May 6, 2014

It’s time for Colorado to join California in solving an ailing public health problem that’s easy to cure. Last week, California Gov. Jerry Brown signed into law a measure that virtually eliminates all exemptions to that state’s childhood vaccination policy.

“The science is clear that vaccines dramatically protect children against a number of infectious and dangerous diseases,” Brown wrote as part of his bill-signing ceremony. “While it’s true that no medical intervention is without risk, the evidence shows that immunization powerfully benefits and protects the community.”

What was once a quirky curiosity among some Colorado residents — who, for no good reason, became leery of childhood disease vaccinations — has now become a public health menace that seriously threatens all of us.

A woman in Washington died of measles last week because she had a compromised immune system and was exposed to the virus by people who were not vaccinated. This followed a measles outbreak at Disneyland earlier this year that sickened 100 people, all because foolish, misled, selfish people have avoided childhood vaccination rules regarding public schools.

Real scientists and medical professionals have been unequivocal: The purported danger of childhood vaccines are lies. Dangerous lies.

So California now requires every child who attends a public school or college to undergo vaccination. Colorado must do the same thing to prevent death and disease caused by irresponsible and reckless parents who willingly or passively seek to get around the program.

The state cannot command these vaccinations, but lawmakers certainly can compel scofflaws to stay away from public programs and venues to protect the rest of us. Schools, rec centers, colleges, day cares and employers should all demand that people comply with vaccination programs.

Right here in Colorado, one of the most “educated” states in the union, we rank right at the bottom of vaccination rates. It now looks that in some places, only 80 percent of kids are current on their shots.

The sorry response by Colorado state lawmakers is nothing to sneeze or cough at. Succumbing to fake science and political pressure, they let Colorado parents off the hook when it comes to vaccinating their children. Anybody can opt-out just by saying, “I don’t believe in vaccination” and checking off a box that’s easier than proving your kid did get vaccinated.

It’s almost unthinkable that a country like the United States would slide back decades in health care progress, risking the lives of millions of Americans potentially exposed to diseases we nearly eradicated — because of lies, laziness or ignorant fear.

The media deserves much of the blame. A discredited study run by a discredited doctor tried to tie autism to childhood vaccinations and the U.S. media bought the hoax hook, line and sinker, helping to legitimize it. The groundless claim and fake study have since been debunked endless times for several years. There is not one reputable pediatrician, pediatric organization, hospital, clinic or researcher that does not vehemently work to debunk the autism lie, and beg parents to vaccinate their children.

But parents still won’t listen and comply. So the only answer is to change the law. Follow California’s lead here and prevent needless death and disease here in Colorado.

86 replies on “EDITORIAL: Failure to vaccinate is not an option for Coloradans’ safety”

  1. Absolutely not! Taking away the rights of people to make medical decisions for
    their children, especially when there are admittedly rare, but real
    health risks involved is unconstitutional. That bill is being taken to
    court as unconstitutional, so let’s see what the courts have to say
    about it before jumping on the bandwagon.

    1. The courts will find it constitutional, don’t you worry. The challenges are just more antivax desperation. Childish tantrums by selfish little mamas. “I don’t WANNA vaccinate my baby! YOU take the risk for me. YOU provide MY SNOWFLAKE with herd immunity!”

      1. Vaccine mandates have been challenged as recently as last year in New York and found constitutional and lawful.

        1. Liberal New York isn’t Colorado. We have more sense here than there. Maybe you should return to your own kind.

          2. It’s the liberal areas that have been the havens for the anti-vaccination stupidity. You are a moron.

      2. You think the courts would find a violation of the First Amendment to be constitutional?

        You’ve been taking too many needles in the head.

      1. The right to make our own medical choices for our children. It’s a fundamental right. Go read some law and learn.

        2. You have every right not to vaccinate your children. Just keep them out of public school. Home school your kids, whats another generation of idiots from your family. The world wouldn’t expect anything less.

