Jackson Jambalaya

Why should it bother a parent if another parent does not want to vaccinate their kids?

These people are nuts. Certifiable. We are finally #1 in something (keeping preventable childhood diseases at bay) due to our strong vaccination laws, and the idiots in the House listen to the kooks. Unbelievable. Thankfully, it has to pass both chambers. If it is assigned to the Senate Public Health Committee it will die, as it should.

You are now governed by people who literally think a superior being will feed you, clothe you, and bring you a bike for Christmas.

You voted these whackos in there....now its time to sit back and watch the ignorance further impoverish the impoverished....all in the name of the Lord.

Because @2:10 - the unvaccinated kid can contract the disease and spread it to those who legitimately CAN'T be vaccinated - like young babies and kids undergoing chemotherapy or the miniscule few who may be allergic to the components of the vaccine. Really. It doesn't take a rocket scientist....

2:00pm, look up how vaccinations work, particularly herd immunity and you will understand why someone else's child not getting a vaccine can be harmful. There are a small number of valid medical reasons a child can't receive a vaccine and those children depend on those of us who can get vaccines getting them. Celebrities and idiots like Michelle Bachmann saying that vaccines give children autism is not a valid reason.

Amen, amen, 2:28. Unvaccinated children are a public health menace to those vulnerable ones you mentioned. I have a friend who is a pediatric development specialist at Batson, dealing with autistic-spectrum children and adolescents---she's chief of the department, in fact. She says the best and latest research absolutely does NOT support a correlation between autism and vaccines. She has presented papers all over about this very issue. She is appalled by the "sky is falling" idiots (not her word for them; she's too nice)who refuse to vaccinate. She has 9 or 10 grandkids, and you betcha every one of them is up-to-date with their shots!

Yeah but 70 or so of those sages saved your butt from being murdered in cold blood by mobs of roving cannabis stalks.

Mississippi already had a medical exemption option. However, once the doctor wrote the exemption request, it was left to MSDOH to approve the exemption. The department of health had no requirement to actually meet/check out the child before denying the request, many of which were denied.

HB938 repairs our broken medical exemption process. It returns power to our doctors without coercion and erroneous oversight of government bureaucrats at the state health department.

This is what 47 other healthier states have.

These parents need to see what a kid dying of Measles, Mumps, Rubella, Hepatitis, Influenza, Diphtheria, Tetanus, Pertussis, Pneumonia, Varicella, Meningococcal, HPV, Polio, Rotavirus, looks like.

Anybody heard of H7N9 or H10N8 Flu. It is going on in China right now because Flu vaccine is not as prevalent in China and guess what, the Avian flu H5N1 mutated. The mutation makes the flu mortality rate extremely high. So a disease that was 1 in 10000 death rate is now 1 out of 2. Yes you heard that right you have a 50/50 shot of surviving H7N9.

Science and mother nature are vicious if you allow them to be.

CDC
"This expansion of the genetic diversity of influenza viruses in China means that unless effective control measures are in place, such as permanent closure of live poultry markets, central slaughtering and preventing inter-regional poultry transportation during disease outbreaks, and backed by systematic surveillance, it is reasonable to expect the H7N9 and other viruses to persist and cause a substantial number of severe human infections,"
"They've found at least 48 different subtypes."

"H7N9 avian influenza has infected 622 people since 2013 and killed 227 of them that we have confirmation on."

36% mortality rate from CDC's numbers

WHO and Chinese have not released numbers on the total number of infections as well as fatalities from the disease.

Wanna see the data yourself?
http://www.who.int/influenza/gisrs_laboratory/flunet/charts/en/

Wanna see a video that proves you are an idiot for not vaccinating.
https://www.ted.com/talks/michael_specter_the_danger_of_science_denial?language=en

The tea party lives in Mississippi

"Unvaccinated children are a public health menace to those vulnerable ones you mentioned."

