Mississippi has long had high childhood immunization rates, but a federal judge has ordered the state to allow parents to opt out on religious grounds.
For more than 40 years, Mississippi had one of the strictest school vaccination requirements in the nation, and its high childhood immunization rates have been a source of pride. But in July, the state began excusing children from vaccination if their parents cited religious objections, after a federal judge sided with a “medical freedom” group.
Today, 2,100 Mississippi schoolchildren are officially exempt from vaccination on religious grounds. Five hundred more are exempt because their health precludes vaccination. Dr. Daniel P. Edney, the state health officer, warns that if the total number of exemptions climbs above 3,000, Mississippi will once again face the risk of deadly diseases that are now just a memory.
“For the last 40 years, our main goal has been to protect those children at highest risk of measles, mumps, rubella, polio,” Dr. Edney said in an interview, “and that’s those children that have chronic illnesses that make them more vulnerable.” He called the ruling “a very bitter pill for me to swallow.”
Mississippi is not an isolated case. Buoyed by their success at overturning coronavirus mandates, medical and religious freedom groups are taking aim at a new target: childhood school vaccine mandates, long considered the foundation of the nation’s defense against infectious disease.
When someone says "I'm not against all vaccines, just the ones for COVID", he is usually lying. In time this "skepticism" will slide into being against even the common vaccines and it can be seen now. My favorite blog Respectful Insolence had a good post about the so-called "medical freedom":
"Health freedom” and “medical freedom” have become a rallying cry for libertarians, far right wingers, and even outright fascists. Indeed, the Republican Party has become a bastion of antivaccine and anti-public health hostility, a process that actually predates the pandemic by at least several years. “Health freedom” and “medical freedom” have always been code words for dismantling public health infrastructure, anything resembling a vaccine mandate (even in schools), and dismantling the FDA.
Parents with autoimmune children will teach their children to take more precautions in life but with a stronger sense of love.
Republican Parents will kill their children and their bloodline.
If Republicans are so hellbent on Killing Children let's at least look at the bright side and note it'll only last a generation or two.
Parahprasing greatly here, but in her recent book, Naomi Klein pointed out that most Americans are pilled as fuck on neoliberalism, and because the pandemic is a naturally occurring and obvious contradiction to its fundamental tenets (individualism, meritocracy, competiton, etc.), the only way to square that circle was to go insane.
I find that framework very useful. These so called activists are pilled as hell on this fundamentally individualist concept of freedom that inundates us Americans from birth. It's an almost entirely empty conception of freedom. Basically, we can say whatever we want while owning guns and generally being selfish. No one is entitled to be free of childhood disease though. That's not freedom because it encroaches on others being selfish. If you genuinely believe in individual liberty above all, as Americans are taught from birth, then childhood vaccinations are wrong.
Unfortunately it's a really fucking stupid way to run a society.
I was on one of the vaccine trials. Had a cab driver on the way back from one of my checkups go on a COVID rant. It was awkward after I told him why I was there. Lmao. I'd do it again, felt great being protected asap, plus money.
The first concept of vaccination was invented in 1796. It was an unknown idea before this. Which religion has an opinion on this and how exactly does that work when there was no concept of the thing in question when any of these religions were formed? It's such utter bullshit on its face. There's no grounds for this. It's made up crap on top of made up crap, as a grounds to shirk a simple procedure that saves lives.
But, also, this headline is dumb. Religious medical freedom advocates have been about this for ages. The only thing new is they got one dumb judge to make a bad ruling.
God, I miss the 70s when everyone got their shots at school and anyone who ran out of line was called a pussy and was dragged back to get their shots so they didn't kill grandparents and babies.
When did we become so weak and scared? These idiots are gonna be the ones that bring back polio and measles.
Hey, fundamentalist smoothbrains, since "thinking" isn't something you all like to do all that often, let me translate your pseudo biblical gibberish into plain English:
"I'd rather have some young person who had to fight for their life already loose that fight than allow my healthy child to get a little pinch and feel kind of down for three days"
"I'd rather have another parent stand at the grave of their little joy than allow my child to have a little ouchie on an arm"
"I'd rather cite Christianity as the reason why I act in a way Jesus would have turned away in disgust from than be a Christian and care for the most defenseless, helpless in our society this one little bit"
We may not see many repercussions from this now, but when the unvaccinated grow up and the viruses have had a generation's worth of time to spread - just wait till a pregnant woman gets mumps and has a profoundly deaf baby. Or their toddler gets polio and ends up spending potentially years in a hospital, only to be released with lifetime disabilities. I know 2 people with polio, and one who is deaf due their mother having mumps (pre-vaccine days). Their lives, and the lives of their families, was/is hard. I wonder what grandma and grampa, safely vaccinated, will say when their grandkids start falling ill.
I luckily (for many reasons) don't live in MS, but what if I don't want to subject my kid to a miasma of germs from these plague rats? Where's my freedom?
COVID regulations and handling did not help, at least from what social and regular media made it out to be.
Some things to consider that I hear from people that are vaccinated but have became more criticial after COVID:
It made many question the scientists working for these big pharma companies, where profit always comes first.
While the people (as in 'we the people') pay for the research/loss and the companies take the profits, while having full immunity.
Scientists can also be like politicians, saying what they think people want to hear, without addressing the serious concerns people have; lying and moving goalposts does not help.
Many on the left used to be more sceptical of what gov't, 3 letter agancies, and media had to say; now known as classic liberals.