Parents in Belgium may be jailed over vaccinations

[Praxius]

http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNe...2/polio_vaccination_080312/20080312?hub=World

As doctors struggle to eradicate polio worldwide, one of their biggest problems is persuading parents to vaccinate their children. In Belgium, authorities are resorting to an extreme measure: prison sentences.


Two sets of parents in Belgium were recently handed five month prison terms for failing to vaccinate their children against polio. Each parent was also fined 4,100 euros ($8,000).


"It's a pretty extraordinary case," said Dr. Ross Upshur, director of the Joint Centre for Bioethics at the University of Toronto.


"The Belgians have a right to take some action against the parents, given the seriousness of polio, but the question is, is a prison sentence disproportionate?"


The parents can still avoid prison -- their sentences were delayed to give them a chance to vaccinate their children. But if that deadline also passes without their children receiving the injections, the parents could be put behind bars.


Because of privacy laws, Belgian officials would not talk specifically about the case, such as why the parents refused the vaccine or how much longer they have to vaccinate their children.


The polio vaccine is the only one required by Belgian law. Exceptions are granted only if parents can prove their children might have a bad physical reaction to the vaccine.


"Polio is a very serious disease and has caused great suffering in the past," said Dr. Victor Lusayu, head of Belgium's international vaccine centre. "The discovery of the vaccine has eliminated polio from Europe and it is simply the law in Belgium that you have to be vaccinated. ... At the end of the day, the law must be respected."


Some ethicists back the hardline Belgian stance.


"Nobody has the right to unfettered liberty, and people do not have a right to endanger their kids," said John Harris, a professor of bioethics at the University of Manchester.


"The parents in this case do not have any rights they can appeal to. They have obligations they are not fulfilling."


Aside from Belgium, only France makes polio vaccinations mandatory by law. In the United States, children must be vaccinated against many diseases including polio, but most states allow children to opt out if their parents have religious or "philosophical" objections.


In the U.S. state of Maryland, prosecutors and school officials in one county threatened truancy charges against parents who failed to vaccinate their children. The measure sharply reduced the number of unvaccinated children although nobody has been charged.


The only other case of mandatory polio vaccines is during the Muslim yearly Hajj pilgrimage in Saudi Arabia. Every pilgrim must prove he or she has been vaccinated. Saudi officials even give them an extra dose upon arrival at the airport.


Since the polio virus can live in the human body for weeks, it jumps borders easily. That makes health officials even in developed countries nervous, since the threat of an outbreak remains as long as the virus is circulating anywhere.


Polio is a highly infectious disease spread through water that mainly strikes children under five. Initial symptoms include fever, headaches, vomiting, stiffness in the neck and fatigue. The polio virus invades the body's nervous system and can lead to irreversible paralysis within hours. In extreme cases, children can die when their breathing muscles are immobilized.


Incidence has dropped by 99 percent since the World Health Organization and partners began their eradication effort in 1988. But the virus is still entrenched in Afghanistan, India, Nigeria and Pakistan, and occasionally pops up elsewhere.


For developed countries, imported polio cases could cause chaos in the health system, warned Dr. Steve Cochi, an immunization expert at the United States' Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.


He said that unlike other medical problems, in which rejecting treatment only affects the individual, refusing a vaccine for a transmissible disease like polio puts others at risk as well.


"Most of the time, polio outbreaks do spill into the general population," Cochi said.


Ethicists argue that people who refuse vaccinations are taking advantage of everyone else who has been vaccinated. Once the majority of a population is vaccinated, there are few susceptible people the disease can infect, thus lowering the odds of an outbreak.


People who refuse to be vaccinated are "free riders," Harris said. "They can only afford to refuse the vaccine because they are surrounded by people who have fulfilled their obligations to the community."


Health officials doubt that Belgium's strategy will be useful to countries still battling polio.


"It is up to individual countries to decide their own policies, but we do not feel that imprisonment would help," said Dr. David Heymann, WHO's top polio official.

