Help! Moving to Japan.

[seattlemamma]

My Husband joined the military and we are moving to Japan. We have chosen not to vaccinate all of my children. How do I find our what is required to travel there. Do I even have to get vaccinations?

[Emmeline II]

Japan (the country) doesn't require any vaccines for visitors, but the Navy will try to impose them on you anyway.

Japan is a modern country, with a similar vaccination schedule that does not require your vaccination. Your under or non-vaccination status is not a medical condition and would not preclude successful completion of an overseas assignment; you are just as fit to go overseas as you are to be with your member stateside, and it is a discriminatory practice to impose vaccination on dependents going overseas.

Print and read the med clearance form DOD Form NAVMED 13001/2 and the screening reg OPNAV INSTRUCTION 1300.14D
SUITABILITY SCREENING FOR OVERSEAS AND REMOTE DUTY
ASSIGNMENT.

Fitness to meet requirements of overseas/remote assignments. Service members and family members do not possess any performance, disciplinary, financial, educational, psychological, and medical or other physical attributes that would preclude successful completion of an overseas/remote assignment.

This is my summary of the issue.

This thread was started by a Navy OP that eventually received med clearance for Japan.
I am just so tired. (http://www.mothering.com/discussions.../multipage.gif 1 2 3 )

This OP is working on it.
We got declined for Japan.

[seattlemamma]

Oh, thank you! What a relief!

[seattlemamma]

My husband was enlisted and just became an officer. We currently have vaccine waivers from preventative medicine on post..I hope this works for the screening and we do not have to put up a fight. I will have to reeducate myself on everything. It is always so hard for me to remember everything when I am angry or under pressure. We are in the Army not the Navy..I wonder if it matters?

[treemom2]

Hi!! When/where are you going? My DH is a teacher on a base in Japan. We don't vax, but since we are civilians we didn't have to get the medical check to come overseas. I've been given a hard time at the clinic (the first year we lived here) and now I just don't even mention it. . .in fact, when they ask I tell them that my doctor in the states takes care of all our vaxing issues. We now mostly take our children out to Japanese docs and they've never asked about our vax status. We homeschool, so that's never really been an issue. We also put our children into Japanese school and they never said anything about our nonvax status (well, they did send home a note in English asking why we weren't giving the TB vax, but didn't make a big deal out of it). My friend just enrolled her unvaxed child (they're also civilians) in the DoDDs school using this form.

There have been a lot of threads on this issue lately. I've heard of families coming here that aren't vaxed, but I'm not really sure what they had to go through. One of my friends (I met her on MDC when she was asking questions about vaxing) wasn't so lucky, she ended up vaxing because the people she spoke with said it would be a big fight to get the right forms. Here are some threads:
http://www.mothering.com/discussions...239&highlight=
http://www.mothering.com/discussions...405&highlight=
http://www.mothering.com/discussions...150&highlight=

I see you are Army. . .Paniscus went to an army base to get her med stuff done and that's where she ran into trouble. . .you might want to contact her and find out anything extra to take with you. I think she took all Navy stuff and so the Army said they didn't have to follow those regs? I'm not too sure

[seattlemamma]

Thanks treemom2. I will also look into it. I also homeschool. I have 4 children and one on the way in August. 13,9,6,2. How is the Japanese school working out. What is their curriculum?

[Emmeline II]

Originally Posted by seattlemamma

My husband was enlisted and just became an officer. We currently have vaccine waivers from preventative medicine on post..I hope this works for the screening and we do not have to put up a fight. I will have to reeducate myself on everything. It is always so hard for me to remember everything when I am angry or under pressure. We are in the Army not the Navy..I wonder if it matters?

So far I have only heard this problem for Navy/Marine spouses.

I recommend finding the Army equivalent to the med screening form and the screening regulation above and reading them carefully.