    3. The U.S. Supreme Court has upheld mandatory vaccines for over a century in order to protect the health of the public.

        2. Oh, I have a few cites for you! Even before Jacobson vs Massachusetts, California had Abeel v Clark in 1890!

    4. They will end up spending a ton of money on legal fees and 5 years from now will end up right where they are, or worse. A lot of anti-gun folks pressed for a Supreme Court ruling on the 2nd amendment for years, and they ended up losing it all. I suspect the same will happen here, as the SC decision will apply to ALL states, not just CA.

    5. It’s hypothetical, but it would be interesting to see how public health in the United States would be different if NO vaccinations had taken place in, say, the last seventy-five years. Just saying . . .

        1. Scarlet Fever is a disease that comes about as a result of untreated strep throat. The treatment is another bugaboo of the extreme anti-vax crowd-antibiotics. Since the discovery of ABs, yes, the incidence of Scarlet Fever has gone down. Nothing has just disappeared on its own.

      2. We did this. We had a shorter life expectancy since so many children died so young from preventable disease. Folks like Tannim will bring it back.

  2. Everyone, including The Sentinel staff, needs to do more reading.
    “A sad day for medical freedom: California removes religious and personal vaccine exemptions” by Paul Thomas, MD (PaulThomasMD.com)
    Read: “Sorry, in the vaccine debate, the ‘experts’ are the historians”. iDSENT, MARCO CA’CERES DI ITORIO – vaccines
    READ: “it’s the vaccine stupid”. global research.ca
    READ: “the cdc made these two radical changes and 30,000 diagnoses of polio instantly disappeared” vac truth.com
    READ: “measles vaccines kill more people than measles, cdc data proves”. naturalness.com
    READ: parents receive million after the flu vaccine did this to their child. collective-evolution.com
    READ: dr. John p.a. Ioannidis, a professor in the disease prevention at Stanford Univ, published the most widely accessed article in the history of the Public Library of Science entitled “Why most published research findings are false”
    READ: dr. Marcia angel, physician and long time editor- in- chief of the New England Medical Journel states “it is simply no longer possible to believe much of the clinical research that is published, or rely on the judgment of trusted physicians or authoritative medical guidelines……..collective-evolution.com
    READ: dr Richard Horton, editor in chief of the Lancet states ” the case against science is straight forward: much of the scientific literature, perhaps half, may simple be untrue. Affected by studies with small sizes, tiny effects, invalid exploratory analysis, and flagrant conflicts of interest, together with an obsession for pursuing fashionable trends of dubious importance, science has taken a turn toward darkness.”
    READ: https:// http://www.vaclib.org/ basic/ polio/polio1.pdf. Vaclib.org
    Educate yourself. Don’t let the Sentinel do it.

    1. It really is when false info is touted as gospel on internet. Only way some of our younger folks read anything, if they are public school graduates in PC period of liberalism. Wife and I have a 80year friend ( 2 days older than my spouse) who is having problems with recurring polio, where she had problems in youth. She was not vaccinated when polio was so rampant. You are right that some immunizations go wrong, just as my ex-daughter-in-law was born with no left hand when her mother was immunized during pregnancy for her. She has prosthetic hand, controlled by harness and cables to other shoulder blade, and in recent years, received prosthetic hand that work on mental commands. That was not invented and perfected until recent years. However, I was in military service 1950 to 1976, and we were immunized to go anywhere in the world. Only problems we had was size of needles, air gun use 1950s that broke skin causing bleeding, and later too many diseases to where we started getting specific shots for area we were going to. ———–Brother to my Son-in-law was medical doctor when he joined Army as Captain, later retired as Colonel, Army in Washington where he served on immunization Board, overseeing and ordering the immunizations for all military. After retiring as military, he remained on that board as a Civilian, selecting, and overseeing the program in Department of Defense. Now fully retired, he and wife live in Washington Area. He was born in Hawaii, of Philippino family, and his father was first Philippino to be appointed to Executive Office in Hawaii.

