To think perhaps schools should insist on vaccinations.

[Lovestonap]

Good animal boarding kennels etc will not take animals without their vaccinations up to date.
Should our schools be able to insist on a completed course of childhood vaccinations (up to age appropriate) before giving a space at a school? Obviously children who are unable to be vaccinated would have a medical exemption certificate. I think this would be a good idea, but then I'm wondering if this is a nanny state too far thing. Probably implications for human rights I haven't considered.

@KissingInTheRain companies don't make single vaccines. The flu vaccine is a single vaccine. So is the hpv vaccine. So is yellow fever.

If we don’t make immunisations for school compulsory (with exemptions for proper medical reasons) we should at least make it much easier to sue anti-vaxx parents whose children may be responsible for spreading disease within a school.

A few bankrupted anti-vaxxers in the news and they’d be falling over themselves to join the programme. Selfish, all of them.

Another thought I had. I'm not sure at what age kids become aware/discuss if they've been vaccinated or not but should there be an option for them to choose to be vaccinated whilst still legally children? Then again that opens the floodgates for those that may say they were vaccinated against their will if they see the antivaxxer crap online....
I think a worldwide campaign is needed to show why we need vaccinations and for people to see what damage these diseases can do. Ideally not in a preachy way but to get the reality out there.

I disagree with the OPs premise, and those insisting upon sanctions against children and families. Most people who choose not to vaccinate are not “antivax” either or anti big pharma or medicine, they are pro-choice, pro informed consent, pro transparency, pro body autonomy and medical freedom. It’s perfectly logical to question one element of an industry (or even one element of a particular vaccine) while recognising the merits of other medicines or vaccines. Most people who sit on either extreme of the vaccination debate spout inflammatory and divisive views, which just reinforce that divide and encourage hate. It’s not a black and white issue.
The medical industry has been tragically wrong before, so I can see why people are afeared of huge schedules of drugs, and relentless medical interventions into healthy children. It can feel counterintuituve. Education and informed consent are the answer, not sanctions and isolation.

I agree with PP who propose education and community options. Including positive informed health information in schools.

100% with you OP. Unvaccinated has no medical or scientific justification in the vast majority of cases and poses a risk to the most vulnerable in our society.

@Punxsutawney as I am sure you know there are many different journeys and triggers regarding autism spectrum disorders and yes, some children are born that way. Absolutely your decision regarding immunisation, there is no right or wrong it seems to me, it is down to individual choice and for every person who thinks their child's autism was triggered or made worse by a vaccine there will be another who saw absolutely no difference.

For anyone interested in the hpv vaccine, which we are told is completely safe:
www.cbsnews.com/news/gardasil-researcher-speaks-out/
slate.com/health-and-science/2017/12/flaws-in-the-clinical-trials-for-gardasil-made-it-harder-to-properly-assess-safety.html
(The hpv vaccine is made by Merck, the company that hid data regarding its now withdrawn non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug, Vioxx. You do remember the Vioxx scandal, don't you?)

If this were the case kids like my DD who is reliant on herd immunity due to being unable to be vaccinated for medical reasons wouldn't be able to be in school.

No. It has been stated repeatedly on this thread that kids who cannot be vaccinated for medical reasons would not be subject to said hypothetical rule.

I am not in favor of the rule for other reasons (stated in my previous post). But this is nothing to do with trying to kick out kids who actually can't be vaccinated.

Perhaps we should be adopting a bit more of a "take the consequences" approach though?

If your kids are not vaccinated for non-medical reasons, maybe you should be required to stay away from school temporarily whenever there are reports of any VPD in the area, for example.

I know you cannot make direct comparisons between humans and animals. I was, rather, comparing service models. A model which says "you cannot use this service without being vaccinated because you pose a potential risk to other service users, you are free to find another service that better suits your care-giver approach" was the potential comparison I was making.

I also am not advocating mandatory vaccinations. We're not there yet and I pray we never have to get there.

But I agree that the thorny issue is risking the wellbeing of a child by denying them education when their parents arguably have limited capacity to meet their needs in that respect.

I don't think I'm being hysterical or irrational, just trying to consider a way our government might be able to reverse the worrying trend of increasing measles incidences etc.

(I also don't really agree with the concept of 'pro-choice' in this case, as it relates to choice over other people's bodies, rather than one's own - but that is perhaps a philosophical discussion best kept for another time)

Yabu

Government should not be involved in coercing medical interventions.

The status of people's health should be 100% private.

People should have the full facts given to them by health professionals and then make their own decisions privately without government involvement.

Very slippery slope for a country that prides itself upon human rights.

Our government already does intervene to protect children, for example if Jehovah's witnesses are refusing blood products or intervention for their child the government can make them a ward of court and proceed with the the treatment if deemed in the child's best interests.
However, as I have stated repeatedly, it's not about forcing them to vaccinate their children, but about providing protection for those who are unable to vaccinate by refusing them access to state schools.

I don't think it's fair to stomp all over the majority's human rights for the sake of a minority.

Better solution would be to provide safe schools for those unable to be vaccinated. This would be a better opt- in system for those individuals at risk and also easier to ensure teachers- other employees are vaccinated also.

Why should govt institutions have the rights to see our private medical records?

