The Briefing Room
General Category => Health/Education => Topic started by: rangerrebew on August 27, 2015, 08:59:50 am
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California home school interest surges as parents look to sidestep vaccine law
Home schooling in the US is steadily increasing and out west there’s now the added allure of being exempt from a law mandating vaccines for schoolkids
In the US, about 3% of kids between ages five and 17 were home schooled in the 2011-2012 school year. Photograph: Wade Payne/AP
Anita Chabria in Sacramento
Wednesday 26 August 2015 08.30 EDT
Last modified on Wednesday 26 August 2015 10.27 EDT
With the passage of a new law this summer mandating vaccines for schoolkids in California, home school advocates and organizations say they are seeing surging interest in off-campus education options that would exempt them from the requirement.
“The word on the streets is that, yes, people are coming to home schooling,” said Sarah Ford, membership director for Sonoma County Homeschoolers Nonprofit in northern California.
The controversial mandate, co-authored by state Senator Richard Pan, a pediatrician backed by the California Medical Association, requires any student in public or private school to have 10 vaccinations as an attendance requirement, with some exceptions for medical conditions.
En route to passage, the proposal sparked scathing controversy on both sides of the issue, with opponents (wearing red to symbolize children who have been harmed by vaccines and often with their own kids in tow) regularly flooding hearings at the state capitol to protest.
Pan even received death threats over the measure, and in the wake of its passage is facing both a recall effort and a statewide referendum to repeal the law. But barring any repeal, the law will go into effect at the start of the next school year.
Lyn Elliott, a mother of a 20-month-old girl, says she is taking a serious look at home schooling because of the law. While her daughter Rebel is “mostly vaccinated”, there are certain shots she feels are unnecessary “and that I feel have risks”.
Next summer she will have to face the choice of giving vaccinations she does not want, or lose access to daycare – where some of the vaccine requirements will also apply. A single parent after her husband died in a motorcycle accident, she says home schooling could mean a critical drop in her income, but it’s a move she feels compelled to make.
“For myself and my personal situation, school was something I was somewhat looking forward to,” she says. “I think it would actually be more beneficial for (Rebel) to be in public school but I am not willing to take that risk or let them make that decision for me just to make my life easier.”
Nicole Arango, a 34-year-old mother of two, said she faced a similar choice and decided to move forward with home schooling now.
She recently moved from Oxnard, California, to Simi Valley with her son, Ryan, 13, and daughter, Juliet, 6. Because Ryan had an adverse vaccine reaction when he was young, Arango has chosen not to vaccinate further. Rather than put them in school in their new town for a year and have to pull them out when the law goes into effect, she is beginning home schooling this fall.
“I was already kind of on the fence about home schooling anyway but the vaccine law really pushed me over because that’s not something I’m going to have shoved down my throat,” she said. “I feel like I have no other alternative.”
Elliott and Arango are likely just the beginning of a wave of parents looking for options as the deadline moves closer. The law, one of the strictest in the country, eliminated both personal belief and religious exemptions to vaccinations, closing opt-out possibilities for the majority of vaccine-averse parents aside from home school.
Teresa Fitzpatrick, president of Anaheim-based California Homeschool Network, said her organization has also seen a mild increase in calls and questions about vaccinations, but since the requirements for shots do not go into effect until next fall, “we are probably going to see a bigger increase then”.
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“Home schooling is definitely seeing a bump, absolutely,” seconded Corin Goodwin, CEO and executive director of Gifted Homeschoolers Forum (GHF), a resource site for homeschooling parents.
Far from being a few fringe families, home schooling in the US now has a myriad of both nonprofit and for-profit support networks and curriculum possibilities that service about 1.77 million students – a number that has been steadily increasing for years, according to the National Center for Education Statistics. Nationally, about 3% of kids between ages five and 17 were home schooled in the 2011-2012 school year.
California has one of the largest populations of home-schooled children, with about 177,000 in some form of homeschooling, according to estimates by home-schooling expert Anne Zeise, who runs the website a2zhomeschooling.com.
But few reliable statistics are available for the number of students in California who attend home school because the term applies to different options.
Home school can mean a parent who files the proper paperwork is personally handling a child’s education, or it can mean that the child has a private tutor. It can also apply to kids utilizing private or public charter school programs that offer a home-study option – but those students are often officially counted as part of the traditional school system.
