The Slippery Slope of School Vaccines

This week, my son came home with information and a permission slip to receive the H1N1 vaccine in his school. I threw it in the trash. Before you think this will be a post about why you shouldn’t vaccinate your kids, stay with me because I have a different point to make here.

Whether or not your child should be vaccinated is entirely up to you. And for many parents who can’t get their children the vaccine because they can’t get time off to take their children or because they don’t have health insurance and can’t afford it, these school programs may seem like a godsend. However, I’m grateful that parents are being notified and the decision is being left to them.

In light of what I just read, however, I’m not sure giving vaccines during school hours is the best approach:

New York City’s Health Department said nurses at schools in Brooklyn and Staten Island mistakenly gave the vaccine to two children whose parents hadn’t signed a consent form. The same thing happened Monday at an elementary school in the town of Oregon, Ohio, where a 7-year-old got the vaccine even though her mother had marked “no consent” on a form, then circled it to emphasize her point.

Wow! If I were the parents of one of these children, I would be livid. Luckily, no harm has come as a result, although one of the girls is epileptic and had to be hospitalized to ensure an allergic reaction did not take place. Continue reading…