Once upon a time, in the interest of public health and well being, the powers that be in our state governments partnered with the CDC in recommending a plan to require a series of vaccinations for school children to inoculate them against a variety of diseases. Over time, this plan has grown to include vaccinations for not only the "normal" childhood diseases (like measles, mumps, tetanus, whooping cough, chickenpox), but also diseases like Hepatitis, Influenza Type B, and conditions that if left untreated can cause cancer in women.

Various parents, for many reasons, have and will continue to object to the public vaccination plan based on religious or moral principles. They do so in good faith; and in many states, with the full support of state legislation which gives them this opportunity to opt out of the process. This is one of the many reforms made outside of the education arena that directly permits parents to have personal control over an educational issue.

In some states, however, opting out of the vaccination process does not guarantee that your child will not be innoculated. In my home state of Texas, for example, legislation specifically permits parents to opt out of vaccinating their children if there is a moral or religious reason for doing so. However, couched within the text of the legislation is a phrase that reads "unless there is a public emergency or epidemic." This means if your child has not been vaccinated and there is a sudden outbreak of measles, mumps, whooping cough, etc. in your area, your child may be inoculated--with or without your permission--at the discretion of the State Health Department or other government agency. One would hope that there are some controls in place to control this emergency/epidemic process and the state/local government/school would notify the parent before vaccinating the child. But in this day and age of "pandemic" illness, you never know.

As the laws regarding vaccination of schoolchildren vary from state to state, I encourage parents to contact their state's Department of Education (or whichever entity holds responsibility for PreK-12 education) and find out the specific details related to religious and moral exemptions from vaccination. If you opt not to vaccinate (and I by no means encourage anyone to opt out without a medical reason for doing so as I am biased in this matter, having two children for whom such illnesses represent great risk), you will want to know what your rights are as a parent. Especially with Swine Flu and other fun illnesses lurking just around the corner.

Until next time, happy reading!