Monday, April 24, 2017

My 2nd Installment: Religions and Vaccination Exemption.

In the first installment, I addressed with you "The History of Vaccination Exemption,  Religious Exemption and Some personal Beliefs about the religious exemption". 
In this 2nd installment, I am going to continue by addressing, "The implications of disease outbreaks and what kind of vaccine exemptions exists in the US” and “the U.S. Supreme Court: Vaccines are “Unavoidably Unsafe”
From the National Vaccine Information Center website, they begin with this statement:
Every summer, Americans celebrate the 4th of July to mark the day in 1776 when the American colonies agreed they would no longer be ruled by an aristocracy. The Declaration of Independence begins with, “We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights.” 
240 years later, we find ourselves again fighting for freedom from oppression because we have allowed the rise of a new ruling aristocracy, an elitist class of privileged citizens who want the legal right to judge, shame, segregate, discriminate against and punish fellow citizens who do not share their beliefs.  Nowhere is this truth more self evident than in the oppressive implementation of one-size-fits-all mandatory vaccination laws that fail to respect biodiversity or human rights and crush citizen opposition, in violation of the informed consent ethic and freedom of thought, speech, conscience and religious belief.

U.S. Supreme Court: Vaccines are “Unavoidably Unsafe”:

In 2011, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed with what Congress said in 1986, and that is:  government licensed vaccines are “unavoidably unsafe” and pharmaceutical corporations should not be liable for vaccine injuries and deaths. Today, when your child dies or is permanently brain injured after vaccination or the vaccine fails to protect your child, you cannot hold the vaccine manufacturer or the doctor who gave the vaccine accountable in court in front of a jury of your peers.
With this free pass, in 2011 and 2012 the multi-billion dollar vaccine machine powered by medical trade, industry and government rolled into the legislatures of Washington, Vermont and other states with the goal of eliminating religious and conscience vaccine exemptions that have been in place in the U.S. for more than half a century. NVIC has worked with families and other grassroots organizations to protect vaccine exemptions in 15 states but, in 2015, Vermont lost the conscience exemption and California lost the personal belief exemption protecting both exercise of conscience and religious beliefs. 

Universal Declaration of Human Rights:

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights adopted in 1948 after World War II states that, “Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance.”
universal-declaration-of-human-rights-(1).jpg
When explaining religious freedom to his friends and colleagues, Thomas Jefferson said that freedom of religion belonged to, “the Jew and the Gentile, the Christian and the Mahometan, the Hindoo and Infidel of every denomination.”  Jefferson believed in a Creator but he did not identify with an organized religion nor was a member of a church, and his reference to “Infidel of every denomination” likely was an affirmation of freedom of thought, which also includes the freedom to be agnostic or an atheist and have no religious beliefs. In other words, freedom of religion encompasses freedom of thought and conscience and applies to all personal beliefs about religion.
Vaccine Freedom of Choice: Is A Human Right:
This is the issue, are we free to choose or not? Actually, it's not about freedom but it's more about all of us as community,  not as individual. Some people or institutions are defending that vaccine freedom of choice. They argue that the natural right to exercise freedom of thought, conscience and religious belief, they are not called upon to talk about different scientific hypotheses explaining how and why vaccines can cause injury and death, or why the CDC is unaccountable and a whistleblower should be subpoenaed by Congress to testify about the risks of a particular vaccine. The arguments about vaccine science and who is right and who is wrong about it will be argued for the next century. The argument still open between the two groups who support and defend the religious right to take or refuse vaccines, and the other group who sees that vaccines is something to help each one by protecting them from diseases. 
References:
http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/medical_examiner/2015/02/religious_exemption_for_vaccines_christian_scientists_catholics_and_dutch.html
http://www.nvic.org/nvic-vaccine-news/june-2016/defending-religious-exemption-to-vaccination.aspx

1 comment:

  1. I agree, compulsion is antithetical to the spirit of democracy and freedom. And yet, public health is a domain in which one person's expression of liberty may compromise the well-being of an entire community. So, we need to walk right up to that line and push hard to persuade anti-vaxxers of their civic obligation not to inflict harm in the name of liberty. Trouble is, hard-liners have ideologized the issue and immunized true believers from rational persuasion. The temptation to compel compliance will only grow, in this environment. Leaders in the public health and medical communities must devote serious attention to winning hearts and minds, and to educating a resistant constituency.

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