Opinion | Numerous bills have been introduced in state legislatures throughout the United States that seek to preserve parental rights with regard to vaccination. States that have proposed legislation to ensure that parents have the information they need to give informed consent to vaccination include Arizona, Connecticut, Idaho, Iowa, Illinois, Mississippi, Montana, Oregon, Pennsylvania and Rhode Island.1
One example is Arizona’s Senate Bill (SB) 1115, which would require that prior to vaccination, vaccine administrators provide parents or guardians of minor children all pertinent information on risks versus benefits of vaccines, vaccine ingredients, vaccine product inserts and the Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) vaccine excipient list. The bill would also require those who give vaccines to provide parents or guardians information on how to recognize an adverse reaction to vaccination and how to report it if one occurs.2
In discussing SB 1115, the bill’s sponsor, Arizona State Senator Paul Boyer, said, “Parents are entitled to the same kind of ‘informed consent’ about vaccines as they would get before any medical procedure.”3
Will Humble, who is Executive Director of the Arizona Public Health Association, expressed concerns that Sen. Boyer’s bill might cause some parents to avoid vaccinating their children. He said that parents already get all the vaccine information the CDC has determined they need and in “a form that is understandable.”
Humble said that “inundating parents with technical information that is not meaningful and potentially confusing will result in doctors having to spend valuable time with explaining the technical information instead of talking to parents about things like keeping their children safe at home and in cars.” He further stressed that giving parents lists of ingredients undermines efforts to get “meaningful informed consent” since people won’t understand the information they’re reading.3
Sen. Boyer countered that parents are being denied timely information to which they are entitled and should be trusted to make their own informed decision. He stated:
Everybody who goes for an operation procedure or anything, they’re informed, they’re told of all the risks that could happen with whatever procedure it is… They’re not given the surgery and then, after the fact, told, ‘Oh, by the way, here are the known adverse effects.’3
SB 1115 would also require that any informational or educational materials the [health] department develops or provides to parents and guardians with regard to vaccination shall include [the same inclusive information]. Federal law under the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act (NCVIA) of 1986 mandates that parents be given a Vaccine Information Statement (VIS) published by the CDC before children are given federal recommended vaccines.4 However, there are no penalties when doctors do not give parents the VIS and current Arizona state law only requires that parents receive a list of vaccine reactions to watch for after their child has been given a vaccine.5
Vaccines, like any other pharmaceutical product, carry a risk of harm and those risks can be greater for some individuals. Informed consent to medical risk taking is a human right and parents should always be allowed to exercise the right of informed consent to vaccination on behalf of their minor children.
Parents deserve to be aware of information such as the fact that neither manufacturers of vaccines nor those who administer them may be held legally accountable in a US. civil court of law for any injury or death caused by a vaccine. They deserve to know that if a child is injured by a federally licensed and recommended vaccine, an injury claim must filed within a certain period of time with the federal Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (VICP) to be eligible for compensation. They deserve know that, even though the majority of vaccine injury petitions are dismissed, the U.S. government has paid out more than $4 billion dollars to compensate victims of vaccination.6
Yet, this kind of information is, typically, not made available to parents as part of the process of informed consent to vaccination.
It is presumptuous to assume that parents would not be capable of understanding the risks and benefits of vaccination if offered full disclosure before they agree to submit their children to this medical procedure.
This article or commentary provides referenced information and perspective on a topic related to vaccine science, policy, law or ethics being discussed in public forums and by U.S. lawmakers. The websites of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) provide information and perspective of federal agencies responsible for vaccine research, development, regulation and policymaking.
References:1 National Vaccine Information Center. Talking Points. NVIC Advocacy Portal 2019.
2 NVIC. Requires Health Professionals Administering Vaccines To Provide Information Before Vaccination. NVIC Advocacy Portal Jan. 23, 2019.
3 Fischer H. Bill Mandates Informed Consent For Childhood Vaccinations. Arizona Capitol Times Jan. 25, 2019.
4 NVIC. National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act. NVIC.org.
5 See Footnote 2.
6 Vaccine Injury Compensation Data. Health Resources & Services Administration April 2019.
24 Responses
Research reveals that a vaccinated individual not only can become infected with measles, but can also spread it to others who are also vaccinated against it – doubly disproving that the administration of multiple doses of MMR vaccine is “97% effective,” as widely claimed.
Dear Su, ‘widely claimed” in my opinion is a position held by those that have no soul, which includes everyone who currently works at the CDC.
How can we get this same bill in California
Google says that the text of the bill is here;
https://legiscan.com/AZ/text/SB1115/id/1857479
Jan 23, 2019 – 2019 AZ SB1115 (Text) Informed consent; vaccinations. … 2019. SB 1115. Introduced by. Senator Boyer: Representative Barto …
The next step would be to take the copy to a potential sponsor and advocate that they adapt the wording for your state… which makes it a bit easier for that legislator to have a starting point. ttyl
Vote out the Democrats who are bought by the pharmaceutical industry! Vote in those who have integrity.
