New York City will soon require young children who go to preschool or day care to get flu shots.
The Board of Health voted Wednesday in favor of the mandatory vaccine for children under 6.
Dr. Jay Varma, deputy commissioner for disease control, says the vaccine could save lives and keep as many as about 20,000 city kids from getting sick. He says actual vaccinations are likely to be performed in the fall of 2014. That’s because they should be done before the end of December to be effective.
The initiative takes effect in 30 days. The vaccine will be required for about 150,000 children.
Parents may opt out for medical and religious reasons.
Opponents say mandatory vaccinations give parents little say in determining what’s best for their child.
(AP)
Join the official YWN WhatsApp status
6 Responses
It is a shame that people have to be mandated to do what they should be doing already. And it is a chilul HaShem that the frum community is the site of an outbreak.
There are no valid halachic reasons not to vaccinate.
Charlie Hall: it’s not as simple as you make it seem. In most cases,the flu is not life threatening and so parents should have the right to choose what’s best for their kids. The idea that local government is forcing this type of medical interference on parents is disturbing. This is not a vaccine with anywhere near 100% efficacy, actually it’s far from it. And anything foreign you put into your body has potential to be harmful. It’s the job of the parent to weigh the risk of danger against the efficacy of the flu vaccine. Government has no place in these matters.
Not only that, but these things have a way of becoming a slippery slope. What seems innocent and logical enough to you now, may end up extending to crossing the line to unacceptable when a new administration is in office. Extreme and paranoid you say? Unfortunately, history is our best teacher…
“The Board of Health voted Wednesday in favor of the mandatory vaccine for children under 6”.
Oh that’s nice. These are the same UNELECTED thugs, who are “yes men” for Bl$$mberg, and are trying to stop Metzitza BiPeh. They “claim” MBP is life threatening but yet have NEVER proven that! Now these same lowlifes are forcing us to vaccinate our children??? Those dummies know nothing about health! When will this tyrant, Bloomy, leave us all alone already?
We believe our son contracted encephalitis due to the flu vaccine. Although we can’t prove it but he got sick immediately after the shot. He was in a coma for 4 weeks and almost died. We believe the vaccine was contaminated.
In 1986, the Congress passed a law making protecting vaccine makers from being sued for damages arising from vaccine injections.
Instead, you must apply to the Government Vaccine Court for compensation. This court has already awarded billions of dollars for people who were brain-damaged and paralyzed, and other serious damages.
The government does not check whether a child has a weak immune system, before mandating vaccination. This is outrageous. It means that a certain percentage of childen will be sacrificed on the altar of universal vaccination.
Strangely, the flu vaccine still contains 25 ug of the deadly poison mercury, which is 250 times the maximum amount allowed by the government EPA, even though the American Pediatric Association (APA) recommended the removal of mercury from all vaccines.
In a well-known case in Lakewood, Rav Chaim Kanievsky ruled that a parent who objects to the presence of an unvaccinated child in the classroom cannot force the child to leave, because there is no proof that such a child presents a hazard to anyone.
If vaccination is so great, why is there a need to force people to take it?