Diane Flynn Keith, who runs home-school information seminars in the San Francisco bay area, said her three-hour sessions have been filling to capacity since the law passed. Her most recent seminar earlier in August drew a sold-out crowd of 40, when normally she would expect about 25.
“At least 10 of the people there asked me specifically about vaccinations,” she said. That demand has led her to add more events in the coming months.
Goodwin added that her organization has also fielded more inquiries from programs and vendors that are interested in doing business or expanding in the state.
“We are hearing a lot more from the charter programs,” she said.
Keith cautions parents that home schooling “is not easy” and those seeking a way out of vaccinations represent a “whole new group that are sort of being forced into it”.
“You may have people that are sort of doing it more out of fear than anything else, they have no choice,” said Fitzpatrick. “If it’s not done because they believe in the philosophy of home schooling and they want the experience of home schooling, then it’s going to be harder for them. And I think it could be more of a struggle for the children too.”
http://www.theguardian.com/education/2015/aug/26/california-home-school-vaccine-law
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Vaccination may enter into the equation but I believe the major part of the equation is the lousy school system of Mejifornia.
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Vaccination may enter into the equation but I believe the major part of the equation is the lousy school system of Mejifornia.
I would choose to homeschool to avoid leftist government indoctrination, not vaccine innoculation.
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I would want to know what the 10 vaccines are before I "pass judgement".
CA is notorious for extremes so I am suspicious of the requirement.
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Government certainly will go to extremes to force people to do things they don't want to do...
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Avoiding vaccinations is a very anti-social thing to do. Anyone who thinks otherwise should go back to the "good old days" before the polio vaccine; enjoy the quarantines and outbreaks.
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Avoiding vaccinations is a very anti-social thing to do. Anyone who thinks otherwise should go back to the "good old days" before the polio vaccine; enjoy the quarantines and outbreaks.
Feel free to get vaccinated as many times as you think necessary to guarantee your own protection...
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Avoiding vaccinations is a very anti-social thing to do. Anyone who thinks otherwise should go back to the "good old days" before the polio vaccine; enjoy the quarantines and outbreaks.
So you are suggesting that if the government says it knows better and you must do it, no matter what "it" is that you comply?
If we are talking about the MMR/Polio/etc, the "normal" vaccines, then yes, but that is only about 5 or 6, what are the others?
California responds readily to marketing and the pharmaceuticals like to spend tons of marketing CA to sell their new inventions, proven or not.
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Avoiding vaccinations is a very anti-social thing to do. Anyone who thinks otherwise should go back to the "good old days" before the polio vaccine; enjoy the quarantines and outbreaks.
I'm so glad I didn't get polio. One of my law professors experienced it as a child, and no one envied his crutches and useless legs.
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I'm so glad I didn't get polio. One of my law professors experienced it as a child, and no one envied his crutches and useless legs.
I'm glad that the pharmaceutical companies are shielded from lawsuits from the parents of children who die or are severely injured by vaccines...
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Vaccination may enter into the equation but I believe the major part of the equation is the lousy school system of Mejifornia.
Yeah, except 14 out of the top 25 public elementary schools, is in California. And absolutely none are in the Southern Bible belt of red states.
https://k12.niche.com/rankings/public-elementary-schools/best-overall/
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I'm glad that the pharmaceutical companies are shielded from lawsuits from the parents of children who die or are severely injured by vaccines...
I'm glad the polio vaccine saved me from getting it, your non sequitur notwithstanding.
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I'm glad that the pharmaceutical companies are shielded from lawsuits from the parents of children who die or are severely injured by vaccines...
How many does that constitute?
What is the percent of the total?
What is the screening procedure, to avoid vaccinating a child with problems?
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I'm glad the polio vaccine saved me from getting it, your non sequitur notwithstanding.
That's no non sequitur. Children and infants are suffering and dying from vaccines and the pharmaceutical companies are shielded by law.
You don't know that the polio vaccine saved you, you believe it did. Everyone who wasn't vaccinated didn't get polio. That's the real non sequitur. Polio was on the decline anyway before the vaccine came out.