      1. I recall those “air guns”. Had a couple of jolts during my brief 4 year stint in the military. They didi indeed draw blood and yes we got the various boosters, vaccinations, pills and health briefings before heading over the pond. Still, I can’t complain.

        I credit the military for helping me “grow up” as the say and look what happened along the way. I became a liberal Democrat of all things. Hang in there Frank.

        1. Then you didn’t grow up. Liberal Democrats, like their sibling conservative Republicans, are political children, ignorant in real life, and unable to learn how to function outside their sandbox.

    2. Had all my vaccines from when I was young and I’m still around to talk about it. Any explanation for how I survived?

      1. I don’t think anyone is saying that EVERYONE is injured by vaccines, but for a small minority of people, there are real risks involved. The Vaccine Injury courts have paid out 3 billion dollars since 1986 to families with vaccine injured children. That’s just a fact. And if there is a risk of injury, it should be a medical decision made by families and their doctors rather than the government.

        1. Antivaxers always forget to mention that the compensation is for a 30 year period, with less than 4,000 cases, spread out over billions of vaccinations. Less than a million to one probability of a serious adverse event. Versus 1 in 500 death rate for measles.

          1. Parrots like you have no clue just how complicated a claim is, with the system being rigged against claimants.

            And your 1 in 500 death rate for measles is bogus.

          5. “how complicated a claim is, with the system being rigged against claimants.”

            It is a no fault system with a table injury set up. You don’t even have to prove that the vaccine caused the adverse event. Your attorney and fees are paid for win or lose.

        2. Just to put your 3 billion dollars into context, here’s the full quote from HRSA

          “From 2006 to 2014, over 2.5 billion doses of covered vaccines were distributed in the U.S. according to the CDC. 2,975 claims were adjudicated by the Court for claims filed in this time period and of those 1,876 were compensated. This means for every 1 million doses of vaccine that were distributed, 1 individual was compensated.

          Since 1988, over 16,038 claims have been filed with the VICP. Over that 27 year time period, 14,062 claims have been adjudicated, with 4,150 of these determined to be compensable, while 9,912 were dismissed. Total compensation paid over the life of the program is approximately $3.18 billion.”

          1. And compared to the number of people vaccinated, that 14,000 claims filed and 4000 claims paid represents literally .001% of vaccinated Americans. Literally, 99.999% of vaccinated Americans are just fine.

          2. Nope. Try again, a lack of claim does not indicate health, just that a claim was not filed, mainly from lack of awareness of the Vaccine Court, and more often form the lack of money to lawyer up to file the claim.

          3. Considering that your lawyer is paid for win or lose, I can’t tell if you are ignorant or a liar.

          5. Please cite your sources. The potential is also there for people to be compensated when there is no provable connection to the vaccine. The anecdotal assumptions door swings both ways.

      2. Your schedule was far less than the current ones, had less toxins, and you were lucky. Yet I bet you have allergies and a long history of sickness, all of which are due to immune system imbalances brought on by vaccines screwing up the immune system.

          1. No s/he does not know what s/he is talking about! There are fewer antigens in today’s vaccine schedule than there were in the 80s when my kids were babies. Thimerosal has been removed from childhood vaccines even though it was never shown to be harmful!

      1. When you can explain how vaccines actually work in terms of cytokines, interleukins, and TH1 and TH2 reactions, then you will be educated. I doubt you can do it, and I doubt any of the pro-poison parrots on here can do it, either.

        1. Hey! Professor know it all and his condescending sanctimony. What can you expect from a righty blowhard.

  3. I have a friend who’s anti-vaccine to the hilt, and she’s always pointing me to these “experts” who have rather crummy looking Web sites and links to “Buy my Book!” Thanks, I think I’ll go with the 99.5% of the scientific community who sees real value in vaccine programs. Only some Americans, Al-Qaeda, and the Taliban seem against them.

