county regulations.

Based on statements from school and country officials, news media repeatedly stated that the vaccines were mandated by the state, but that information was erroneous. Maryland state law allows for exemptions for medical or religious reasons, but officials never provided this information to parents, many of whom protested the strong‑arm tactics.

The actions were apparently meant to intimidate parents into complying even if they had strong reasons not to have their children vaccinated.

In a piece for the Christian Science Monitor ("One Maryland county takes tough tack on vaccinations," November 19, 2007) Staff Reporter Gail Russell Chaddock included a quote from one beleaguered and frightened parent. "I've got too many children to raise to go to jail," said Remy Durham, who cares for her nephew as well as her own seven children, the article noted.

After news of the "vaccinate or jail" ultimatum received widespread attention from media around the world, county and school officials tried to backtrack a bit to save face.

"It's about getting kids back in school, not to put parents in jail," Ivey stated in a telephone interview with reporter Chaddock.

Barbara Loe Fisher, founder and president of the National Vaccine Information Center (NVIC) immediately stepped forward to protest the actions.

"I watched them bundled up against the cold winter air ... with their children and the letter from the State of Maryland threatening them with imprisonment or fines of $50 a day for failing to show proof their children had gotten a chickenpox or hepatitis B shot," she wrote in her online blog (www.vaccineawakening.blogspot.com). "Confused, angry or scared but mostly resigned, they were working mothers and fathers trudging toward the courthouse to face the Judge ordering them to get vaccinated or go to jail. Patrolling the scene was a SWAT team of policemen with dogs."

According to Ms. Fisher, reporters were kept behind barricades and denied access to the building, as were patient freedom advocates such as attorney Jim Moody, autism activist Kelli Ann Davis, Charles Frohman of the American Association of Physicians and Surgeons, other members of the general public and several mothers with children who developed autism after vaccination.

"I listened to or spoke with several mothers leaving the building with their children and learned the sad truth about what was happening behind the closely guarded, closed doors of the Courthouse," Fisher stated. "The parents were not being asked questions about their child's medical history or whether the children had experienced health problems after previous vaccinations. The parents were not being given information about vaccine side effects or how to monitor their children for signs of vaccine reactions. They were not given forms for religious and medical exemptions to vaccination allowed in Maryland."

Fisher's son, Chris, who suffered a serious reaction to a fourth DPT shot in 1980, accompanied her to Maryland, carrying a camera. The blog entry for Nov. 19 told how Chris set up his camera as his mother talked with some of the parents. They were several hundred yards from the front of the Courthouse door, about 12 inches inside a row of large cement balls apparently erected as a barrier to prevent terrorist attacks.

"I did not know I wasn't supposed to be talking with this Mom inside the barrier. She was telling me about how she wasn't given any information about vaccines before her children were injected with three vaccines," the NVIC president related. "All of a sudden, out of the corner of my eye I saw an armed guard with a dog emerge from the Courthouse and walk toward us. I got a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach. It was the dread that any citizen of any country in any century has ever felt when an armed guard with a dog starts advancing. As if we were common criminals or terrorists, he yelled and gestured to us to move behind the stones. We moved without a word. And the sick feeling in the pit of my stomach told me we were being shown the power of the State wielded by that armed guard with the dog, just as parents inside the Courthouse were being shown the power of the State wielded by doctors with syringes."

Fisher closed the blog entry with an appeal for all people to fight against laws forcing parents to subject their children to vaccines against their will.

"Limiting the power of the State to force vaccination is all that stands between the people and tyranny," she stated, and added, "I still wonder how many of those children, who were injected with multiple vaccines in the Courthouse, are having vaccine reactions today. Their parents, many of whom are uninformed about how to recognize vaccine reactions, will never know what happened to their children if they regress into chronic poor health after the shots they were forced to get on Saturday."