OK, they make some good points. But while they mention a small segment of people who oppose vaccines for religious reasons or personal reasons (such as the fear of a possible link to autism) they fail to mention the largest segment of un immunized children.
The children of illegal aliens.
The children of illegals are the only group not required to provide proof of immunization or get an exemption based on religious or personal grounds. They just walk on in and get to go to class.
The State Law says:
No children shall be permitted to attend any public school, nursery school, kindergarten, preschool or child care facility until proof of immunization is given the admissions officer of the school, nursery school, kindergarten, preschool or child care facility except as provided in subsection (b) [This is from Title 49, Chapter 6, Part 50--General Provisions, subsection (b) refered to in here is the religious exception.]
According to State Law, the only kids who don’t have to be immunized are kids whose parents don’t believe in it for religious reasons and kids who have medical conditions under which immunizing them might further compromise their health. They are required to have notes from their doctors.
This stuff Campfield claims? That the children of illegal immigrants are allowed to go to school without proper immunizations? It’s utter bullshit. Nowhere in the state law that I could find is that allowed. If you want to go to school here you have to be immunized. Period. If Campfield has access to some other statutes that I’ve overlooked, I invite him to share those with the world. If he knows of schools who are letting any children attend class without proper immunization, he, as a state congressperson is morally obliged to tell the authorities and let other parents know that the schools are breaking the laws.
But if he’s just spreading this racist trope that illegal immigrants are dirty and carry diseases without even bothering to do the cursory internet searches required to see if what he’s saying is even true, then carry on you evil jerk, carry on.
Oh, I know some of you are just about to say “Oh, well, it could be happening.” I would ask you to consider statute 49-6-5001-d–”Each child attending any school, nursery school, kindergarten, preschool or child care facility without furnishing proof of immunization or exception under subsection (b) and/or (e), shall not be counted in the average daily attendance of students for the distribution of state school funds.”
And then I would ask you this: If schools cannot get money for students who are otherwise able to be immunized if they are not, why would those schools let those children attend?
Explain that to me, Campfield. What, exactly, are these schools’ motivations for letting these unimmunized children in? They’re not legally required to and it hurts them financially.
So, do you know of this actually happening or are you just making stuff up?
Filed under: Politics and Other Nonsense
Trust me when I say they are NOT letting unimmunized children into school. (other than the religious and health exemptions) Unless there’s some vast conspiracy I’m unaware of. I damn near didn’t get Aaron into school because of immunization issues.
The place where he got most of his shots had closed down by the time he got to kindergarten and nobody knew where the records had gone. Because the place was in Davidson County, they told me to go to the Davidson County Health Department, who told me because we lived in Rutherford County, they must have his shot records. Rutherford County told me to go back to Davidson County and I had a week of hell screaming at various Health Departments (sorry, Health Department employees) before I finally, finally found them.
So, no, your kids aren’t getting into school without the proper immunization records, even if you have a fairly good excuse like mine.
But Ivy, you don’t have the magic skin of brownness that opens all doors. Because, you know, being the child of an illegal immigrant in Nashville is so socially and educationally advantageous.
What’s up with the Christian bloggers in Knoxville? Rob Huddleston’s scapegoating by mentioning the alleged ethnicity of the Central High shooter comes to mind.
This vaccination scare also reminds me of Marsha Blackburn’s hearings based on rumors of immigrants running hospitals into the ground by visiting the emergency rooms and not paying. The testimony at Blackburn’s hearing was contrary to those rumors – hospital bigwigs told her that the lack of insurance for ordinary Americans is what is crippling hospitals’ budgets. The flummoxed Congressman did not, for some reason, use the new information to turn her attention to that problem.
What I want to know is, do they go around making this stuff up, or do they actually believe it?
I dunno, Bridgett, my skin is pretty dark. I guess I should have tanned more so I didn’t have to go through all that drama.
you don’t have the magic skin of brownness that opens all doors.
Hey, it gets your reckless driving charges dismissed.
Well, it does if there’s no evidence that you were driving recklessly.
My boyfriend, a doctor, actually uses this sort of thing as his standard argument *for* healthcare for illegal immigrants when people start making stupid comments about “wasting” resources on them.
“Do you really want large groups of people dying of infectious diseases in your neighborhood?”
(He does believe that all people should have access to healthcare, he just finds the “Seriously, do you want TB?” argument tends to work against people who don’t believe that.)
Hey, it gets your reckless driving charges dismissed.
As I recall she did some hard time for that before they dismissed the charges.
John Lamb:
There are no uninsured american citizens. This obvious fact is why she didn’t take action, because the people testifying at the hearing were obviously lying and socialists to boot. They’ll say anything to sneak in socialism you know.
A largely irrelevant pet peeve: the term “immunization.”
A more correct term is “vaccination,” as used by John Lamb.* Vaccines do not “immunize” anyone, though they do provide a good deal of protection to both the individual and the community if they are manufactured and distributed safely. The only way one can possibly develop an immunity to any communicable disease is to catch the disease and survive it.**
Please return to your regularly scheduled thread.
*Vaccination is a form of inoculation; catching the disease is another. Vaccination attempts to mimic the process of natural inoculation without recreating the harmful effects of a natural infection.
**Though not being a trained pathologist, I’m betting there are some diseases for which this is not true. Furthermore, there are some diseases whose effects are so harmful that vaccination is always preferable to immunization, especially where immunization=death.
CS, you’ll have to tell the CDC that, as they provide immunization schedules, which tell people when to get vaccines – http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/recs/schedules/default.htm
Well, Rachel, I guess that’s one way that language evolves; when incorrect usage becomes entrenched in both official bureaucracy and common discourse, the incorrect is eventually accepted as correct. I’m cool with that larger dynamic, but my alarm tends to go off when lives are at stake.
Just to be clear: as I said before, I’m all for safe and responsible vaccination (for citizens and undocumented migrants alike). It is far better than the alternative, especially given the feudal nature of access in our health care system. Just as long as people understand that getting a shot will most likely protect them, but it won’t make them immune to anything.
CS, with some diseases, even having had the disease does not necessarily completely immunize a person from that disease. Examples include dengue fever (which is fatal if you catch it a second time), measles (immunity can wear off over time), and chicken pox (some people catch it multiple times).
I think the original usage was based on some assumptions that have, over time, been proven incorrect.
From a transcript of the PBS NewsHour found here:
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/education/aliens_5-27.html
Ezola Foster, A high school teacher in the Los Angeles Unified School District verifies that children of illegals and children here illegally don’t have to have immunizations to enter her schools.
Three caveats:
* The reference is a bit dated (1996).
* It IS in Los Angeles, in an area of our nation already surrendered to the La Raza invasion.
* I’m not Stacey Campfield.
So cut Campfield at least a little slack. Maybe more/better research on his claims will prove him to be correct.
Jim Boyd
http://www.cooljim.com
Dunno Jim, looking up the state law seems about as much research as is really necessary. It’s certainly more than Stacey seems to have done.
The only way I can see that not being definitive is if there’s some federal law that over rules it. I think the burden of proof would be on you and Mr. Campfield now.
OK. I’ll look at the Federal Law. But since I’m not a lawyer (thank God), I don’t know how successful I’ll be.