    2. You can be for vaccinations, at least some of the 270+ news ones in the developmental/bureaucratic pipeline, and not be for forced vaccination (or any other medical procedure) or for vaccine requirements tied to various government programs in a coercive manner. It will be pretty hard for adults who may not be aware that the childhood vaccine schedule tripled once pharma and administrators were given liability protection and who stand back and allow this untested schedule to be coerced onto parents and children to argue against the measures coming to “encourage” their vaccine compliance.

      1. A few states have mandated vaccines with few to no negative consequences. Colorado has one of the highest out-out rates in the nation, putting many children at risk. I guess your point is that once ‘pharma and administrators’ got liability protection, they could go ahead and put the population at risk with an ‘untested schedule’. Sorry, I don’t buy that. But this is yet another one of those topics where peoples’ views have solidified and will not likely change.

      2. A few states have mandated vaccines with few to no negative consequences. Colorado has one of the highest opt-out rates in the nation, putting many children at risk. I guess your point is that once ‘pharma and administrators’ got liability protection, they could go ahead and put the population at risk with an ‘untested schedule’. Sorry, I don’t buy that. But this is yet another one of those topics where peoples’ views have solidified and will not likely change.

        1. My constitutional rights are not subject to infringement to satisfy your ignorant fears.

          Furthermore, life IS risk. If you want to eliminate risk in life, the only sure way is death.

        2. All states have high vaccine compliance and high adverse health outcomes in our children. There has been a “coincidental” rise in asthma, allergy, autoimmune conditions, obesity, autism, and learning disabilities and other neurological conditions in our youth. No one can say that schools are not struggling to educate our children. The infant mortality ranking of the U.S. has plummeted.

          We have no research comparing the health of those who are never vaccinated with those who take some or all recommended vaccines to see if the procedure is causal in any of the above. So it’s clearly an experiment at this point, without even good anecdotal experience to suggest we don’t need to be more cautious.

          The issue here though (isn’t it?) is whether you are willing to lose your right, YOUR right, to decide what is medically best for yourself and your children because your view don’t conflict with the current state of practice?

          1. “The issue here though (isn’t it?) is whether you are willing to lose your right, YOUR right, to decide what is medically best for yourself and your children”

            Except in California, no one has lost the right to decide what is medically best for themselves or their children. This is a strawman argument created by the anti-vaxxers.

            Any parent in California has the right to choose not to vaccinate their children, however, that choice carries with it a consequence. That choice results in an inability to send your child to public areas of society associated with education (public/private schools or daycare). Your right to make decisions ends when those decisions begin to have negative consequences for others in society, including when those decisions involve public health.

            And there is certainly a counter argument to the whole “parental rights” notion. At what point does your parental right to a particular belief become superseded by your child’s right to medical attention based on solid scientific facts rather than inaccurate beliefs? Does a parent have the right to deny their child life-saving medical care if that medical care infringes upon a particular belief of the parent? If not, then why not?

          2. Poor stupid people buying into paid lies linking autism and vaccination. Kids are still dying of measles.

          1. Sounds extremely worthwhile to me.

            “Vaccines against the “big three” – AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis (TB) – are on their way. TB
            is caused by bacteria that infect the lungs. It spreads when bacteria
            travel through the air from one person coughing, sneezing, or speaking,
            and are inhaled by another individual. It is estimated that TB costs the
            global economy $1 billion a day, and there are strains that cannot be cured by any antibiotic. In 2011 alone, there were 8.7 million infections and 1.4 million deaths from TB. While the U.S. had only 10,528 reported cases of TB in 2011, a 2011-2012 TB outbreak
            in a Longmont High School shows how easily diseases like TB can affect
            local communities. With the rise of antibiotic-resistant strains of TB,
            there is a potential for the impact of the disease to become more
            severe. Many TB vaccines are now in clinical trials that would have a local as well as global impact.”

          2. No matter how many “worthwhile” vaccines, a mandate is not right. A truly “worthwhile” vaccine will sell itself.

            Also, as with antibiotic-resistance, there’s potential to accelerate difficult to manage evolutionary processes through vaccination.