What a great article. We are blessed to have NVIC do all the work it does and keep us informed. Thank you so much for this vital information.
Sadly, this common sense bill faces an uphill battle. Hopefully, even its consideration will enlighten some people on the risks of vaccines. Even better, we can hope that someday, all states would require the same disclosures!
Will Humble was concerned that people won’t understand the information they’re reading, in terms of a list of ingredients in vaccines. I believe that the opposite is true. Perhaps it’s that Mr Humble is afraid people WILL understand what they’re reading and therefore make a true informed choice. If people were as unintelligent as he appears to be making them out to be, he wouldn’t be experiencing any opposition. Fortunately, there are those of us who have chosen to educate ourselves about this issue, thanks to NVIC and others. Blessings to You All for your continuous hard work.
This is not enough. I am a Registered nurse. When a patient is signing an informed consent I have personally seen the important areas glossed over with little explanation or I would expect the verbiage to be so complicated that the average person still does not understand the real ramifications of said medical procedure, surgery or medications. What really needs to happen is the 100% reversal of the Childhood Vaccine Injury Act and for the vaccine makers to be 100% liable for vaccine injuries and deaths. No liability, no drive to make the vaccine safe.
Dear Melinda, Every one should pray for the success of Robert Kennedy, Jr who is heading a team of attorneys to bring down the vaccine (or death) industry using a similar tactic that made him victorious against Monsanto and their cancer causing Glyphosate. I could be wrong but I believe the award in the first case was 400 Million against Monsanto and that opened the door I understand for sum 3,000 lawsuits now pending.
Yes, we should all pray that Robert Kennedy’s hard work brings down the lies, deceit and greed of Big Pharma! I admire the dedication and hard work that Robert Kenndy put into this study and pray it benefits us all!!
You hit the nail on the head. There should be absolutely no exemptions from liability for any company that makes products, especially one where people are ingesting or injecting something into their body.
There’s absolutely no reason why they should not be held to standards like other companies are. We should have known at the time that this was going to be a huge scandalous system where many people are becoming millionaires by forcing things on other people. We need to seriously investigate how to reverse that horrible decision made decades ago.
Amen to that! That would certainly change a lot of those dangerous chemicals and overload of vaccinations being forced on all infants, children and even adults who so blindly accept the medical professions explanation that they are totally safe!
Always good to know the truth which empowers us to make informed choices.
There will always be tyrants like Will Humble, who think parents are stupid and can’t understand the implications of the adverse effects of vaccines. And their major fear is always, 100% of the time, that if parents knew how much harm could come to their children they “might” choose not to vaccinate, and then? Children would be healthier? There would be less infectious disease in the community? Cases of chronic disease and cancer in children would go down? How awful! It would just ruin their precious “vaccination program” which is THEIR child! They could care less about anyone else’s child. And it’s about time parents were informed of the dangers of the vaccine vs the dangers of the benign childhood infection the vaccine is supposed to but doesn’t prevent. I still don’t see any mention of that. it’s about health freedom, the choice to use the system of one’s choice to achieve and maintain the health of one’s family.
But it is encouraging to know that some states are finally standing up for informed consent and parental rights. The issue is coming to a face-off and we must win.
Thank you Paul Boyle Finally some one speaking for the children
Will Humble is obviously an arrogant man who thinks that all parents are stupid, unable to understand simple science, like risks of death, seizures, high fevers, encephalitis, or understand ingredients like formaldehyde, monkey kidneys, aborted fetal tissue, and so forth. Yep, he’s right in one thing: when parents find out what they’re injecting into their children, and the associated risks, they may very well decide to opt out.
Will Humble really? Made me laugh out loud … It ‘will result in doctors having to spend valuable time with explaining the technical information instead of talking to parents about things like keeping their children safe at home and in cars.” Since when do people go to the doctor to talk about car safety? Baffles my mind. Gotta wonder what he talks about when he goes to the doctor. He insulted parents and doctors with that one.
Hi Melinda, I am also a Registered Nurse and I agree with you 100%. I, as have my colleagues, have witnessed severe vaccine reactions. My employer mandates for us to either get a flu shot of wear a mask during flu season. Many of us choose to wear a mask during flu season and refuse the flu immunization.
Michelle
I asked Walgreens for the vaccine insert and wanted to know what was in this year’s flu shot. I was told they didn’t have that information.
I was with my client who was in rehab for elderly people and they wanted to give her the flu shot. I asked for the vaccine insert and was told by the nurse they didn’t have it. The nurse then brought me the actual vial containing the shot. I saw very little writing on it and dismissed her like the inept individual that she was.
Just wanted everyone to know that they are being instructed not to give us this information. I agree with Melinda, enough is enough non-liablity for the pharma industry is an absolute joke.
Well that time certainly is valuable to doctors. They have on average something like 15 to 20 minutes and more than half of that is spent on coding entries, paperwork, and managing the supportive staff requests. Doctors already only spend a few minutes with actual patient care. Big medicine is more about insurance billing than health care these days. If people had to pay cash for vaccines this charade would come to an end swiftly. Most parents would be surprised to learn that most doctors doling out vaccines have never actually read the inserts themselves.