No comment as of yet.....

 

[karrie]

Great article.

More parents need this... " the threat of an outbreak remains as long as the virus is circulating anywhere.".... drilled into their heads. Too many people ignore our current global nature, and assume low incident rates in their own country to keep their kids safe.

 

[dancing-loon]

So, if the parents keep refusing and go to jail, will the authorities take the children away and immunize them, OR are they free after the jail punishment?

An option would be to pack up and leave!!! :lol: move to another European country!!

 

[Praxius]

Great article.

More parents need this... " the threat of an outbreak remains as long as the virus is circulating anywhere.".... drilled into their heads. Too many people ignore our current global nature, and assume low incident rates in their own country to keep their kids safe.

True, but one thing that caught my eye on this article, was that you can goto jail for refusing what I considder "Medical Treatment." ~ Generically Speaking of Course. Although for some more serious medical problems such as Polio do need some level of enforcement or education applied to the parents, But jailtime? (Questionable) I mean if one wanted to twist the logic around, why not jail the parents of the child infected whom infected your child to begin with, as then there would actually be a crime one can record? (out there I know.... but for debating purposes)

Another thing is if and when our country decides to impliment a similar type of law where you as the parent can be jailed for not allowing the government to inject/treat your child with (Insert medical proceedure here) Where do they stop? Before you know it, in hypothetical speaking, they could also force you to give anti-depressants to your child, or worse, without your parental rights being protected.... aka: the State owns your child and the State has more rights over what happens to your child then you do.

Now as for Polio itself, indeed it is a serious situation and the chances of spreading are real, heck, and I'll even say that it's a good idea to give the shot to your child (One of the vaccines I don't see much of an issue with personally) But it's the approach I question.

I mean if the government is going to force you to shove medication into your child, I personally would see more sense into a court ordered doctor showing up to your house with the vaccine and two police escorts to make sure it is done, then to chuck the parents into jail.... but that's just me and my nit picking ways.

 

[karrie]

The governments of both Canada and the US currently can take children, and can press child endangerment charges (which carry jail time) when parents refuse medical treatments. Neither enforce them to this degree, but then, we don't have the same risk factors either... an outbreak is probably easier to deal with given our more spread out population. It seems to me that a threat of jail time will work out cheaper for their government in the long run, than having to show up and forcibly bypass parents to inject their children. Perhaps they're just assuming it will be the most expedient way to get what they want.

 

[Praxius]

To a degree you are right on child endangerment, but remember this incident:

http://www.cbc.ca/news/yourview/2007/02/sextuplet_parents_take_bc_to_c.html

The Vancouver parents of sextuplets born in January are now in a legal battle with the province, claiming the government violated their religious rights when social workers seized three of their newborns to give them blood transfusions.

The parents, both Jehovah's Witnesses, argue the province had no right to step in against their wishes to take temporary custody of three of their four surviving sextuplets.

Two blood transfusions were done, and the babies were returned to the custody of their parents on Wednesday.

The couple says their constitutional rights were disregarded because, as Jehovah's Witnesses, they oppose any treatment involving blood transfusions.

B.C. Minister of Children and family Services Tom Christensen made it clear that regardless of a family's religious affiliation, "the obligation is to ensure that a child in need of protection … gets the treatment required," even if that means the ministry must step in.

This falls somewhat along the lines of my own personal beliefs of organ donation and blood transfusions. The government did not have the right to interfeer in this matter. You are allowed to refuse medical treatment as an adult and I figure that as an adult parent you also have the right to make that decision for your children, esspecially if there are religious beliefs involved. The government should not have any right into forcing their own beliefs on you. And in this paticular case where no other citizens were at risk of any infections, but were health concerns for the individual children, the government had no grounds to stick their noses in their own beliefs and matters, regardless if they felt it was in the children's best interests.