          4. “No matter how many “worthwhile” vaccines, a mandate is not right.”
            I missed the part where anyone said that these “270 new vaccines” were mandatory.
            Can you tell us where that was?

      4. I’m curious why you mention the 270 new vaccines, but fail to note that about a third of the ones in development are actually for treatment for cancer? Isn’t it a little bit intellectually dishonest to try to imply that there are all these vaccines that are going to be “mandated” in the future, when in fact a significant percentage are for treatment for diseases where they would be used post-diagnosis and others where those vaccines would not actually be mandated because the risk posed within this country is not very large (TB, malaria, etc)? Not to mention that others would be replacement for current vaccines (i.e. flu/pneumonia) rather than new vaccines added to the schedule.

        You don’t need to answer that question, it was rhetorical. It is exceedingly dishonest, but I never expect anything less from the anti-vaxxer contingent.

        1. Here is a vaccine that is hoped to treat cancer by trying to creating a immune response against a protein the body produces (essentially creating an autoimmune condition):

          https://abcnews.go.com/Health/cuban-developed-lung-cancer-vaccine-arrive-us/story?id=30995009

          and they are already talking about using it as a “preventative” measure, ripe for mandates:

          https://latino.foxnews.com/latino/health/2015/07/17/us-cuba-medical-partnership-may-bring-cancer-vaccine-to-local-pharmacies/

          https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/next/body/cubas-inventive-vaccine-could-treat-more-than-just-lung-cancer/

          This is a lot like mandating HPV vaccine without knowing whether it will prevent cancer rates in the long term, but implying it will save lives, while not knowing how comparable the harm will be to whatever benefit might come about, but knowing it will harm, as all vaccines do.

          1. Well, for starters, there’s certainly a lot of hype around Cimvax, but not really very much scientific data, so your concerns are a bit premature.

            Did you even bother to read the articles you provided as “evidence” that it will be used as a preventative measure? Here’s one quote from your foxnews link:

            “We are not talking about immunizing 5-year-old kids to prevent them from getting lung cancer. We’re really talking about immunizing people that don’t have lung cancer but are at a very high risk to get it.”

            That quote was from the man heading up the US team involved in researching this particular vaccine so I’m not sure how you conclude “they” are talking about using it as a preventative measure.

            Here’s a quote from the PBS link:

            “It’s important to point out that Cimavax isn’t a preventative treatment—you can’t take a shot of it and continue smoking without fear of lung cancer.”

            So, there the author of the article is noting that it wouldn’t be an effective preventative measure. So, you’re concluding that “they” are stating it would be preventative when there is, in fact, no evidence that suggests that it would be preventative or mandated. So, I’m left to wonder, did you not actually read the links you provide as evidence or are you intentionally providing misleading information?

            “This is a lot like mandating HPV vaccine”

            No, it’s nothing like the HPV vaccine. As noted above in both the articles you liked to, Cimvax would not be used as a preventative measure across a population. Also, going after HPV targets the cause of the cancer, whereas Cimvax only would work to prevent the spread of cancer.

            “without knowing whether it will prevent cancer rates in the long term”

            The vaccine prevents neoplasms, that is quite clear. Whether it will effect long term cancer rates is only one part of the benefit of the vaccine, as removal of those neoplasms is a benefit in and of itself and there are very few severe safety signals noted due to the HPV vaccine.

            Like most anti-vax folks, you do a great job of providing misleading information and distorting the facts to fit your rhetoric.

    3. You’re a special kind of stupid, aren’t you? Arguing to the crowd is an invalid argument.

  4. Hear, hear! Colorado’s vaccination rate is shamefully low, and as a result the rate of vaccine-preventable disease is amongst the nation’s highest. For example, Colorado’s rate of pertussis vaccination is the lowest in the nation at only 81%, while Mississippi’s is the highest at 99.7%. And (unsurprisingly) the rate of pertussis infection is hugely higher in Colorado than Mississippi – by an astonishing 1069%. That’s not a typo – 1069%! Mississippi allows only medical exemptions, and it works.

