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Mountain men resist the state's needling

11/29/01

Politics in this state would be a lot more boring if not for the mountain men.

That label is generally applied to any of a number of conservatives from the northwestern part of the state who make a point of insisting on individual rights in a state that has long since been taken over by collectivists.

One of the most amusing of them is Rick Shaftan. Shaftan's not a hillbilly. He's actually a wisecracking guy who grew up in Manhattan. But he long ago moved to Sparta, where he works as a political consultant for what he terms "conservatives with the guts to win."

Shaftan is a proponent of the Lee Atwater, scorched-earth approach to political campaigning. His theory is that any candidate who has the pro-lifers, the gun guys and the Reagan Democrats on his side will get 51 percent of the vote -- even in allegedly liberal New Jersey.

This theory has its opponents, but no one would argue that it's not fun. The political establishment in this state needs to be tweaked a lot more often.

Lately Shaftan has found a new way of tweaking the Trenton crowd. He's refusing to go along with a state order that every kid in New Jersey must be vaccinated against hepatitis B. As a result, Shaftan's 11-year-old son, Zach, was kicked out of Sparta Middle School as of Nov. 2. Zach is being home-schooled while Shaftan takes the case to court.

Disputes over vaccinations can be confusing. Most people don't know hepatitis B from hepatitis A or hepatitis C. In his characteristically blunt way, Shaftan clears that up:

"Hepatitis B was known in the medical profession for many years as the 'junkie's disease,'" says Shaftan. He said he first heard that term from his father, who is a doctor. Hepatitis B is spread mainly by shared needles. It's also spread by sexual promiscuity much in the same way as AIDS.

There's nothing wrong with getting vaccinated against it, but Shaftan questions why it's mandatory. "It should be optional. It should be a choice for people. If someone's going to go overseas to a country where there's a high risk of hepatitis B, it might be a good idea. If they're going to engage in other kinds of high-risk behavior, it might be a good idea. Going to sixth grade, it should not be required."

Shaftan's lawyer is another one of the mountain men, state Assemblyman Michael Carroll, a Republican from Morris County. Carroll is arguing that Americans have a constitutional right to determine what is appropriate for their kids.

"We're not contending the state can't insist on vaccinations for rubella, mumps and measles because there's a compelling interest in determining that communicable diseases don't spread through the school," he says. "But there's not a single case they can point to where hepatitis B has been passed in a school."

Actually, it's not even passed much outside of school. The New Jersey Health Department lists hepatitis B prevalence figures on its Web page. In the last year for which statistics are available, 1998, there were a mere 199 cases.

Shaftan says it would have cost him $150 to get Zach the three injections required. Multiply that by the more than 100,000 kids who enter first grade in New Jersey every year and it comes to about $15 million. That works out to $75,000 for each case of hepatitis B theoretically prevented.

And unlike AIDS, hepatitis B is a treatable disease. In fact, it rarely surfaces at all in people who haven't run down their immune systems through serious drug use, which is why it got the name the "junkie's disease" in the first place.

"Let's assume the state develops a vaccine against gonorrhea," Shaftan says. "Can they compel a kid to get that vaccine?"

Apparently so. At least for now. An appellate judge has refused to grant an injunction to let Zach return to school. If Shaftan eventually prevails, it will be a precedent- setting case.

It's also a case that need not have arisen in the first place. More than 90 percent of children were already getting the vaccine before the state began requiring it. So there was little need for state health officials to get involved. But they did anyway, even though such respected groups as the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons oppose compulsory vaccinations. That group advocates the vaccinations only for children living with an infected household member. Otherwise the side effects might outweigh the benefits, the association argues.

In other words, this seems to be an issue on which reasonable people can disagree. Thanks to the mountain men, that disagreement is being brought out into the open.

Paul Mulshine is a Star-Ledger columnist

ALL INFORMATION, DATA, AND MATERIAL CONTAINED, PRESENTED, OR PROVIDED HERE IS FOR GENERAL INFORMATION PURPOSES ONLY AND IS NOT TO BE CONSTRUED AS REFLECTING THE KNOWLEDGE OR OPINIONS OF THE PUBLISHER, AND IS NOT TO BE CONSTRUED OR INTENDED AS PROVIDING MEDICAL OR LEGAL ADVICE.  THE DECISION WHETHER OR NOT TO VACCINATE IS AN IMPORTANT AND COMPLEX ISSUE AND SHOULD BE MADE BY YOU, AND YOU ALONE, IN CONSULTATION WITH YOUR HEALTH CARE PROVIDER.