Some people on this planet, as hard as it maybe to believe, believe in natural selection or the natural order of things. When your time to go comes, it is time to go. To me, I also believe this to a certain level. If your body can not keep you alive naturally and need medical intervention at some point..... to some, that is cheating death and the natural process of life.... and regardless of what others may think, that is their own right to believe.

Maybe they're ignorant on the details of what's going on..... then again, maybe they're not and they know exactly what's going on and what will happen. Perhaps they put their trust in God or Nature/Natural Course of Things.

Who are we to dictate to them what to believe in? Who are we to dictate who knows best? Maybe in the above case, the blood transfussions were a good thing and now the kids will live a perfectly normal life. But with the same logic, maybe telling people not to believe in the Koran is a good thing to (Ah.... now we get into more touchier stuff)

It's a slippery slop once we allow the government to pick and choose for us regardless of our own personal decisions.... that is no longer a democracy if you ask me, and the government isn't working for us any longer, we are working for them.

Then again, perhaps we always have been.

Another case in point is that if I have a couple of stokes/heart attacks when I am older, I clearly do not want to be hooked up to a life support machine for a week or two just to keep me alive and starring at a ceiling until I actually die from the machine shoved down my lungs.... that happened to my grandmother and I could see it in her eyes she didn't want that.... I'll be damned if I'll let that happen to me. When it is my time to natually go, I shall. I will not let doctors or the government dictate to me how I will live and die..... that is our own choice to be making, not theirs.

People may think it is cruel and unusual to allow your own children to die or suffer from something that could easily be treated by modren medicine.... but we are not to dictate to them how to live because we think it is. If people in Iran, China, Saudi Arabia, or elsewhere want to live the way they do, and their cultures seem to florish for generations and seem content.... who are we to argue? I am sure they too can find appalling things about our own countries and cultures that they can not understand.

That's life.

I just don't believe it is anymore right to jail the parents for not gatting a medical proceedure for their kids, or to abduct their children, as it is for them not to get it in the treatments in the first place.

This is the real world, people live and die.... we can not attempt to continue to try and save everybody from everything and always try and seek the longest possible life for everyone, esspecially by force, regardless if they think it'd be cheaper then to send someone over to take care of the situation, or even just talking to them to educate them.

If you tell them the pros and cons, and you educate them about the process and they still refuse.... then that's your answer. If you are afraid your child will get infected from these kids without the vaccine, then get the vaccine for your kid and let their parents worry about their kids.

Just because some health officials claim they're free loading off of everybody else who did get the shots, doesn't make them right, nor does that even sound logical. If you're afraid of Polio... get the shots.... let everyone else who doesn't die, what's the problem?

 

[tracy]

I can't believe you think it would be ok to let a baby die when it's easily prevented just because of who that baby happened to be born to. Parents aren't allowed to neglect or injure their children and then say "Well, it didn't hurt anybody else so it shouldn't matter". That's sick, twisted logic. Those parents suing the people who kept their children alive is just disgusting. Perhaps it is easier for you because it's a hypothetical situation, but I find it hard to believe you'd be willing to watch a baby die because his parents don't want him to get a transfusion.

 

[Praxius]

I can't believe you think it would be ok to let a baby die when it's easily prevented just because of who that baby happened to be born to. Parents aren't allowed to neglect or injure their children and then say "Well, it didn't hurt anybody else so it shouldn't matter". That's sick, twisted logic.

No. what you're claiming is a subjective attitude. Parents are not allowed to neglect or injure their children, indeed, but in these cases this is not happening.... the virus or infection that they got from another child or person injured them or neglected them, not their parents.... you can jail or sue them if you so desire. Where one person's level of neglect may lie, anothers may vary.... I will attempt to explain below

And your personal and emotional appeal towards human life is your own. I nor anybody else require to share in that. Call it sick or twisted, it makes no difference to me. I find plenty of things in this world quite sick and appalling, yet they continue everyday through our lives and nobody seems to give a rats arse...... you pick and choose... such is life.