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Okey dokey, then. :thud:
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Okey dokey, then. :thud:
The dismissive attitude is amazing.
I remember as a kid when polio vaccine came along. A kid down the street from me was on crutches from polio. It was like a huge relief all across our nation, because we improved people's lives immensely. A few saved, but everybody relieved to no longer be in fear over polio.
Likewise diphtheria, which killed 3 of my grandfather's siblings in the 1890s. Two in one week.
When I was drafted and served, obviously everybody got many vaccine shots. I don't recall any objections, or "injuries" or diseases from vaccines. That is from hundreds in units I served in.
I can get no statement of specifics from vaccine objectors. Just bs. I didn't come from a family of ignorant people. My grandmother had a masters in biology and taught college, and my mother had a bachelors in chemistry. IOW I was reared with a scientific mindset ever-present.
http://www.voicesforvaccines.org/vaccine-injury-stories-the-sacred-cows-of-the-internet/
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Exactly my point, T_S. Vaccines have saved a lot of people. Have they harmed some people? I don't know. Still waiting for the evidence.
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I would choose to homeschool to avoid leftist government indoctrination, not vaccine innoculation.
Ditto that. In addition, all my children got all their immunizations because their mother was an RN and wouldn't have it any other way.
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The list of vaccines required by the state of California to attend school.
Note the Hep B shot.
Students Admitted at Ages 4-6 years Need These Immunizations:
Diphtheria,Tetanus, and Pertussis (DTaP, DTP, or DT) —5 doses
(4 doses OK if one was given on or after 4th birthday)
Polio (OPV or IPV)—4 doses
(3 doses OK if one was given on or after 4th birthday)
Hepatitis B—3 doses
Measles, Mumps, and Rubella (MMR)—2 doses
(Both given on or after 1st birthday)
Varicella (Chickenpox)—1 dose
Parents must show their child's Immunization Record as proof of immunization. These immunization requirements also apply to students entering transitional kindergarten.
Students Admitted at Ages 7-17 Years Need These Immunizations:
Diphtheria,Tetanus, and Pertussis (DTaP, DTP, DT, Tdap, or Td)—3 doses
(4 doses required if last one was given before 2nd birthday)
Polio (OPV or IPV)—4 doses
(3 doses OK if one was given on or after 2nd birthday)
Measles, Mumps, and Rubella (MMR)—1 dose
(2 doses required at 7th grade)
Varicella (chickenpox)
(Admission at ages 7-12 years need 1 dose; ages 13-17 years need 2 doses)
Tetanus, Diphtheria,and Pertussis (Tdap) —1 dose at 7th grade or out-of-state transfer admission at 8th–12th grades
(1 dose on or after the 7th birthday)
http://www.shotsforschool.org/k-12/
Risks of the Hep B vaccine
Hepatitis B Vaccine May Be Linked to MS
Findings of Threefold Increased Risk Contradict Most Previous Research
Now a new study in the Sept. 14 issue of the journal Neurology offers the some of the strongest evidence supporting the link.
In the study, researchers report that vaccination with the recombinant hepatitis B vaccine is associated with a threefold increased risk of multiple sclerosis.
http://www.webmd.com/multiple-sclerosis/news/20040913/hepatitis-b-vaccine-may-be-linked-to-ms
Where you get HEP B
What Increases Your Risk
People who have certain behaviors or certain jobs are at high risk for becoming infected with hepatitis B.
Job risk factors include:
Handling blood or body fluids as a routine part of your job. This includes health care workers, such as doctors, dentists, nurses, and blood and lab technicians, and students in these jobs. It also includes morticians and embalmers.
Being an employee or resident of an institution for people who have developmental disabilities.
Being an employee or inmate of a prison.
Lifestyle risk factors include:
Being born in, or spending more than 6 months in, parts of the world where hepatitis B is common or where a large number of people have been infected for a long time. Such areas include Southeast and Central Asia, the islands of the South Pacific, the Amazon River basin, the Middle East, Africa, Eastern Europe, and China.
Being a man who has sex with men.
Being sexually active. This includes having unprotected sex with someone who is infected with the virus or whose sexual history is unknown to you.
Having more than one sex partner. (Your risk is higher if you have another sexually transmitted infection such as chlamydia.)
Living with someone who has a chronic hepatitis B infection.
