Chicken Pox & other vaccines in Kansas

[SolomonMom]

Hello. New here. It turns out I'm a "delayed vaccinator," though I didn't know there was a name for it until I read the archives here. I home schooled my two oldest (11 & 12) until last year, at which point I updated their vaccines in order to enroll them in public school. My youngest (6yo) was born with a brain defect, which sounds worse than it is. The symptoms are relatively mild and you wouldn't know she had a brain defect unless I told you. She has been in the public school system since just before her third birthday. I "filled in" (read: lied about) a few vaccines on her vaccination schedule so that she could enter the special preschool she needed and have since caught her up except for the last required round.

I received letters from our school nurse indicating "new requirements for the 2009/2010 school year" and I'm fed up. I went against my gut in getting some of the vaccines required and now they want more??? I have specifically avoided the chicken pox vaccine and want to continue avoiding it as I have three daughters who will some day possibly have children of their own. I prefer that they obtain lifelong immunity by contracting the wild virus rather than temporary immunity that may run out just as they become pregnant.

I'm rambling as a result of my frustration. Sorry. Here are my questions:

1) Do any of you know how I can go about exempting my daughters from the varicella vaccine? Religious reasons, maybe? I happen to be Catholic and could easily pull the "aborted fetus ingredients" card, but how do I do that?

2) How do I go about finding a chicken pox party? I will travel--I mean REALLY travel--though not outside the US & preferably not where a large breakout of swine flu--I mean H1N1 (gotta be PC here)--has occurred

3) ANY educational information is welcome--specifically about how to become exempt from vaccine requirements, especially the "new" ones. I have had no trouble finding information about the danger of vaccines.

4) Does my daughter's brain defect allow for her to be exempt from vaccine requirements? She still needs one more round of several vaccines & I'm uneasy about all of them.

BTW, the "new" vaccine requirements in Kansas are:

1) DTaP: 5 doses required. 4 doses is 4th dose is given on or after 4th birthday. Booster dose of Tdap required at age 11 -emphasis theirs, as well as spelling of "Tdap." Did they mean DTaP?

2) Hep B: 3 doses required for K-12

3) Hep A: 2 doses for children under 5

4) Hib: 3 doses for children under 5

5) PCV7 (Pneumococcal conjugate): 4 doses for children under 5

6) varicella vaccine--1 dose required or documentation by a licensed physician that the child has had cp.

I don't know what the original requirements were.

Thank you in advance for your time. I've looked through the archives and haven't found these specific questions answered.

[Gitti]

You can put a religious exemption in place any time.
Look over the thread for Kansas -



http://www.mothering.com/discussions...d.php?t=824643

[kiara7]

I would just file a religious exemption for everyone. They just seem to add more and more to their "requirements". You don't have to be a part of any organized religion. Religious exemption is based on your personal religious beliefs. One can have a change in beliefs at any time, so it's ok that they've had some vax's. Furthermore, if they ask you what religion you are, just say that you're not comfortable discussing your religious beliefs with them. You don't have to give any explanations to anyone.

[SolomonMom]

Thanks. That helps. I live in a very small town and the school nurse attends my Catholic church. In your opinion, will this matter? I can claim that I have religious beliefs separate from my organized religion. Right? I can at least give it a whirl & see what happens. Keep in mind, the nurse is very pro-vaccine, especially Gardisil. Could prove interesting.

[KimPM]

Are all the girls going to go to public school? Public schools have to accept your legal state exemption.

Are you trying to get them into a Catholic private school? If so, then there are particular issues associated with that. I believe it depends on the particular private school whether they will accept your exemption, they don't have to. There was a thread on here somewhere about exemptions and Catholic schools.

The religious exemption means that you are opposed to the practice of vaccination. That means...no more vaccines from this point on.

If you object to a particular vaccine based on fetal tissue, then that's a philosophical exemption, strangely enough.

If you find a doctor to certify that your daughter should not receive a particular vaccine, usually it covers just that one vax, so you'd have to get the others. Unless there is a medical reason for her not to receive all of the rest. And the medical exemption would have to be re-upped every year.

For more information on this, visit the "I'm Not Vaccinating" subforum here on MDC.

[KimPM]

Oh, and for any word on potential chicken pox, you can check the MDC local area postings for places that you would consider traveling to.

Oh, they will keep increasing the vaxes required. They can also tell you to get repeat vaxes for previous years when they claim the vax was not good enough. (Happened to me before I got wise.)

[tanyalynn]

Just want to expand on one thing about religious exemptions. There's nothing commonsense about them, although many people truly object to the derivation from aborted fetuses, that is not considered an acceptable objection from a legal standpoint. You want to make it clear that you are now objecting to the entire practice of vaccination. I know there have been threads that discuss specific language (if someone asks, not sure how much Kansas tries to discern whether peoples' objections are sincere), but you want to be very careful in the words you use. Safety, anything about specific ingredients, that stuff should not come out of your mouth. Like I said, not commonsense, very strange legal rulings IMO.