►March 1, 2004 - Parents Lobby to Ease Immunization Laws - St. Louis Post-Dispatch via  www.immunizationinfo.org (abstract)

►March 5, 2004 - House committee votes to kill immunization bill - AP via Charleston Daily Mail - "A bill that would have allowed parents to refuse to have their children immunized for religious reasons was killed by a House subcommittee...A House Health and Human Resources subcommittee voted 6-1 to postpone indefinitely consideration of the proposal, preventing further legislative action on it this year."

►March 4, 2004 - Immunization controversy: Should colleges require the bacterial meningitis vaccine? - The Stanford Daily - "'I don’t think it would be a good policy to require the vaccine,' said Dr. Ira Friedman, who works at Vaden. 'A vaccine should be required only when its benefits far outweigh its costs, in dollars and otherwise. This is not the case for the meningococcal vaccine. That’s why public health authorities support an educational approach.'”...However, other medical professionals disagree with Friedman’s opinions and claim that there is no significant reason not to get the meningitis vaccine.  According to the CDC, the vaccine proves 85 to 90 percent effective against the most common strains,with rare side effects of mild redness or slight fever."

Comment:  For a different take on the vaccine, go to Scandals: Another Unnecessary Vaccine?  Here Comes the Hype for a New Meningitis Vaccine.

►March 4, 2004 - Immunization Exemption Debated in W.Va. House - The Intelligencer and Wheeling News-Register - "Tucker pointed out West Virginia and Mississippi are the only two states in the nation that do not have the possibility of such exemptions in their immunization laws, but Mercer said he does not see that as a downside for the state...'That does not mean we're the two backward (states). We're the two forward ones,' Mercer said, adding that some states are looking at reversing their exemptions."

►March 3, 2004 - Jacksonville Parents File Claim in Vaccine Court (includes video) - First Coast News - "'The cover-up from all this just drives me crazy.'...It's a massive cover-up, says Jacksonville mother Cindy Hartman. She's referring to the potentially damaging effects of a preservative once commonly used in childhood vaccinations. That preservative, thimerosal, is 49.6 percent mercury, one of the most toxic substances on the planet."

►March 2, 2004 - Should parents with philosophical objections to vaccinations be able to get exemptions for their kids? - online poll alert

►February 26, 2004 - Leslie Burke is terminally ill. Today he will ask a court for the right to live - www.independent.co.uk

►February 29, 2004 - Religious exemption worries Ripley mother - Sunday Gazette-Mail - "'How can these groups call themselves pro-life and pro-family if taking a moral stand against abortions performed in the 1960s takes precedence over protecting the lives of those with weakened immune systems today?' she asked."

Comment:  As I said in my 2002 speech: "Public Health will say that these vaccines must be mandatory or these diseases will spread.  But if the vaccines work, anyone choosing them will be protected.  If they don’t prevent the spread of the disease to the vaccinated, what is the point?  It hardly seems right that those who don’t want to be vaccinated should be required to be vaccinated, because vaccines don’t always work...And to whatever extent vaccines are being required because the “immune suppressed” cannot be vaccinated, and are more vulnerable to the adverse effects of disease, while my heart goes out to such people, they are not more important than children who are harmed by vaccines.  Nor should the notion that vaccination may in itself be creating immune suppression be left out of this equation...Besides there is documented proof of outbreaks in 100% vaccinated populations.  Now, whose fault is that?"

►February 29, 2004 - Parents lobby to ease immunization laws - St. Louis Post-Dispatch - "The same vaccines that many credit with ushering in a public health miracle were a curse to 4-year-old Caleb Mueller, his father believes...Keith Mueller of Kansas City blames a batch of state-mandated vaccines with causing a severe allergic reaction in his son when the boy was just over 1. Today, the father is certain that his son's autism is tied to the shots, as well...Mueller is joining several parents rights advocates this year to support bills in the Missouri Legislature that would make it easier for parents to exclude their children from immunizations."

►The Exemption Debate - West Virginians For Vaccination Exemptions

►March 1, 2004 - Parents of Vaccine Injured Children Support West Virginia Religious Exemption - NVIC

►February 25, 2004 - Senate set to allow exemption from school shots - AP via Charleston Daily Mail

►February 26, 2004 - Schools send hundreds home for lack of shots - Multnomah County districts turn away students missing vaccines for diseases from mumps to chickenpox - The Oregonian via www.oregonlive.com

►February 26, 2004 - Immunization bill passes Senate - AP via Charleston Daily Mail - "Senators passed a bill that would expand mandatory immunizations for public school students while for the first time allowing them to decline shots for religious reasons."

Comment:  It is not clear from this whether or not the ambiguous wording in the bill re: homeschoolers (i.e., can they be charged with a misdemeanor and fined for not vaccinating?) has been dealt with. 

►February 26, 2004 - Give us the choice of vaccines - Letters to the Editor - The Telegraph, UK - "Have you any idea how frustrating it is to read or listen to the reams of opinion on the MMR debate and to feel that last on the list of importance are the very children damaged, as their parents believe, by the vaccine?...But deep down there is utter desolation that something that is of paramount importance in our lives is like a toy being batted back and forth. Who was to know what a hot political potato this would turn out to be?" 

►February 25, 2004 - Resisting child immunization leads to prosecution - Prof - GNA via www.ghanaweb.com - "Professor Agyeman Badu Akosa, Director-General of the Ghana Health Services (GHS) on Wednesday said every child must be immunized against Polio in the forthcoming immunization exercise, warning that legal action would be taken against any individual or organisation that would prevent a child from being immunized...He said it was within the laws of Ghana that all children under five years old in each house or community should be immunized against polio to guarantee that Ghana became polio free."

►February 26, 2004 - Social workers 'right to question parents' - This is London - "The row over the MMR "witch-hunt" deepened today as social workers defended their right to interview the mothers of autistic children...They insisted some parents could be harming their children to draw attention to themselves, and admitted subjecting one mother to an eight-week investigation before accepting she had done nothing wrong...It came after the Evening Standard revealed up to 20 parents of autistic children faced accusations that they were suffering from Munchausen's Syndrome by Proxy."

Comment:  It's hard to believe this could be happening given that Roy Meadows, who has now been discredited, was the champion of this apparently ill-conceived theory.  How much tragedy and suffering must the parents of autistic children endure?  (And any old excuse in an attempt to detract from the real issue, i.e., does MMR contribute to autism?)

►December 29, 2003 - Public Health And the Limits of Private Rights - The Providence Journal via Healthy News