Hey morons, the bill reads that the exemption requires that a duly licensed physician certify that they are essentially in the "vulnerable" class you worry about. I'm a fan of vaccines. However, I've got a child that can't take one particular round because the first round screwed him up - as determined by the pediatrician that administered it. The rest he can take and has taken.

Pump the breaks and read the bill before losing you what little minds you have.

I am so confused about people being all bent out of shape about this. This bill isn't changing anything about our immunization schedule. The state already had a medical exemption in place. All this bill does is allow the doctors to have the final say so and not someone in an office, with no medical experience who has never seen the child.

Curious, how does an update to the MEDICAL vaccination exemption put anyone at risk ? A licensed MD still has to write the exemption. This means the child has a valid reason not to get the vaccine. This update will amount to a minuscule number of kids not getting select vaccinations. All they are really changing is that the MD can be out of state(think Le Bonheur)& take the MSDOH local office out of the process. Children are currently being denied a valid Medical exemption by those local offices, even though they've never seen the kid.

This bill only allows for children who have already been injured by a vaccine or who have an allergy to an ingredient in a vaccine to receive a medical exemption (which was already allowable in Mississippi) from their doctor without interference from the Department of Health. It has absolutely nothing to do with changing any vaccination requirements for the majority of children in the state.

The far right is scary.

How is obtaining a vaccine exemption from an out of state doctor any different than getting a penis pill prescription from an out of state doctor?

I'm unsure why this bill that improves the MEDICAL exemption that ALREADY exists has upset you all? This bill will help those children who are injured or has the potential to become injured from further injury. This gives the power back to educated physicians who have made an eeucated, medical decision on whether a child can SAFELY receive any further vaccines. I fail to see how that's a bad thing. Vaccine injured children deserve protrction too.

Let me see if I get this right. People want everyone to get their kids vaccinated because someone else does not want to vaccinate their kids because it may be dangerous.
That is sort of hard to understand. I can't vaccinate my kids because they might be allergic or because my kid is sick but you should be forced to get your kids vaccinated to keep my kid safe.

Applying some potential reverse logic here, perhaps being first in vaccination has a corellation to being mostly last in everything else. Perhaps there are a plethora of well vaccinated crooks running around? Just saying......

The surrounding states and all other states EXCEPT West Virginia allow medical exemptions as well as religious and philosophical exemptions. There are NO raging epidemics in these other states. Mississippi is first in vaccination rates is not an honor. We also are first in infant deaths in the first year of life when most of these vaccines are given. It's time the government puts medical decision making responsibility back in to the hands of the people and their physician. To leave as is, is medical tyranny.

Pure JJ Gold !!!

Here's the thing about this bill that I think is misunderstood. It doesn't do any more than what is on the books now. Currently, a doctor may write an exemption for a student, in order for them to attend school. What this bill does do is it removes the department of health from the equation. When a doctor writes an exemption, the DOH decides if they will approve it or not. The problem is that the DOH doesn't examine the student, doesn't even look at medical records, they just deny it.

Based on testimony by one of the Reps today, the DOH will approve a medical exception for anything as minor as toe fungus, which is simply not true. This bill puts the power back in the hands of the physicians, as the law intended it to be. No other state has their health department involved in the same way we do.

I am a fan of vaccinations. I believe taking a shot to keep from being sick is an absolutely good idea. I got the vaccinations when I was a kid - at least the ones that were available then - and my children got them when they were little. My grandchildren are getting them now.

But - neither me, nor my children, nor my grandchildren have any negative reaction to them.

I am not a believer in the gray, if not black, helicopter crowd that believe vaccination requirements are a part of a vast, left wing conspiracy.

But - I see absolutely nothing wrong with this legislation. Allowing - as KF points out - those HORRIBLE out of state physicians to be allowed to write the exemption really scares me. I don't live in DeSoto County but if I did and had a health problem with my child I can easily see where my pediatrician could be - of all things, a Tennessee doctor. Or in Natchez, a Baton Rouge doctor....etc.....

