“Deeply held religious beliefs”

With all the talk about the dangers of an influenza pandemic, the outbreak of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus auereus (MRSA), and some chicken pox cases breaking out in schools, “Yahoo! News” ran an article about a small, but growing population of parents. These parents seem to be confusing the idea of “deeply held religious beliefs” with “I think vaccines are bad, and because I think that I know better than panels of doctors and numerous studies on the effectiveness of vaccines, I will mislead my home state and school system into thinking I actually hold religious beliefs, just so my child won’t have to be vaccinated against something that could kill them.”

These parents that don’t practice any particular faith have no problem signing letters that say they do have “deeply held religious beliefs” to not vaccinate their children. They do this not based on any certain scientific data or studies on vaccines, but rather due to the fact that they “feel” or “think” that their children could be harmed worse by the vaccination than by the actual disease they could contract. This is not even considering the fact that their child could spread these deadly diseases to other children and lead to numerous deaths.

This growing parent population ranges in the few thousands, versus the more than three million children that enter kindergarten every year, but public health officials are quick to remind the public that it only would take a small number of people to cause an outbreak that can put the general public at a dangerous health risk for serious diseases.

This is where government rightfully comes in. Every state in the Union has a requirement for children entering school systems that they must be immunized against measles, mumps, chicken pox, diphtheria, and whooping cough. They also are lenient and have medical, religious, or philosophical reasons as cause for exemption from this requirement. Some people actually do hold religious beliefs that object to the use of medicine (Christian Scientists and certain fundamentalist groups come to mind), but parents that “think” that vaccinations can “overwhelm” their child’s body and thus lie in these letters stating they hold religious beliefs that object to vaccinations is ridiculous.

Sadly, courts have struck down laws requiring proof of actual membership in a recognized religion that prohibits vaccination, meaning the possibility of using that route to hold people to what they say is no longer available.

Of course, it doesn’t help when qualified medical personnel that counsel these people tell them straight out to falsify letters (which is essentially what is being done here). Dr. Janet Levitan in Massachusetts says, “It says you have to state that vaccination conflicts with your religious belief. It doesn’t say that you have to actually have that religious belief.” Um, excuse me... Isn’t that the whole point of saying “This vaccination conflicts with my religious belief?”

Not having your children vaccinated for valid religious or medical reasons is fine. But to put other people and children at risk because you “think” that your child could be harmed (even in the face of medical evidence that proves the contrary and the fact that vaccinations have helped the world for the past two hundred years) is ridiculous. Stop the lying in these letters, and either join an actual religious group that holds these beliefs, or get your child vaccinated.