With the numerous amounts of research proving the effectiveness as well as the massive amounts of benefits of child vaccinations – there are still parents who just plain refuse to vaccinate their kids.
Legally, Parents do have the right to ignore the advice of medical professionals as well as scientific data and can abstain from adhering to a vaccination schedule in many states in the US.
But this mom is taking her stance against vaccines to the absolute extreme.
A Michigan mom of one young boy, Rebecca Bredow, says that she would rather face imprisonment than get her child vaccinated.
“I would rather go to jail for standing up for what I believe in than vaccinate my child,” Bredow told ABC News recently. She believes the decision to vaccinate your child is a “personal choice.”
Bredow and her ex-husband are now at odds over their son’s vaccinations. When they were married, Bredow claims that her then-husband agreed to space out her son’s vaccines, however, changed his mind once they separated.
The father now wishes for his son to receive all his vaccinations. She was court-ordered to bring him up to the “fullest extent medically allowed,” which means that she has only a few days to get her son up-to-date on eight vaccines in one dose.
The state of Michigan does allow for parents to opt-out of certain vaccines for non-medical reasons.
Bredow says that she had done her own research and decided spacing out son’s vaccines was the route she wanted to go.
“It wasn’t until they started grouping them together that I backed off of doing vaccines,” she told WXYZ Detroit.
According to court records which ABC News got access to – Bredow was ordered to vaccinate her son in November 2016, but as of September 2017 she still did not comply with the court order.
Whether the Mother ends up spending time in jail is for a judge to decide but it’s important to note that The American Academy of Pediatrics emphasizes the necessity of vaccines with regard to children’s health and safety.
On it’s website the AAP says “Vaccines have been part of the fabric of our society for decades and are the most significant medical innovation of our time,” and that “Vaccines are safe. Vaccines are effective. Vaccines save lives.”
Pediatric offices refusing to see kids who are not vaccinated
Some parents feel that they are being “bullied” to vaccinate their kids in order to get them seen at some pediatric offices.Some Florida parents were shocked after they say they were kicked out of local pediatric offices for refusing to vaccinate their kids.
“We want everyone vaccinated and caught up with the CDC schedule by age of 2,” said Dr. Thomas Connolly, a pediatrician with the Carithers Pediatric Group.
It turns out, the decision to not vaccinate their kids is becoming more common locally.
WTLV compared numbers from the 2002-2003 school year to the 2016-1017 school year for Clay, Duval and St. Johns’ public schools. The number of religious exemptions for kindergarten students went up seven times in Clay County, 17 times for Duval County and 25 times for St. Johns County. However, data also shows that 93 percent to 96 percent of students have all the vaccinations required to start school.
Connolly said he strongly encourages all of his patients to get vaccinated.
“It’s nothing personal against you as a person, I respect your decision that is your decision, but my medical decision and my background and my belief is I want the child vaccinated to maximize their defense,” Connolly said.
He’s not the only practice in Jacksonville strictly enforcing the guidelines. Rainbow Pediatrics also recently changed their vaccine policy.
“My oldest son is 13 and just recently, I took them into the same pediatrician’s office and they informed me at the end of the visit that they would no longer see my children because I don’t vaccinate them,” said Lauren McGuinnes, a mother of four. She said she stopped vaccinating her kids several years ago, but what shocked when Rainbow Pediatrics refused to continue providing care for them.
“Parents are kind of being bullied to vaccinate,” she said.
We reached out Rainbow Pediatrics for comment and they sent us a statement saying that their vaccine policy changed at the start of 2017. It states the practice no longer accepts new patients who “refuse to vaccinate.”
Some parents say they were shocked that some local pediatric offices turned them away for not vaccinating their kids https://t.co/jzOwztuwp3 pic.twitter.com/PJv1VT3xiJ
— First Coast News (@FCN2go) Ngày 15 tháng 08 năm 2017
“We feel strongly that vaccinating children is absolutely the right thing to do for infants, children, and young adults,” said Prasanthi Reddy.
McGuinnes said she doesn’t agree.
“I don’t agree with injecting my children with the virus that I’m trying to protect them from,” she said.
Connolly said turning patients away is not an easy decision, but one that he feels is necessary to protect other children from serious illnesses.
“If a child is not vaccinated intentionally, comes back from a trip, brings back measles or something along that line and goes into the waiting room and we have babies or kids who are on steroids or chemo type thing, they just got everybody,” Connolly said.
Connolly said he’s willing to discuss an alternate vaccine schedule with parents, but will not see patients who opt out altogether.