Getting body piercings or tattoos from someone who doesn't sterilize his or her equipment.
Sharing needles or other equipment (such as cotton, spoons, and water) to inject illegal drugs.
http://www.webmd.com/hepatitis/hepb-guide/hepatitis-b-what-increases-your-risk
Now, why does a 4 year old need a HEP B vaccine, especially given the risk of MS?
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The dismissive attitude is amazing.
I remember as a kid when polio vaccine came along. A kid down the street from me was on crutches from polio. It was like a huge relief all across our nation, because we improved people's lives immensely. A few saved, but everybody relieved to no longer be in fear over polio.
Likewise diphtheria, which killed 3 of my grandfather's siblings in the 1890s. Two in one week.
When I was drafted and served, obviously everybody got many vaccine shots. I don't recall any objections, or "injuries" or diseases from vaccines. That is from hundreds in units I served in.
I can get no statement of specifics from vaccine objectors. Just bs. I didn't come from a family of ignorant people. My grandmother had a masters in biology and taught college, and my mother had a bachelors in chemistry. IOW I was reared with a scientific mindset ever-present.
http://www.voicesforvaccines.org/vaccine-injury-stories-the-sacred-cows-of-the-internet/
Exactly. By the Grace of God I was born in the age of vaccinations, so I know about the scourge of polio only from history, but from what I've read it was scary. I did, however, travel overseas as a kid because my parents were foreign service officers. We lived in a number of third world/developing world countries, and I did see some of the consequences of not having vaccinations, and am very grateful that I received vaccinations. And even then, I still managed to contract hepatitis A, as well as typhoid fever and viral meningitis at the same time.
Basic public health is a traditional exercise of the general police power every sovereign possesses, and requiring basic vaccination has very obvious benefits, provided one has informed one's self about what happens in a world without vaccinations.
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The list of vaccines required by the state of California to attend school.
Note the Hep B shot.
Risks of the Hep B vaccine
Where you get HEP B
Now, why does a 4 year old need a HEP B vaccine, especially given the risk of MS?
(a) you do realize that the article you cited to is from 2004, do you not? That's a rather stale source.
(b) generally speaking, the best time to give vaccinations is well before you are likely to be exposed to the disease being vaccinated against. In particular, several of the vaccinations do not provide complete protection until after several different inoculations; it becomes imperative, therefore, to start the inoculations long before the likely risks of contagion.
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Exactly my point, T_S. Vaccines have saved a lot of people. Have they harmed some people? I don't know. Still waiting for the evidence.
Isn't the fact that pharmaceutical companies are shielded from vaccine-related lawsuits 'evidence'.
Do you think they would need that protection if vaccines didn't harm some people?
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(a) you do realize that the article you cited to is from 2004, do you not? That's a rather stale source.
OTOH, it could mean that the truth has been known since 2004 and has been consistently ignored since then...
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Exactly my point, T_S. Vaccines have saved a lot of people. Have they harmed some people? I don't know. Still waiting for the evidence.
Still waiting for specifics regarding known harm to people from vaccines. Science, and not 'round and round' words.
A certain percent of people are "harmed" in autos, planes, even walking. We tend to accept statistics, and make judgments based on situations whereby harm is very low. So why can't we see this, from the vaccine avoidance crowd?
Do such people not go outside, for fear or risk of some harm?
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Still waiting for specifics regarding known harm to people from vaccines. Science, and not 'round and round' words.
Did you read the articles I linked to?
A certain percent of people are "harmed" in autos, planes, even walking. We tend to accept statistics, and make judgments based on situations whereby harm is very low. So why can't we see this, from the vaccine avoidance crowd?
Did you read the articles I linked to?
Do such people not go outside, for fear or risk of some harm?
Your the one talking about fear.
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Did you read the articles I linked to?
Did you read the articles I linked to?
Your the one talking about fear.
One inconclusive 11 year old study, about Hep B and MS is hardly an indictment of the entire vaccine process.
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Purely anecdotal but when I was in basic (Army) we would be sent single file through a Quonset hut and injected on both the left and right arms as we moved along like on a human assembly line. I imagine I got shot for everything, though for some reason we weren't told what we were getting, including something for a fever specific to Korea where I wound up stationed.