It is coercion. You are wanting a policy that only allows vaccinated children into schools. That is obviously coercion.

The government in the US state I am in doesn't see the records they are sent between the doctor and the school nurse, they are confidential. It is merely required that the school is able to record that the DC in their school are vaccinated or have an exemption certificate.
This isn't unsual as this thread shows but normal practice in many parts of the world. The U.K. Has traditionally had good healthcare and vaccination rates. Sadly if the overall level of education cannot be raised again to highlight the importance of vaccinations it would seem likely that the UK will need to make similar arrangements in the future. Hopefully a public education plan could prevent this.

This is the same where I live for public or private schools so money doesn't buy your way out of this social obligation.

For around £30 your pet can have a titre test that shows whether they need vaccinating or not. Many pet owners do this to avoid unnecessary vaccinations.

I believe titre tests are also available for children. If mine were small again I would have this test to see if they actually needed vaccinating.

besides the obvious human rights issue....how does excluding non-vaccinated children from schools do anything anyway? you can't exclude them from the world. they'll still be in parks, and cinemas, and soft play and theme parks, and in doctors surgeries, and anywhere else you find children. this is NOTHING to do with stopping the spread of disease, and all about punishing parents for choices you don't agree with.

I can't fucking believe we are still having the vaccines cause autism debate. It's ableist and a complete load of rubbish as worldwide studies have proven again and again. Scientific literacy has a long way to go in a lot of people.

If this is necessary due to the amount of children not being vaccinated then I think it should be law that children are vaccinated and not parental choice.
This would be a shame or would it. I can't decide. Do parents have too much choice over their child's rights as some of their choices they can make for them could have life changing consequences . That's a loaded question.

Why would banning unvaccinated children from state schools stem the increase in measles? A school is just one of the many, many places unvaccinated and vaccinated children interact. One of the major outbreaks in the US recently occurred because an unvaccinated child visited Disneyland.

I live in North London where measles outbreaks regularly occur within a very large, religious community based here as their take-up rates are very low. The children from that community attend entirely separate schools from other children however they remain part of the community at large and share public facilities with us all. My own DC sit next to those children in libraries, on buses etc. Unless you plan to ban unvaccinated children from mixing with the population in general then banning them from schools under the pretext that it will stop a measles outbreak or any other communicable illness seems like a knee jerk reaction that hasn't been thought through properly.

@trancepants - thank you, your post was completely sensible and I agree with everything you wrote.

There was an excellent piece in the Guardian recently where the writer explained we need to stop demonising parents who don't vaccinate and actually engage with them. Most are not anti-vaxxers. They are scared and their fears can be overcome if the facts are calmly explained to them in a non-judgemental conversation. Dismissing them as stupid, selfish idiots doesn't work.

To those saying ‘what’s the point?’, the point is that children mix most closely, most often at nursery and school. Contact elsewhere is much less. This objection of futility is nonsense.

The coercion argument is also nonsense, but we’ve been through that so it doesn’t need shooting down again.

It’s interesting that the anti-vaxx argument goes in waves. We seem to be in the ‘it’s a human right for us to infect the vulnerable’ phase at the moment. No doubt other threads will take us back to bogus graphs, the wonders of arnica, 19th century Leicester, and the rest of the horse shit these people peddle.

kissing if banning unvaccinated children from state schools was effective, why are there still outbreaks in the US where this ban is in force?

An illness like measles is highly contagious. A child who is infectious can pass it on to another child simply by sitting next to them in any location including a park playground, play and stay, in a library or the dozens of other places where lots of children interact and are in close proximity to each other. School is one of many places that interaction occurs. A child can also catch it simply by entering a room - any room, not just just one in a school - an infectious child was previously in. A French unvaccinated child is said to be responsible for reintroducing measles to Costa Rica whilst he was briefly there on holiday.

My point is that if we are banning unvaccinated children from schools with the purpose of halting the spread of measles then that is futile in my opinion. Unvaccinated children who are barred from state schools will not sit inside all day isolated from the rest of the population.
What will happen if we implement the ban and outbreaks continue to happen (because they will)?

As mentioned: we need to roll out a proper, nationwide educational programme to address concerns so parents who are on the fence or worried feel listened to. Medical professionals need to engage with parents of unvaccinated children, acknowledge their fears. I know this works because it was a non-judgemental GP who listened and calmly answered my questions who talked me round to vaccinating my DC. Do you know what didn't work? The aggressive, combative nurse who shouted at me "just vaccinate your child or would you rather she died?" when I took her to be weighed.

Anyway, I'm aware I'm wasting my time as I've posted this many times before on different threads and always get the same response on MN "parents who don't vaccinate are fucking stupid anti-vaxx idiots and there is no point talking to them" Or my personal 'favourite' on a thread a couple of weeks ago "they should all burn in hell"

and actually engage with them

Over the years I've literally tried to help hundreds of people and tried to do so in a compassionate way. It doesn't work because the anti Vaxxers come and they're very convincing to people who arent the most science literate because their methods are more about empowerment (momma you can treat your babies at home!) and 'mummy knows best', as well as creating a community atmosphere which a lot of mums enjoy. You cant really have this sense of community with pro vax.