Mississippi Ranks First in Vaccines | We are NOT Proud; We are SICK

Mississippi's Clarion Ledger ran a front page story last month touting our state having the nation's highest vaccination rate. 

"Mississippi ranks first in the nation in child vaccination rates, according to a new report from the Centers for Disease Control."

Of Mississippi's 45,719 kindergartners, 99.7 percent were up to date for the 2013-2014 school year. The state also had vaccination rates higher than the rest of the country for children younger than kindergarten age."

They did include this from MPVR, "Mississippi parents do not have the legal right to select, delay, or opt-out of vaccines unless they homeschool. There are 48 states that DO allow that right. We want to be the 49th. We are a group of loving parents who are pushing for the right to make vaccine decisions for our own children without losing their right to an education. 

We are not "anti-vaccine"; we are "pro informed consent" and "pro parental rights" to choose what medical procedures our children undergo and when. We support the right of parents to choose their child's medical care, without being forced or coerced into accepting vaccinations in order to attend day care or public or private schools."

 

In response to the Clarion Ledger's article, CoDirector, Lindey Magee had this to say:

"To be clear, ranking as the most highly vaccinated state is NOT something to be proud of. 

More educated states are seeing more and more parents opt out of some of the 49 doses of vaccines administered to our children before kindergarten. Ranking first in vaccination compliance only indicates that Mississippi families are being exploited for its reputation of ignorance and lack of education. It is an embarrassment, not a badge of honor.

As citizens of this state, it is time we take notice of our state's archaic vaccine law. As it is now, the state of Mississippi requires children first be vaccine-injured before a parent can begin the uphill, long battle to secure said injured child from further damage. That is barbaric! Meanwhile, forty-eight other healthier states provide religious and/or philosophical vaccine waivers. 

While we have the highest vaccination rates, Mississippi also has the highest infant mortality rate in the U.S. Keep in mind that the U.S. is the most highly vaccinated country in the world; now consider that as a nation, our infant mortality rate falls below 27 other wealthy countries-some of which do not even mandate vaccines at all! Mississippi has the most highly vaccinated pediatric population IN THE WORLD. Why then are we the LEAST healthy? Yes, poverty and crap food, etc. plays a part, but too many vaccines too soon cannot be ignored.

I implore those who buy into this "vaccines must be mandated" notion that uses seriously dangerous diseases like polio and smallpox to sell 30+ doses of vaccines to all babies by six months to reexamine the topic. I was born in 1979 and received 10 doses of vaccines by high school. Where will it end? Mandated medicine is a slippery slope and is affecting a generation of over-vaccinated children!

As a MS parent or grandparent are you interested yet? Are you outraged? I am. Parents in other states are. There are parents everywhere talking about what our unsafe, unchecked vaccine program did to their children. Meanwhile, neither pharmaceutical companies nor the doctors and nurses who administer these vaccines can be held legally liable when they do cause harm and death. (National Child Vaccine Injury Act of 1986) Vaccines can and do cause harm and death. There is no incentive for vaccine manufacturers to make vaccines safe or effective.

Parents have children suffering diabetes, allergies, asthma, seizures and other chronic autoimmune diseases-many listed as adverse events in the vaccine manufacturer inserts, while officials fixate on Ebola and can't wait to debut their untested vaccine for that. Will THAT vaccine be mandated? What about Gardasil? If mandated, as the law is now, you will have NO CHOICE. What about now? Are you interested now?

There is no room for corporate, government parenting in a free society. Our vaccination program is a government program. So many hesitate to trust the government; why should the government be guardian of our children regarding vaccinations?

Most parents do want to vaccinate. Forty-eight other states, including those that border our own allow parents to work with their doctors to determine the best way to do this for their unique child. Parents in Mississippi just want options. We are due the same fundamental rights parents in 48 other states have. This is a personal rights issue. Those who are so certain vaccines are the be-all, end-all to children's health should not be at all threatened by families seeking vaccine rights. 

