Vaccine-Free-Free Schools

So I watched the first episode of Eli Stone a couple weeks ago, mostly because I had received a press release from the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) demanding the show be pulled because it upheld the connection between mercury in vaccines and the development of autism. Which is pretty harsh, if you ask me, but there’s an ugly PR war going on out there and they had to do something. 

I’d be meaning to do this for a while, but I finally went to the CDC site to figure out what vaccinations were required for school and which states allow exemptions on what grounds. Here is a PDF of the rules as of 2005-2006. All states offer exemptions for medical reasons and almost all offer exemptions for religious reasons. The standard of authority is highly variable - private doctor’s note? specialist? pastor? must belong to recognized religion such as the Church of Christ Scientist that has written tenets against vaccines and other medical stuff?

And then we have the 20 states that allow you to opt out for philosophical reasons. Ew. I think the CDC says is best on this point. I don’t think they meant this to be comic, but, well...“Given the increasing number of states allowing philosophical exemptions to vaccines, at some point we are going to be forced to decide whether it is our inalienable right to catch and transmit potentially fatal infections.”

And anyways, Eli Stone totally sucked weenis, physical impossibility not withstanding. That was enough for me.