Wednesday, July 11, 2007

CA Attempting to "Back Door" Gardasil Approval?

The California state legislature appears to be preparing to do an end run around parental opposition to requiring the STD vaccine Gardasil for 12-year-olds attending public school.

A proposed bill would take approval of vaccine requirements out of the hands of the legislature and turn the job over to the California Department of Public Health. It would be much more difficult for California's parents to impact vaccination mandates from a non-elected agency.

As Karen England of Capitol Resource Institute is quoted, "It turns the power over to public health officials with no recourse for the people to be heard."

Dan Walters of the Sacramento Bee writes that the bill is "clearly a response to the nationwide drive by Merck & Co. to mandate its vaccine that purports to guard against cervical cancer caused by a sexually transmitted virus... AB 16 originally would have added Gardasil to the list of required vaccines. But in response to the controversy over Merck's drive, it was amended to take the sneakier approach. It's a classic example of political myopia, because serious medical questions have been raised about the efficacy and safety of Gardasil, including a recent article in the New England Journal of Medicine urging caution in widespread use."

More from WorldNetDaily.

2 Comments:

Blogger Drama Bee said...

What many CA parents do not know is that you can fill out a waiver and opt out of vaccinations.

This allows the school to keep your child home if there is an outbreak. Something which will not happen with this issue.

11:08 AM  
Blogger Laura said...

You're absolutely correct about the waiver...the objection to Gardasil is in part because it forces parents to pro-actively reclaim their rights by filing a waiver or letter with the district in order to avoid the Gardasil vaccination. Another concern would be if the vaccinations were to be offered directly through school health programs, rather than parents consulting with their own doctors and showing schools the immunization card; in my district it's been difficult to impossible for parents to obtain advance notice of school medical examinations such as scoliosis and blood pressure exams. The school just does them without prior notification.

In my view, this should be a parental decision issue from the outset, rather than a mandate by the government which parents then must work to avoid.

Thanks for your post! Best wishes,
Laura

11:28 AM  

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