(
http://politicker.com)
Last week, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg's Board of Health voted to require that all children between the ages of six months and five years who are enrolled in licensed day care and preschool programs receive annual flu shots. This decision, of course, infuriated parents who don't want their children to be forcibly injected with the vaccine industry's questionable chemical concoctions.
All vaccines can cause side effects, and the flu shot is no exception. Common
side effects include soreness, cough, fever, headache, itching, fatigue, nasal congestion, abdominal pain, vomiting and diarrhea. Less common side effects acknowledged by the CDC include seizures, "severe allergic reactions" and Guillain-Barre Syndrome. The flu shot has also been implicated in
the case of a teenager in Utah who fell into a coma and later died after receiving the flu shot for the first time in his life. Infants and children are already required to receive several vaccinations, so injecting them with another immunization cocktail and increasing their chances of having an adverse reaction is an unpopular idea for many concerned parents.
"We already do vaccinate kids. It's required for measles, whopping cough, chicken pox and mumps. Flu, unfortunately, kills more than all of those things put together in kids ... So we required it for children five and under at licensed pre-school and daycare centers to get flu shots," Bloomberg said.
"Somebody some place, I forget who it was, might have been an elected official, I forget, said, 'Oh, it causes autism.' ... It is just literally not true," Bloomberg said, ignoring scientific literature that provides evidence to the contrary. "I can tell you what does kill kids is no flu shot. And you know, it's one of these things that there's some crazies... and... you know, I don't know whether they think it's cute to go out and yell and scream, but you really hurt people."
Bloomberg says that we should trust scientists, because they are smarter than us and we shouldn't question what they want us to inject into our, or our children's, bodies. "[T]hat's why you have scientists. Are scientists always right? No, but they're right a lot more than you and I are as civilians, or whatever non-scientists." Scientists and doctors once considered cigarettes to actually be good for your health, so us "civilians, or whatever," have every reason to question medicine that they claim is for our own good. Science changes constantly, and the safety of something should be thoroughly and accurately verified before being considered as a mandate-enforced medication. However, Bloomberg dismisses any who question the status quo and exercise caution when it comes to the health of their loved ones as "crazies."
"The Bloomberg administration is wildly exaggerating the benefit of the flu shot and we think they are wildly underestimating the risks involved with it," said John Gilmore, the executive director of the Autism Action Network.
The Board of Health is made up entirely of mayoral appointees, so Gilmore doesn't expect to be able to change their minds on the proposed rule. Instead, he hopes that protests will influence mayor-elect de Blasio and that he will consider reversing the Board's decision.
The rule requires vaccinations for all children under five "unless the vaccine may be detrimental to the child's health, as certified by a physician licensed to practice medicine in this state, or the parent, parents, or guardian of a child hold genuine and sincere religious beliefs which are contrary to the practices herein required."
