Departing Mayor Bloomberg Mandates Annual Flu Shot for Children Under Age 5

Buried provision gives the city power to require any vaccine at any time. Action Alert!

Last Wednesday, the New York City Board of Health decreed that all children under age 5 who are enrolled in city-licensed preschools or daycare centers must receive an annual flu vaccine. This is in addition to the seven other vaccinations already required for NYC preschoolers. Tripedia for DTaP, as well as Fluzone, Afluria, and three kinds of Fluvirin for flu, contain trace amounts of thimerosal, a preservative that contains deadly mercury. This is the latest in a growing trend of flu vaccination mandates; as we’ve reported previously,many healthcare workers can now lose their job for refusing the flu shot.

By the NYC Department of Health and Mental Hygiene’s own admission, the vaccine’s ability to prevent the flu in “real world settings” is just 24% to 36%. Note, however, that they greatly exaggerate this number in their press release about the mandate, using the 59% effectiveness rate attributed to ideal lab settings. The real effectiveness rate of the vaccine is lower still, based on work of the prestigious Cochrane Collaboration. As we have noted, keeping blood levels of vitamin D up can be as or more effective as a preventive, zinc can keep your body’s response under control, and vitamin A is an effective remedy.

What are the reasons behind the new rule? According to the official city announcement, city officials are disappointed that despite “active promotion,” vaccination rates have only gone up “slowly” (apparently, a 4.3% jump in vaccinations in a single year isn’t good enough for“Nanny-in-Chief” Bloomberg).

However, the city’s real motivation may lie in the rule’s very last provision: “All children shall have such additional immunizations as the Department may require.” Translation: We can make your kid get any shot we want, any time we want.

Under NYC’s new rule, no philosophical exemptions are permitted, though a religious exemption is allowed. Exemption is allowed in cases where the vaccine will have harmful health effects (as certified by a doctor licensed to practice medicine in New York) and on documented religious grounds. It’s not difficult to imagine that the crusading, anti-natural-health New York State government going on the attack against physicians who sign vaccine waiver applications.

Furthermore, school officials and daycare owners may “require additional information” to justify any exemptions. This language is intentionally broad. It provides a gaping loophole to deny legitimate exemptions by allowing school officials to make absurd demands for whatever “additional information” they’d like and to deem any evidence unacceptable. This is a likely scenario: since schools and daycares can be fined for children not meeting NYC’s vaccine and documentation requirements, they will be reluctant to grant exemptions.

Action Alert: Tell the NYC Board of Health to repeal mandatory flu shots for preschoolers! If you live in New York, please take action today. If not, please educate yourself and your loved ones about the threat of mandatory flu vaccinations—what happens in NYC today could happen in your state tomorrow. Please take action immediately!