Written By: Gina

Are you paying attention? Have you heard about AB499 and do you how it affects your family? If you live in the State of California and you have minor children, your rights have just been jeopardized. Governor Jerry Brown signed this bill into law just this month.

AB499 allows minors as young as twelve to be vaccinated against STD’s, specifically by giving the HPV vaccine Gardasil in prevention against Cervical Cancer and genital warts, without parental consent. That’s right- your child can be vaccinated while at school, even if you have previously refused the vaccine for your child- without you ever being notified or asked if it’s okay first.

The side effects of this vaccine are: Pain, swelling, and redness in the area of the injection, fever, headache, nausea, dizziness, vomiting, cough, toothache, joint pain, insomnia, among a variety of other things. That’s what is usually communicated about the vaccine’s side effects but that’s not the whole truth. A parent deserves to know about a vaccination in full detail so they will be ready if their child experiences any side effects.” http://www.change.org/petitions/overturn-measure-ab499.

In truth, the side effects have been far more crippling. The CDC website http://www.cdc.gov/ states that the following have occurred due to the Gardasil vaccine: 68 death reports, blood clots, and muscle weakness including Guillain-Barré Syndrome. In fact, 102 have died as of August 2011, and 26,000 have injuries ranging up to severe. The CDC website also states, “The most important thing you can do to help prevent cervical cancer is to have regular screening tests.”

But that’s not even the point of this blog. What I am saying is that we should have a choice..whether or not we want to give our children this vaccine and others…and should have a say in what is being done to our children while they are at school.

“It should go without saying that minor children do not have the capacity to make informed medical decisions, especially when these decisions involve weighing the risks of using a drug that has the potential to cause injury and even death.” A child cannot bring aspirin to school for a headache, and young girls cannot bring medication for menstrual cramps, but they are expected to be knowledgeable and decisive about the Gardasil vaccination and its side effects? We have allowed the Pharma/Vaccination lobbyists to have far too much influence over such decisions, and unless we get these Senators’ attention loud and clear, our children may be bullied, harassed, or misinformed into consenting to be vaccinated with something you may have already made the decision as a parent to decline. http://www.nvicadvocacy.org/members/Resources/StopAB499.aspx. I am embarrassed as a California resident, to adnit that we have allowed ourselves to be stripped of our rights! How can we be so apathetic about something so important?

On the same day he signed AB499, California Governor Jerry Brown also signed SB 746, a ‘first-in-the-nation’ law to prevent children under 18 years of age from using tanning beds, and, just a month earlier, he vetoed SB 105, a bill to mandate ski helmets on underage youth, citing his concern with the ‘seemingly inexorable transfer of authority from parents to the state,’ saying, ‘I believe parents have the ability and responsibility to make good choices for their children.’ http://www.genengnews.com/industry-updates/california-catholic-conference-statement-on-gov-brown-s-signature-of-ab-499/131048619/.

So why then, the decision to sign AB499? Especially at a reported average cost of over $360 per treatment and at 100 percent taxpayer expense? Dr. Diane Harper, a former lead researcher for the controversial vaccine, told CBS in 2009 that serious side effects could prove riskier than the HPV it purports to prevent, and that “young girls and their parents should receive more completewarnings before receiving the vaccine.”

Obviously some teens will have sex no matter what they are taught. Some won’t use a condom during sex and some won’t have their annual Pap Smear. There are some teens that do not have parents that are involved in their lives. But at the very least, parents should have the right to be informed or asked before such decisions are made. ALL parents should not be punished for the apathy of a few! That we gave up our right as a state to control such decision-making is shocking to me.

Discussions about vaccines usually turn into arguments about whether or not we should or shouldn’t give them to our kids. AB499 is not about the vaccine, it’s about our parental rights! The state is attempting to assume our role as our child’s parent and this bill should have been stopped. The NVIC had sent two alerts to California residents since June asking them to be aware of and oppose this legislation, yet this bill was stilled approved. What rights will be stripped from us next?

How do you feel about AB499?

Gina