HEALTH: HEALTH GROUPS CHALLENGE MANDATORY IMMUNIZATIONS ON CONSTITUTIONAL GROUNDS (NEWS)

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Press Release from the Foundation for Health Choice

 

The Foundation for Health Choice

Choice, Information, Safety and Redress

http://www.foundationforhealthchoice.com

 

HEALTH GROUPS CHALLENGE MANDATORY IMMUNIZATIONS ON CONSTITUTIONAL GROUNDS

 

Due process lacking for potentially lethal injections, they point out

 

Contact: Jim Turner, Esq.: 202-462-8800 or

Dr. Tedd Koren: 215-699-7906

 

WASHINGTON, D. C. – As the nation contemplates the prospect of an

extensive program of inoculation against the hypothetical threat of

smallpox being disseminated by terrorists, two health groups are

launching a challenge to the very constitutionality of subjecting

infants and children to mandatory vaccinations for a variety of diseases.

 

The joint effort by the Washington, D. C.-based non-profit consumer

groups Foundation for Health Choice and Citizens for Health is based on

the fact that such “preventive measures” can be expected to kill a

certain number of children and substantially harm others.

 

The two health organizations have already begun to utilize this approach

in a “friend of the court” brief filed in a case now in federal court,

citing both a recent opinion by a U.S. district court judge that federal

capital punishment law is unconstitutional based on findings that some

people facing execution were actually innocent and the argument used by

the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals in reversing that ruling.

 

In overturning the lower court decision, the appeals court affirmed the

need for due process in the taking of a life by government but, contrary

to the district court’s opinion, held that a criminal trial provides all

necessary due process to support the death penalty. It is the citizens

groups’ contention that children deserve at least as much due process as

a convicted killer before being subjected to a possible lethal

injection. This is the first time such an argument against mandatory

immunization has been raised in the courts.

 

“The lives that are lost by this program are lost without even a

pretense of due process,” noted James S. Turner, a lawyer, consumer

advocate and spokesman for the groups, who pointed out that those for

whom vaccination may prove to be a lethal injection aren’t even granted

the legal recourse open to defendants facing the death penalty.

 

The groups have offered to similarly intervene in any court case in

which parents find themselves in the position of having to assert their

right not to have their children administered immunizations ordered by

state or local authorities.

 

Such inoculations are a routine requirement for attending school, but

without any procedures currently in place for parental participation in

determining the need for shots or the adverse effects they might have on

certain children.

 

In a joint statement, the two organizations contend that “the body of

law justifying mandatory vaccine programs contains limitations on the

state power to force vaccination.” Prior rulings, they contend, have

required that such programs be based on “a demonstrable emergency”

(e.g., a threatened or actual epidemic), include a medical opt-out for

vaccine-endangered individuals, and recognize conscientious objecting.

 

The groups call for “interested families” to be involved in a procedure

for determining who is likely to be harmed by each vaccine, and

“a way of prioritizing which of the nearly 20 vaccines currently

administered to each child and at what age … will most protect the

community at the least health cost.”

 

The Foundation for Health choice

<http://www.foundationforhealthchoice.com> was organized to help ensure

that individuals have a full range of health-care options open to them,

rather than just those dictated by bureaucrats or special interests.

 

Citizens for Health <http://www.citizens.org>www.citizens.org> is a

national grass-roots group working to advance the consumer’s right to

safety, information, choice and redress in the health-care marketplace.

 

Please give support to the Foundation For Health Choice. Visit our web

site at <http://www.foundationforhealthchoice.com> for information about

who we are and how to get involved.

 

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