Parents must speak for and be judicious for our children! Doctors and the MS Department of Health brag about high vaccination rates, but fail to notice that while our kids are the most vaccinated on earth they are also the sickest! If vaccines equal health, Mississippi would be the healthiest place in the world, and it absolutely is not. Please, parents, get interested in this!"

Comments

[Cindee Droge]

Scientific evidence shows that there is more danger in not taking the measles vaccine than danger from the vaccine. If a family member of mine, who cannot take the vaccine for legitimate reasons such as still in the womb, under 12 months, illness or diseases that are documented for causing harm, etc., I will sue the family who made the stupid decision not to vaccinate their child. I will win because there is no medical/scientific evidence supporting their right to harm others. These parents really need to stop and think of the harm it is causing others.

[Heather]

Cindee- What specific scientific evidence do you reference which show children not vaccinated in the US are more at risk of measles death than children who are vaccinated? Mandating all vaccines for all children without regard for bio-individuality and individual health status, completely side-stepping pediatricians and parents, is outrageous. And goes against the very foundation of informed consent and doctor/ medical code of ethics.

[CA]

This is a powerful article. It must be noted that these parents, like many in California, are NOT anti-vaccination, they are PRO-choice. When you make the argument for herd-immunity, you forget the vast majority of the population are adults who are not up to date on their vaccinations and therefore no longer immune (for that matter, inoculation does not equate immunity!). Over and over again, we say, this is a personal rights violation. Parents can be educated by their doctors, build that parent doctor relationship, and strong quarantines can be placed during any outbreak on any child who is not fully vaccinated. There are many ways to protect the other children in the "herd", but mandatory vaccination is not the perfect solution as it is deeply unconstitutional, unethical, and illegal. Let's find better ways to educate people, keep rates high, and maintain a parents sovereignty over their child in matters of medical importance.

[GBPackertown]

Gotta love freedom! What's next, the government saying they have studies that prove guns kill people, so we all have to turn in our guns? Or your child develops cancer, and the treatment is not your choice, but mandated by the government? If you don't do chemo or XYZ, you go to jail?

We are losing freedoms a little at a time, all in the name of big government thinking they can run our lives better than we can. What happened to the America I grew up in? It's dead.

(And the mandatory vaccine thing is as bad as it can get, since it's injected into your system and 100% irreversible)

[GBPackertown]

BTW....We are fighting the mandatory vaccine laws on the wrong front as well. Arguing for personal choice and infringement of Constitutional rights won't work anymore, we don't have a solid Constitution since Obama took office. We need to hit them with common sense arguments. Number one, they will never make vaccinations 100% mandatory without a "home schooling" exemption, as that would be undoubtedly communist. They are only using the home schooling exemption because they know nearly all parents will just decide to vaccinate out of "lack of options". This is the weakness in their plan and in the law itself.....how effective can a mandatory vaccination policy be, with an exemption? These kids may go to an environment where kids are 100% vaccinated at school, but what happens when they leave and go to the mall, or Chuck E Cheeses or ......? Makes no sense. We need to pushback where we know they can't go and beat them at their own game. The only answer would be to make the non-vaccinated home schooled kids be quarantined to their homes, for life. No law maker will ever get that to fly. Without this, their policy is completely ineffective and will have to be overturned.

[Tony]

Cindee - From 2005 - 2015, no deaths in U.S. from measles, over 100 deaths from measles vaccine. Perhaps all those families whose children died, or were vaccine injured, should sue you? What's fair is fair. And then there is Pertussis in 2014, where 5x as many children who got the recommended doses of the vaccine got Pertussis compared to those who were not vaccinated. Who are you going to sue there? And what about mumps - almost all recent cases have been in vaccinated individuals. When someone can show us the studies that show the current vaccine schedules are BOTH safe and effective, and that have used real placebos (inert saline solutions and not other vaccines or aluminum) as a comparison for that effectiveness, and compared the health of populations of vaccinated vs unvaccinated....and all of this done by independent sources without conflicts of interest....well then you'll see how selfish your remark is.