Or, if I had a particularly bad medical situation, my child could be seeing an expert in Pennsylvania, or Texas. There is no reason to believe that all doctors in MS are absolutely beyond reproach or contain all the available knowledge and responsibility.

Taking the MDOH out of the situation places us like 48 other states. Why should bureaucrats at MDOH have the power to overrule the physician I selected for my child?

And if you think I am a tea party, or a right-winger - you would be not just wrong, but very wrong. I do believe in keeping the government out of my life except when it is for the public good. Therefore, I do believe in mandatory vaccinations. But I don't believe every law applies equally to every situation, and that solutions to those exceptions to the rule should be dealt with. This bill does that.

Exactly, 4:47. The "knuckleheads" are the "fire, ready, aim" commenters and the editor himself. Read the damn bill. Not one person says one thing wrong with this bill. They launch off into their diatribes about a different issue missing the mark. This isn't about voluntary avoidance.

Do you want this decision ultimately left with a physician or one of the gubment mouth breathers at the MDOH?

Sorry, but I'm an absolutist when it comes to making any changes in this law when Mississippi has the best vaccination record in the nation.

Read through newspapers from the 1930's and 1940's as I've been doing and you might get an idea of how different things were prior to vaccines.

Can we legislate obesity away? It surely is a major public health problem.

Yeah, allowing a kid's transplant doctor in Nebraska to bypass or override the MSDH staff will throw us back to the '20s. Is that really your argument?? It seems like you're grasping at straws after failing to devote open minded thought to a subject involving vaccinations.

This isn't news. It doesn't really change the law in any meaningful way. There was plenty to report from the legislature this week and this is all we get? If they had passed a law saying you could opt out of vaccines for no reason then that would be a story. How about the House member who voted to not make child molesters pay restitution. The same one votes not to pay teachers who work with blind and deaf kids. He also voted to legalize marijuana. That member would be Home Schooler and self described "devout Christian" Joelenna Bomgaars.

7:10 --

Absolutist in idiocy, it seems. Lost a lot of respect for this stupid post, KF. You think science-based medicine is good? Then let doctors make the call when they decide vaccinations are not appropriate for a child.

8:22, I hope you have the same attitude toward tryptamines, ergolines, phenethylamines, and cannabanoids.

But probably not.

It's a good idea that when you have your child vaccinated, don't do it all at once. Do one at a time. There is no law saying you have to give them the whole enchilada at once.

What the bill does is allow malcontents to doctor shop for a quack in another state. Not a single MS doctor has ever been willing to recommend against the proven science.

The Capitol looked like a playground Wednesday.

Shouldn't most of these kids been at school?

A letter on a duly licensed physician's " stationery" that is not vetted is worthless.

How does the school know that any such physician actually is " duly licensed" or even exists or actually saw this child?
The way this bill reads, a plastic surgeon in Alaska could write this letter.

More likely, it will be some GP seizing the opportunity to charge ignorant,paranoid parents a nice " fee" to claim they've " seen" the child ( will a photo or video do?"). It's a scam in the making!

You yahoos don't know enough history or infectious diseases to know WHY our immunization law WAS the best in the Nation!

Worse, this bill forbids private schools to accept children who aren't immunized! It would have been better to write a bill allowing a private school to exempt children. Then the idiots could send their children to one school!

The hypocrisy of forcing private schools to accept children without proper immunizations in a group that is opposed to government interference is rich!

So, it's ok with all of you if a child dies or is permanently blinded or made sterile for life because his parents are ignorant?

It's ok with you for these children to be in grocery stores after school where babies who are too young to be immunized are with their mothers?

You really don't care what happens to a baby once it's out of the womb!

Please, if you are this damn dumb and irresponsible , don't have children!

