Vaccine War Heating Up: Mothers of Unvaccinated Children Labeled Criminals

The Vaccine Culture War is heating up. In America, professors and doctors in academia and government are profiling parents by class and race to shame and discredit those challenging vaccine orthodoxy. “When it comes to vaccines, rich parents get away with child neglect,” the headline in the Washington Post proclaimed on May 10, 2017. The OpEd was written by a Pace University law professor promoting criminal prosecution of mothers whose children are not vaccinated. She suggested that all mothers who don’t vaccinate their children are criminals and should be punished - “regardless of socioeconomic status” – because vaccination is a “collective obligation.” In 2013, the flames of prejudice were fanned by an online publication profiling parents in a San Francisco community and labeling them “vaccine deniers.” The parents were described as “wealthy, educated, liberal leaning” and often working in “technology, law and other white collar professions that demand critical thinking skills,” who put their children at risk by feeding them non-GMO organic food, taking them to holistic doctors, and paying $20,000 a year to send them to private schools where self-reliance, independence and critical thinking are taught. Professors at major universities suggested the government should impose a tax on unvaccinated people, suspend free speech about vaccination, and deny elected representatives public office and strip doctors of their medical licenses if they talk bad about vaccines. A USA Today OpEd stated flatly: “Parents who do not vaccinate their children should go to jail.”