Flu, Plague, and Abortion

Or, Overthrowing New Jersey’s Government

"If people let the government decide what foods they eat and what medicines they take, their bodies will soon be in as sorry a state as the souls who live under tyranny."

- Thomas Jefferson

Can you imagine living in a country where the government forces parents to give questionable medical services to their children? Where parents are no longer allowed parental authority and decision-making on their children’s care?

Well, you don’t have to imagine it. If you are in New Jersey, you are living in it.

The New Jersey Legislature and Governor have just made a very serious mistake that will impact the health and future of thousands of children. New Jersey has become the first state in the nation to require flu vaccines for preschoolers or older students. You can read the story here.

How NJ could do this on the heels of Merck's Hib vaccine recall is beyond me. Vaccines are not necessarily safe enough to mandate everyone to take them.

And, the effectiveness of vaccines can backfire over time. You know how pediatricians are suddenly refusing to provide antibiotics as much as they used to? Well, medical science now shows that the treatment of antibiotics in children has been so overdone that some children are now vulnerable to the very bacteria that the antibiotics were supposed to treat.

This is a result of the “just in case” factor. We’ve learned that using antibiotics as a preventive – just in case the child has strept or could catch strept (or bronchitis or whatever) – means that later in childhood the antibiotic will no longer help them overcome bacteria. Any bacteria.

The same is true for the flu vaccine. Flu strains mutate and just because you get a vaccine for one strain doesn't mean you'll be resistant to another, tougher one later.

Exposure to bacteria and viruses can actually be good for you. Your immune system quickly learns how to fight and how to adapt. Picture you immune system like Mohammad Ali - light on its feet, in a constant vigilant dance, light as a butterfly and tough as a - well, as tough as that world-famous boxer.

Overkill on anti-bacterial handsoaps, flu vaccines, antibiotics, etc. can actually weaken your immune system, like a boxer resting on his laurels and becoming undisciplined in his training.

All a mandatory vaccination for flu will accomplish is making children less able to fight off flu later - for the rest of their lives. Just like the over-dependence on antibiotics has done. Gee, thanks New Jersey. Better beef up your state healthcare budget. You'll be paying for this big time in the out years.

Flu is not the public health problem of, say, polio or plague. The worst cases are the youngest and the oldest people. And of those two populations, the percent of deaths is very small. Not that any death is acceptable, but when government weighs the efficacy and impact of public health policy, it is supposed to consider how likely a disease will be widespread across populations and how dangerous it really can be. Plague, well, that's pretty darn dangerous and can easily be widespread (historically). Polio, well, that's pretty darn devastating and could also be widespread (historically).

Flu? Not so much. The vast majority of the population can easily overcome it without a vaccine. Those who are at the most risk can decide for themselves whether or not to take it. But to risk giving it to everyone that the government defines as at-risk is the height of hubris. This is an issue that should be between parents and pediatricians, without government interference as if it were some huge public safety scare.

Constitutionally, the Supreme Court has already put a high priority on privacy and choice between patients and doctors. That's what abortion is all about - keeping government out of very personal and sometimes devastating decisions between patients and doctors.

Of course, abortion is not contagious like flu, but it is no less serious. If our country has already set a national precedent for valuing doctor-patient privacy and decision-making, why is New Jersey suddenly throwing that out the window in favor of dictatorship? Is New Jersey purposely trying to create an overdependent population of people who cannot think for themselves and must lean on government for everything? Are parent rights so meaningless in that state?

As for you, parents, are you really going to stand there and watch some stranger who can never know your child as well as you do place a needle in your child’s arm or a spray in your child’s nose a flu vaccine that has questionable affect and unknown long-term consequences?

In New Jersey you will. In a Maryland school district you will. Or face fines, jail, quarantine – for no other reason than an urge to protect your child at all costs. (Parents, click here for pertinent information regarding vaccines and children.)

Speaking of costs, New Jersey says it'll offer discounts or free vaccines for the very poor, and that insurers will foot the bill for all these vaccinations.

How naïve can a government be? Insurance companies are for-profit institutions - they aren't going to hurt their shareholders or company profits. You pay the cost, through higher insurance premiums. It seems the NJ Legislature has forgotten we live in a free-market system.

As President, I would respect the doctor-patient relationship. I would do my best to keep government from interfering with the rights of parents as long as I can simultaneously protect the rights of children. I would ensure the availability of natural and alternative methods of prevention of disease, so as to minimize the need for widespread overkill of vaccinations and other side-effect-ridden treatments, while empowering the people to make their own decisions about health care prevention and maintenance.

Please vote for Ameriga Columbus as a write-in on your November ballot. Empowering you, rather than government.

Meanwhile, please join me in working with the American Association of Health Freedom against these disaster-in-the-making public policies in NJ and MD. Click here to see what you can do.