Submitted by Daniel Ameduri (aka The Dissident Dad) via Mike Krieger's Liberty Blitzkrieg blog [4],
Across these United States, a fierce vaccination debate has started to flare up, and straw-man arguments are being paraded around as the truth. Governor Chris Christie of New Jersey said he’s for a balanced approach, in which parents have some measure of choice. Unfortunately, that’s not how things are actually done in New Jersey.
The reality is that New Jersey parents have no real choice. You have to get your child vaccinated unless you can provide a certified letter from your doctor saying that a vaccine will make the child sick, or if you can prove that it is against your religion.
Governor Christie’s comment about a “measure of choice” reveals the self-importance these politicians give to themselves. Parents living in the Christie regime don’t get full choice [5], but he is willing to grant them some measure of choice. Perhaps the citizenry’s ability to voice its perspective would suffice for the Governor, as long as they understand that he and his bureaucrat comrades have the final say.
Senator Rand Paul defined his position clearly, saying all parents should have the right to choose. He then went on to bring up why some parents have reservations about heavily vaccinating their young children, describing stories that he’s heard where perfectly healthy children get sick after an immunization shot. In response, the mainstream media made it its mission to brand his commentary on why others may have reservations, into Rand Paul advocating against vaccinations. In fact, former Vermont Governor Howard Dean went so far as to say it should disqualify Rand from running for president.
At the core of this entire debate is the question of who is in control. Who owns your body? That is precisely why corporatist-state media and politicians have come out so passionately about this issue. The busy bodies and medical profiteers are irate that you and I think that we should actually have a choice in how we manage our own healthcare decisions.
Nine months ago, on April 18th, I was sitting in a maternity room with my 12-hour-old daughter. When a nurse came in to immunize her from hepatitis B, a disease known to be transmitted only from sex, blood transfusions, and child birth only IF the mother has the virus. Knowing my newborn daughter hadn’t had sex, hadn’t had a blood transfusion, and that my wife – who had been to about 20 doctor visits in the past 6 months – didn’t have hepatitis, I told the nurse I wouldn’t allow them to give this immunization to my baby. The nurses were quite pleasant. They had me sign a form, and that was the end of it.
Prior to the nurse leaving, I asked to see the side effects of the vaccine they had attempted to inject into a half-day-old newborn. The side effects were fever, insomnia, hypotension, drowsiness, loss of appetite and irritability. My heart was crushed after reading this, thinking of all the other babies in the hospital that would be given this shot. Here you are, hours old, you just survived delivery, which can pretty intense, and now someone wants to inject a vaccine into your body, where the side effects could make you sick. For no reason, by the way, in my daughter’s case. So the risk-reward wasn’t even in the equation – it was pretty much all risk.
From the CDC’s website [6]:
[7]
On the decision of which vaccines to get and when, for my family it’s all about trust, and I don’t trust anything mandated by this government. I will be damned if they force a needle into any of my children. I have often pondered where I would draw the line, and that’s it. Take my money, take my property, but do not F*** with my kids.
By the way, would it surprise any reader that the former CDC Director went on to become president of Merck’s Vaccination Unit? [8] Today, Dr. Julie Gerberding is the Vice President of Strategic Propaganda… I mean Communications for Merck.
In her title change, Merck had this to say: “Julie has been instrumental in making Merck’s vaccines more accessible.”
With the help and support of my doctor, my children are receiving some of the vaccines at the ages we feel appropriate.
I want to mention this only because this is not an anti-vaccine essay. The debate to vaccinate or not to vaccinate is a distraction from the more important issue at hand:
Who owns your body, you or the government?
