Up North Progressive
Politics and commentary for Northern MichiganMichigan Department of Community Health Will Enforce New Immunization Rules Starting January 1, 2015
Saturday , 13, December 2014 Community, Section 16 8 Comments
There are now 55 confirmed cases of whooping cough in Grand Traverse County, and five cases of measles spread between Grand Traverse and Leelanau counties. The rise in these completely preventable diseases is alarming, but even more alarming are the high rates of children not receiving life-saving vaccinations in these two counties.
Mlive provided a database of information for each county in Michigan and the percentages of children with immunization waivers in public and private schools. It may be worthwhile to bookmark this page and search through school districts in your county to see which schools have the potential for illness outbreaks.
Downstate in Allegan County the health department reports whooping cough has appeared there. They ask everyone who show symptoms to be treated for the disease whether they are confirmed or not. Whooping cough is treatable if caught early and the infected person takes a full course of antibiotics. Infants, small children and the elderly are at greater risk if they are not treated quickly.
Whooping cough in Grand Traverse County originated with for-profit charter school Grand Traverse Academy. The school closed for an entire week in November when attendance dropped below 70% of enrollment. From there the disease spread to other school districts in the county. 18% of GTA students have immunization waivers.
The state is taking action to make sure more children in school have necessary vaccinations to protect everyone from contracting these preventable diseases. Starting January 1 new rules will require parents to put their specific religious or philosophical objections in writing before being allowed to exempt their child from being vaccinated. They will in addition be required to sign a form admitting they understand that they are putting their child and other people’s children at risk if they send their non-vaccinated child to school. Signing the form also means the parents agree that their child will not be permitted to participate in school or other school-related activities if the health department determines that child is a risk to others.
The responsibility of keeping Michigan’s children and the community safe from preventable diseases must be put on those who engage in risky behavior that makes everyone vulnerable. Parents who don’t get their children vaccinated need to reconsider their choices, and the consequences of what they are doing to everyone else. Vaccinate your children.
[…] students to be inoculated only against hepatitis B, although some individual campuses have stricter immunization rules. The new plan will require students to be screened for tuberculosis and vaccinated for measles, […]
Mike says: Kechiro Akuseki So why did the US Government decide to settle in the case of the family who sued after their child was diagnosed with autism?
Can you explain to me why my son showed no signs until after being vaccinated and was diagnosed Autistic a year after being vaccinated?
Can you explain the explosion of Autism cases in the US in last few decades when it barely existed before?
And please don’t try with the my cousins sister in-laws kids is autistic. I live with it every day, trying to communicate with my child. I live with it every day trying to help him make it through the day. I live through it when I have to go to his school and deal with the fact that he is having a breakdown because a child called him a “Retard”
Now let’s talk about Flu Shots for this year. Gee it seems the Doctor’s didn’t pick the rights ones and now they maybe as useless as a water shot.
We have yet to be presented with the truth about vaccines and probably never will.
To have someone like Kechiro Akuseki try to force us to drink the koolaide and enjoy it is sickening.
Ellie Ravinsky says: Home school your kids–then you don’t have to get the shots. I had them without problem but I refuse flu shots but I’m not at risk either, never had it. Kids are constantly sick. I don’t always trust what’s in the shots but they kept me from getting sick. I did have chicken pox, no shots then, and it was horrible. I was really sick. I can see people’s point so why not show people the ingredients and remove the thimerosol? If that’s what people are complaining about it seems a simple fix.
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Thimerosal is only in multi dose flu shot vials and is a preservative, it’s not harmful at all. If somebody doesn’t want it in their flu shot they only have to ask for a single dose vial. But besides that, there is more mercury in a tuna sandwich then there is in every childhood vaccine combined.
Kechiro Akuseki says: While I admit that other factors may mitigate the overall health of the children, vaccination ain’t one of them. Whooping cough is entirely preventable through vaccines, and has serious consequences for those who catch it including delayed development and death. Yes, kids die from this. Just vaccinate the kids and this won’t be a problem.
Vaccines are among the safest medications out there, and they work. They’re the reason we don’t have smallpox anymore – it’s almost impossible to wipe a disease off the face of the earth, but we did it, and with polio we’re poised to do it again. Millions of people are alive and well today because of vaccines. Just vaccinate. It’s the smart, safe thing to do for all of us.
Like this is our only problem we have out there maybe we could take a look at other problems in the community like the fact that maybe some of these kids get sick because they have other things causing it like malnutrition bad hygiene etc. Its the health departments responsibility to make sure the health of our community is good but i look around and see problems everywhere. If your going do do 1 good thing make sure you take care of the rest that needs to be done for every ones health.
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Lola Johnson says:
Just because we can’t do everything is no excuse for doing nothing. We know that horrid diseases can be prevented by vaccines. It is one thing we CAN do. As a nurse, I’ve seen the agony of parents whose child was very ill with meningitis just a few months after they had refused the vaccine. I’ve seen children horribly damaged, deaf, blind and mentally handicapped because the mom was exposed to German measles while pregnant. Tiny babies are at risk from whooping cough because some folks are so arrogant as to think they know better than the scientists, the doctors, etc. Their decision puts other people’s children at risk. do they have that right? Thousands of parents refused to vaccinate their children because of a “study” claiming that autism was caused by vaccines. Turns out that the guy made the whole thing up, and never did a study at all. Before blaming vaccines, one should look very hard at all the additives in the food they give their children.
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CBM says:
Presently, Dr. William Thompson who is employed by the CDC has confessed to a study that put children at risk for autism, specifically African American males. The case is being investigated by a congressmen. As a mother of an autistic black male who fits the age in question of those African American boys, I suggest you get informed. This story was originally leaked to the mainstream media and then covered up because we all know that this would be an epic controversial story for the public. Unless you are a parent of a child with autism, you CANNOT know the difficult and sometimes, impossible issues that stem from this disorder. Autism, ADD, ADHD, etc. did not just fall out of the sky recently. And it has not been around for a long time as some who try to claim. My son was not born with autism, as both I and his doctor know. It was not until he received this rigorous vaccine schedule that he developed autism. The amount of toxins injected into a child from birth to toddler is ridiculous. Also, doctors do not hand out the contents of the specific vaccines to parents so that they can decide if this is something they want injected into their child. You have to request it or google it yourself. Children will get sick, as well as adults, and no vaccine is 100 percent. The vast majority of these outbreaks in schools are among those who have been vaccinated, not the unvaccinated. I have been employed by the healthcare industry including the Red Cross, and have witnessed soooooo many lies told to the public. There are very few cases of children getting gravely ill due to not being vaccinated.
The healthcare and pharmaceutical industry is all about the money, and you know it.That is why I left the industry. If they can cause fear widespread, then people will buy into it and purchase all kinds of medications that they say will help their child with autism, ADD, etc. I believe that they created these disorders via vaccines in order to profit from them by prescribing all of these medications that parents are desperate to buy into in order to suppress the symptoms. Cancer, HIV, etc are alo money makers for the industry. They are not interested in a cure or there would be no money to make. It is too bad that recently, the mainstream media is not interested in both sides of this issue as they continue to put their pro-vaccine spin on the air on major tv channels.
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