This is terrible for our state and the children in our state. Because I can't afford to home school my children, I have to send them to school with these unvaccinated kids because their parents defy science & are know-it-all whack jobs. We all know that the republican majority is ONLY interested in money (they'll worry about votes in 3 1/2 years). Where is the money from this coming from? Who is behind it (other than the obvious non-working whacko moms who think they're smarter than research scientists and physicians because they read it on Facebook)? Crazies. We are FINALLY first in something (childhood immunizations) and now our republican legislators are taking us back. Great job ladies and gentlemen. Also, a great job goes out to Mississippians who keep voting them back in! Keep working---we'll be last in this soon.

Could we have a list of the knuckleheads who voted for this bill?

It's a good way to know which of the members don't bother to educate themselves on a bill but just go with their " feelings".

Herd immunity is one problem on the issue. For some vaccinations to be effective you need a 90 to 95% immunity to make it effective.

The problem with having out of state doctors able to write prescriptions for this, there are many doctors that make it their mission to fight for the anti-vaccine crowd. They could "theoretically" start pumping out exemption notes. The anti-vaccine crowd knows who these doctors are, the websites and message boards keep these groups connected, and word will spread. I think the bill should allow for medical exemptions if warranted, by out of state doctors with in reason, i.e. Memphis, Mobile, etc. Places that people regularly take their kids to the doctor. There should be some history of patient contact rather than some joe blow M.D. writing a note.

I'm for individual's rights, but sometimes, I must give up some liberties for the greater good of the people. I don't mind the TSA screenings if it keeps planes safe. I don't mind speed limits if they keep the roads safe. I don't even mind road block sobriety checks, because they keep roads safe.

So some of you, including Kingfish, think some parents are stupid for not wanting to vaccinate their child when their child's doctor says that particular vaccine is unacceptably dangerous for that particular child? In other words, in your opinion, that parent should ignore the doctor and the child's existing compromised medical condition and do something predictably harmful or even fatal in that particular case, just to try to ward off a possible illness? Let's just maim or kill that particular child to make sure he doesn't get measles.

The real issue, self-centered nannys aside, is whether such children who have not been vaccinated under these legitimate circumstances, pose a risk to the other children due to their lack of vaccination. If that risk is unacceptable, then perhaps the child should not be vaccinated, but also should not be in a classroom setting with others. But it's unlikely such a risk would be that high since presumably the other were vaccinated.

It seems to me the law already provides for all of the above, but the MSDH simply hasn't been following the law, and that's what this bill was about.

If your kid has their shots why would you be worried? Your kid would be protected. Why not let the other parents have the same right you have? You are already willing to let some people opt out of vaccinations. Isn't there the same chance of getting a disease from a child that was not vaccinated because of some allergy or disease as there is from a child that parents choose not to vaccinate them? How about removing all kids with allergies and disease from the classroom?
Parents and some people thing the rest of the world should change to their way of thinking. Get your kids vaccinated if you want. Let me take care of my kids.

Drumpf's success is further empowering the lunatic right, as evident here. I'm going to go practice singing "O, Canada."

Once again we pray, O Lord, that the Mississippi Senate can hold firm, and be the bastion of reason. Please do not bring up this stupid bill, Tate Reeves.

O 12:48, leanr "La Marseillaise" instead! Wouldn't you rather nibble *pain au chocolat* and stroll along the Seine, instead of stomping around among herds of moose and bellying up to the bar with a bunch of lumberjacks?

After working numerous years in public schools, I can say that many children have neve seen a doctor and requiiring the Form 121 MS Immunization document is a wonderful law. This law protects our children and requires updated immunization upon entering public school. I have had parents enrolling students who not only did not have the Form 121 but had no record of any shots. It was my opinion that many of these children had never seen a doctor. The immunization requirement at least insures these children will see a health clinic at school age. There is already an exemption form so I am not sure why any change in the law is needed. If the only change is because out of state doctors can now sign an exemption form, it would be a mistake. We need to insure these children have been seen recently and medically assesed by a professtional doctor. Out of state immunization records can be confusing and hard to read. This is how public school secretaries or registrars can insure that the MS Form 121 is part of the enrollment documents and this law should not be changed. Some states do have the same requirements. The enrollment process is only going to work with a standard form. This works now, why change it?
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