At least I know I got your attention ;-)

Those parents suing the people who kept their children alive is just disgusting.

No, that is their religous belief and your personal opinion.... both are an unwinable battle when you think about it.

Perhaps it is easier for you because it's a hypothetical situation, but I find it hard to believe you'd be willing to watch a baby die because his parents don't want him to get a transfusion.

When it comes to my own children, I am not saying I wouldn't give them a transfusion. My beliefs are my own, not my children's. But what I believe in that aspect doesn't validate the disqualification of their own beliefs and what they were brought up to do. That is why we have parents and why parents are not to dictate to other parents how to raise their children.... try it sometime and I'm sure it will get a bit messy.

Would I sit by and allow a family to refuse treatment for their children based on their personal beliefs?

Yes I would. If I didn't and I decided to dictate to them how to raise their own kids, then perhaps I should just raise them myself. Now with that mentality, I could end up like an old cat lady with kids all over the place from people I figured were neglectful to their kids..... where do you draw the line?

IMO, one must cut the emotional ties sometime to actually look at the practicality of that emotion in said situation. You can not save everyone on this planet.

Added: of course if they're beating the crap or chopping their hands off for stealing a cookie, then that maybe a different situation.... but still a touchy one. It is not a simple decision to make, and of course each situation must be handled individually and use your own judgement.

Perhaps I may interfeer. I didn't with my grandmother, because it was not my place. I felt as though I should, but now all one can do is learn from the past and apply it to your own life.

Here's a similar touchy subject: What if your child is known by the doctors, that it will be born critically deformed and may not even survive shortly after birth? Do you get an abortion to prevent its suffering, or try and see if it will survive and hope for the best?

One person will say to go for the abortion.... another will say give it a chance. What would you do?

There is no one absolute in these situations.

Now picture yourself as a medic on the battlefield where you have to pick and choose who lives and who dies, because there's just no time to save everyone..... what do you do? No matter what you do, you will always end the day looking back and thinking of those you knew or thought were too far gone and you see their faces in pain etched into your mind. Could you have really done something in a few seconds, or was there really nothing else you could do? Sometimes if you do not pull away from emotion, you will get lost in it, as well as your own mind.

 

[tracy]

No. what you're claiming is a subjective attitude. Parents are not allowed to neglect or injure their children, indeed, but in these cases this is not happening.... the virus or infection that they got from another child or person injured them or neglected them, not their parents.... you can jail or sue them if you so desire. Where one person's level of neglect may lie, anothers may vary.... I will attempt to explain below

And your personal and emotional appeal towards human life is your own. I nor anybody else require to share in that. Call it sick or twisted, it makes no difference to me. I find plenty of things in this world quite sick and appalling, yet they continue everyday through our lives and nobody seems to give a rats arse...... you pick and choose... such is life.
.

I don't consider refusing vaccinations to be neglecting or injuring children. The law allows that. Blood transfusions during emergencies are another matter.

 

[tracy]

No, that is their religous belief and your personal opinion.... both are an unwinable battle when you think about it.

It isn't an unwinable battle when our laws are very clear on the matter. My take on blood transfusions and children is the one shared by the law. Fortunately all the parents I've worked with who didn't want blood transfusions were aware of that and it has never been a problem even when we had to get a court order to do it.

 

[tracy]

..... where do you draw the line?

IMO, one must cut the emotional ties sometime to actually look at the practicality of that emotion in said situation. You can not save everyone on this planet.

Added: of course if they're beating the crap or chopping their hands off for stealing a cookie, then that maybe a different situation.... but still a touchy one. It is not a simple decision to make, and of course each situation must be handled individually and use your own judgement.
.

The line has already been drawn. I don't see a difference between denying a child emergency medical care that can save it's life and starving it to death. We can't save everyone but that doesn't mean we let them all die. That's just silly.