    1. Sure it does. In California in 2010, the pertussis outbreak in Riverside and San Bernardino County had 85% of the cases vaccinated, per those county boards of health, and the following year the outbreak was 81%. So much for your argument about it working, because it doesn’t.

      1. Yet you are still many more times likely to get pertussis if you’re unvaxed. In the California 2010 epidemic (~10,000 cases with 10 infant deaths) failure to vaccinate was determined to be part of the cause.
        NPR 9/23/13

  6. What a crock. That woman didn’t die last week. She didn’t die from measles either (she died from pneumonia, which can be caused by many different things). And where did you get the “info” that she got measles from non-vaccinated people? Making “facts” up to suit the agenda of your pharma sponsors? Since we are making assumptions here, try this one on for size: what if this woman was immune compromised BECAUSE OF VACCINES?

  7. You really should look at the ACTUAL SCIENTIFIC EVIDENCE regarding vaccines instead of bashing people who are making INFORMED MEDICAL DECISIONS! Research without judgement and see the real story. Big pharm needs to change the toxic ingredients in most of the vaccines! Go to CDC and look at the ingredients of each vaccine! Not only unvaccinated people are spreading diseases but ALSO vaccinated ones plus they Are NOT fully protected by the toxic vaccines they got. I say ACTUAL RESEARCH IS KEY TO KNOWING THE REAL STORY. Shame on you for such a one sided, lying article!

  8. There are those of us who have been fortunate to be able to speak to vaccine makers and ask questions after reading the accine inserts. Unless you have likewise spoken to them, asserting that vaccines are safe and always work is anti science. Peerussis vaccine fails, a LOT and the vaccinated can spread the disease without symptoms. The same for any other live or attenuated virus in a vaccine. Blaming the unvaccinated is ignorant and flies in the face of the manufacturer’s warnings in the inserts.

  9. Boy, the editors are full of more manure than a Greeley CAFO lot.

    I would point out to these editors, who apparently are dumber than a box of rocks, that the care and upbringing of children in all things, including medical, is in fact a fundamental right of parents, and the state cannot interfere with it. See Pierce v. Society of Sisters, among many other cases, that clearly delineate that right. Furthermore, denial of a religious OR a personal belief exemption violates both the First Amendment and the Colorado Constitution. So what they propose is a blatant violation of individual rights that would result in the state wasting millions of dollars in avoidable lawsuits that they are guaranteed to lose.

    Instead, they go into the classic misdirection that “vaccines work” when in fact history and over a hundred studies state the contrary. But that’s typical since they can’t argue for the real issue, which is taking away parental choice. So they have no choice but to deflect.

    Then there’s CA Senator Pan, who was bribed $95K to run SB277 in spite of the thousands of protests and stone hard facts against it. That law is facing a citizens referendum to overturn it in California, too. Facts conveniently ignored by the editors.

    As for the Wakefield reference, the editors are three years behind the curve and are simply lying. Three years ago Wakefield’s co-author sued to get his license back, and was not only exonerated by a British Medical Court, but the ruling dissected the study case-by-case and validated each and every one. So no, the study has NOT been discredited, it has been completely VALIDATED. It has also been reproduced over 2 dozen times, including some that predate the 1996 Wakefield by twenty years, back in the 1970s, so to claim it’s false is simply horse manure and a blatant disregard and ignorance of the FACTS.

    Bottom line is the editors are anti-choice, and that makes them anti-freedom and unworthy of being Americans, not to mention unworthy of exercising their free press rights. With rights comes responsibilities, and the editors have clearly ignored their responsibility to be correct and informed, so they are unworthy of the right, and should resign. How ironic that they favor allowing the choice to have a medical procedure to end a prenatal life, but they oppose the same choice to not have a medical procedure that post-natally. Hypocritical, aren’t they?

    1. Because they’ve had too many needles to the head and the adjuvants have given them brain damage.

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