Amen to that! That would certainly change a lot of those dangerous chemicals and overload of vaccinations being forced on all infants, children and even adults who so blindly accept the medical professions explanation that they are totally safe!
The problem is that it treats all vaccines equally. It will be enough to release a virus for a deadly disease for which the vaccine happens to work and all dissenters will be demonized. Don’t be naive, the evil minds at pharmaceuticals are many steps ahead of you.
By making you sign a consent form, as it happens before surgeries (and they do tell you about risks, but mostly without adjusting them to you health condition) you are taking all the responsibility, which prevents later claims for reparations, falsifying statistics for vaccine injuries even further.
You can sue the doctor for negligence, for failing to give ‘informed consent’, and demand that the injury be reported. You may not be able to sue a doctor for injuries, but you can sue for negligence, they are required to go over all the adverse reactions with you so you can make an informed decision about the experimental medical procedure they want to perform on your child. All vaccines are considered EXPERIMENTAL and fall under the Nuremberg Code of informed consent.
Informed Consent. … Informed consent is a PROCESS not a form. It is the knowing consent of an individual or his/her legally authorized representative that is obtained without undue inducement or element of force, fraud, deceit, duress, or other forms of constraint or coercion.
failure to obtain informed consent renders any U.S. physician liable for negligence or battery and constitutes medical malpractice. [Pizzi 2001]
In the absence of adequate scientific knowledge of the way vaccines singly or in combination act in the human body at the cellular and molecular level, vaccination is a medical procedure that could reasonably be termed as EXPERIMENTAL each time it is performed on a healthy individual. (the current vaccination schedule has never been tested, in addition, no studies have been conducted on the vaccinated vs un-vaccinated children).
The Nuremberg Code: The Rights of Individuals Must Come First
Out of the Doctors Trial in Nuremberg came the Nuremberg Code, of which Yale law professor, physician and ethicist Jay Katz has said “if not explicitly then at least implicitly, commanded that the principle of the advancement of science bow to a higher principle: protection of individual inviolability. The rights of individuals to thoroughgoing self-determination and autonomy must come first. Scientific advances may be impeded, perhaps even become impossible at times, but this is a price worth paying.” In another article, Dr. Katz said that the judges of the Nuremberg tribunal, overwhelmed by what they had learned, “envisioned a world in which free women and men, after careful explanation, could make their own good or bad decisions, but not decisions unknowingly imposed on them by the authority of the state, science, or medicine.”
Bioethicist Arthur Caplan concurred when he said, “The Nuremberg Code explicitly rejects the moral argument that the creation of benefits for many justifies the sacrifice of the few. Every experiment, no matter how important or valuable, requires the express voluntary consent of the individual. The right of individuals to control their bodies trumps the interest of others in obtaining knowledge or benefits from them.”43
The First Principle of the Nuremberg Code is “The voluntary consent of the human subject is absolutely essential. This means that the person involved should have legal capacity to give consent; should be so situated as to be able to exercise free power of choice, without the intervention of any element of force, fraud, deceit, duress, overreaching, or other ulterior form of constraint or coercion; and should have sufficient knowledge and comprehension of the elements of the subject matter involved as to enable him to make an understanding and enlightened decision.”44
The Nuremberg Code, which speaks most specifically to the use of human beings in medical research but also has been viewed by bioethicists and U.S. courts as the basis for the right to informed consent to medical procedures carrying a risk of injury or death, was followed by the passage in 1964 of the Helsinki Declarations by the World Medical Association. Like the Nuremberg Code, the Helsinki Declarations emphasized the human right to voluntary, informed consent to participation in medical research that may or may not benefit the individual patient, science or humanity.45
VACCINE MANUFACTURERS LIABILITY
We all know that vaccines manufacturers cannot be held accountable for vaccine injury or deaths. RIGHT? WRONG.
If the vaccine manufacturer publishes a textbook for use in teaching medical personnel and omits vital information about the efficacy and safety of their vaccine products, they are guilty of negligence. In addition, the educational institution and the instructor can both be held accountable for teaching false information to their students.
Most instructors must carry liability insurance in the event that a student, injures or kills another person due to their negligence in teaching vital information which would have prevented the accident, injury or death of another if they had been properly trained.
A doctor or nurse can be held accountable for negligence if they failed to give a patient ‘informed consent’ which includes giving a patient the package insert of the product and discussing the risks involved. However, a doctor or nurse that was not taught what informed consent is by their educational institution can sue the college or university for failiure to cover the topic of informed consent and for not thoroughly training medical personnel concerning the risks involved with vaccinations.
In addition, any student that tried to discuss the safety and efficacy of vaccines in a classroom setting and was targeted and ridiculed by the instructor, can file a harassment lawsuit against the school.
Pharmacists and Drug Stores can be held liable for negligence and failure to get informed consent and/or mis-informing the public concerning the efficacy and safety of vaccines