.....
Here's a similar touchy subject: What if your child is known by the doctors, that it will be born critically deformed and may not even survive shortly after birth? Do you get an abortion to prevent its suffering, or try and see if it will survive and hope for the best?

One person will say to go for the abortion.... another will say give it a chance. What would you do?

There is no one absolute in these situations..

It's not a touchy subject. I'd abort. The law allows me to make that decision. That's an absolute. It doesn't make my decision right or the other decision wrong, but whether or not it's allowed under our laws matters and is one absolute in the situation.

 

[Praxius]

Well I appreciate your responses, as my decision would probably have been similar.

About blood transfusions personally, I don't like donating blood and I sure don't like the though of some other person's filthy blood in my system, no matter how much they check and say it's clean, it's the thought of somebody's forign goo running through my body. To me, it's a form of cheating.

But also, another reason, is that (if I am not mistaken) during the Falklands War the british learned about the body's ability to deal with truama, as they didn't have easy access to much plasma on the field, but with the cold and body going into shock, it reduced the amount the soldier bleeded. During the Vietnam war, many soldiers died, from what I recall, from continual blood transfusions, which cause them to continually bleed and make it more difficult for clotting during flights back off the field.

I would much rather get fluids into my body to produce my own blood back, and beat it the way I feel it should (Depending on the situation of course and what is involved) and that's a rather, not absolute.

 

[tracy]

Premature babies don't respond like adults. Their bodies don't have the ability to produce blood fast enough to survive when they need a transfusion. Docs nowadays don't give transfusions casually. We are almost always short of blood, which is why they are always begging for donors. Those parents suing are saying they'd rather have those two kids dead or brain damaged. Most JW families I've worked with seemed fine with transfusions even if they said they weren't, kwim? They made us get court orders, but they were always glad to take their children home healthy and never got into disputes with the staff over it.

 

[Praxius]

Premature babies don't respond like adults. Their bodies don't have the ability to produce blood fast enough to survive when they need a transfusion.

Well yes, that is why I was referencing my own reasons for not liking them. I will have to determine what is best for my child when the time comes.

Docs nowadays don't give transfusions casually. We are almost always short of blood, which is why they are always begging for donors. Those parents suing are saying they'd rather have those two kids dead or brain damaged. Most JW families I've worked with seemed fine with transfusions even if they said they weren't, kwim? They made us get court orders, but they were always glad to take their children home healthy and never got into disputes with the staff over it.

Perhaps, but then I guess it depends on a individuals' devotion to their religion.

But either way, for me, so long as it is an educated decision on the parents behalf, I don't believe the government has the right to force their views on families. But this is here nor there. Without getting much more clouded on the subject, I think jail time is still excessive.

 

[tracy]

I think jail time for vaccine refusals is heavy handed. I do understand their rationale though. Vaccines aren't 100% effective so if an unvaccinated kid comes down with the disease they can still spread it to others. It's scary. That said, it's Belgium's business. Canada and the US both allow parents to leave their kids unvaccinated.

I think the government has every right to get involved if parents deny their children urgently needed medical treatment though. The reason parents are the ones who make decisions for their children is because we believe they want what's best for their children. It's not because they own them and can do whatever they want with them. When it becomes clear that the parents are choosing unecessary death or disability in the immediate future for their children, who are otherwise expected to recover with medical care, the government has the right and the responsibility to step in. It's neglect and it's illegal here.

I've never met a JW parent who wasn't aware of the law btw. They know when they have their kids in the hospital that a transfusion will happen if it's needed. They aren't held accountable by the church when the hospital forces a transfusion through a court order. It's a win-win for them (they don't have any guilt in the transfusion process, but they still get to enjoy a living baby at the end instead of planning a funeral). Those particular parents in BC knew that having six babies would mean having them prematurely. They also couldn't have been unaware of the fact that premature babies usually need transfusing at some point. To bitch about it after the fact is ridiculous.