I seem to have made it through ok.
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One inconclusive 11 year old study, about Hep B and MS is hardly an indictment of the entire vaccine process.
Did I ever "indict" the entire vaccine process?
My point is that parents must have a say in what vaccines their kids get.
The parents are the ones that will have to deal with the risk and consequences of the shots.
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Did I ever "indict" the entire vaccine process?
My point is that parents must have a say in what vaccines their kids get.
The parents are the ones that will have to deal with the risk and consequences of the shots.
And in the past parents were intelligent enough, to not fall for some conspiracy theory quackery.
The idea of NOT vaccinating one's children is one example of how our society is regressing.
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One inconclusive 11 year old study, about Hep B and MS is hardly an indictment of the entire vaccine process.
Did I ever "indict" the entire vaccine process?
My point is that parents must have a say in what vaccines their kids get.
The parents are the ones that will have to deal with the risk and consequences of the shots.
(http://i1310.photobucket.com/albums/s658/GourmetDan/dt_c110603_zpsbp0kpz2r.gif)
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(http://i1310.photobucket.com/albums/s658/GourmetDan/tyrannies_zpse39391e3.jpg)
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271 New Vaccines in Big Pharma’s Pipeline (http://www.earth-heal.com/news/news/29-depopulation/2339-271-new-vaccines-in-big-pharma-s-pipeline.html)
""No vaccine manufacturer shall be liable...for damages arising from a vaccine-related injury or death." – President Ronald Wilson Reagan, as he signed The National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act (NCVIA) of 1986, absolving drug companies from all medico-legal liability when children die, become chronically ill with vaccine-induced autoimmune disorders or are otherwise disabled from vaccine injuries. (That law has led directly to an expected reckless, liability-free development of scores of new, over-priced, potential block-buster vaccines, now numbering over 250. The question that must be asked of Big Medicine's practitioners: How will the CDC, the AMA, the AAFP and the American Academy of Pediatrics fit any more potentially neurotoxic vaccines into the current well-baby over-vaccination schedule?)"
"For parents whose infants' brains and bodies are immunologically and developmentally immature, be aware that your children may be forced to suffer untested-for and therefore unacknowledged long term neurological, autoimmune and chronic illness adverse effects. Parents need to be aware that if their infant dies, is sickened or is made chronically ill by vaccine ingredients, they, as protective parents, will be forbidden to sue the guilty drug company (or the doctor that administered them) for appropriate damages."
"Parents and grandparents of children need to be aware of the fact that many of these new vaccines will be containing contaminants (such as unfilterable viral particles, bacterial particles, monkey kidney cell fragments, human fetal cells, squalene (in anthrax and some experimental swine flu vaccines), peanut oil (a likely cause of the epidemic of peanut allergies), formaldehyde and even foreign DNA fragments) as well as known neurotoxic additives such as formaldehyde and aluminum (and perhaps even mercury), all of which are known genetic toxins and known causes of (sometimes subtle and sometimes not-so-subtle - but always preventable) brain damage, vaccine-induced epilepsy, autoimmune disorders, the so-called, but erroneously labeled "shaken baby syndrome" (now increasingly understood to represent a vaccine-induced encephalitis), SIDS (sudden infant death syndrome), dementia, autism spectrum disorders, mitochondrial toxicity, damage to the brain's microglial and astroglial cells (the brain's immune system), etc."
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I'm not entirely opposed to making an unvaccinated child wear a sign when in public:
"I am unvaccinated against any disease. Approach me at your own risk."
And give their parents their own sign saying "STUPID."
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I'm not entirely opposed to making an unvaccinated child wear a sign when in public:
"I am unvaccinated against any disease. Approach me at your own risk."
And give their parents their own sign saying "STUPID."
I'm not sure I'd want to stigmatize the child - s/he isn't to blame, after all - but I'd definitely pin something far more severe than "STUPID" on the parents.
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The vaccine deniers exhibit lack of understanding of principles of public health science, and probability.
Most common causes of death:
http://danger.mongabay.com/injury_odds.htm
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I'm not entirely opposed to making an unvaccinated child wear a sign when in public:
"I am unvaccinated against any disease. Approach me at your own risk."
Be sure to add... "Because the vaccination you took was probably ineffective."