Comments on: New Issues for Polygamy Ranch Children

By: Jenna Hatfield

Jenna Hatfield — Tue, 13 May 2008 20:37:37 +0000

I disagree 100%. Did you do any research into whether or not their religious beliefs are behind their lack of immunizations. All states have religious exemptions and some states allow for philosophical reasoning as well. In fact, Texas allows for all three reasons: religious, philosophical and medical. ( http://www.909shot.com/state-site/state-exemptions.htm )

By: lmg1567

lmg1567 — Sun, 11 May 2008 17:59:35 +0000

My question may be oversimplified: Why do we think it is necessary to immunize all of these many children and young adults RIGHT NOW? They’ve lived their whole lives in this community without being immunized, people can get waivers for immunizations due to religious, medical, or philosophical reasons in most states – why the rush? Is it just because they are now in state care and they can do it? Are we really thinking about what is BEST for these kids, or what power we can exert over them? Yes, it would be traumatic to take children who have already been traumatized by this whole ordeal, into a doctors office and have them forceibly vaccinated. Why do that to them RIGHT NOW? All it is doing is proving that the outside world really cannot be trusted, something they’ve apparently been told and have experienced first hand already. I had one caseworker tell me to get a foster childs’ shots “caught up” so I took her to the health dept. I’m thinking they’d give her a shot and we’d make another appt. – oh no, they can her a shot in each arm, each leg and the oral polio vaccine all in one visit. By the next appt., the child was mentally “checking out” when it was time for the shots – it was scary and completely unnecessary to put her through that and I would never do it again.

Also, I had a chicken pox virus go through my daycare about 14 years ago before the vaccine was mandated. I think there were about 12 kids (maybe more) who caught it all together. They all did fine, and I kept on watching them since everyone had it anyway – chicken pox and measles are definitely not the end of the world, just inconvenient and uncomfortable for a few days for the great majority.

If Sammys vaccines are up to date, and all vaccines work the way they’re supposed to, you should have NOTHING to worry about when it comes to Hannah not being caught up yet. Even if she caught something, his vaccine immunity should protect him 100%, right?

By: hannah_rae

hannah_rae — Sat, 10 May 2008 00:04:13 +0000

Ah, The immunization controversy. I agree with most of what you said, except I think that we are somewhat over protecting our kids, or thinking we are, but giving them so many immunizations. For example, chicken pox is not something I consider serious enough to immunize against because the consequences could outweigh the benefits. I have done the research and found out that shingles can occur just as often from the vaccine as from the actual virus.

Anywho, enough of that. Those kids need as much TLC as possible. They must be terrified.