(© FlaglerLive)
The Flagler County School Board this week missed a chance to save lives. That’s strange, because we hardly go a day in schools anymore without hearing the importance of safety, protection, see something, say something. The school board even cheered a Handmaid’s-Tale-creepy “See Something Say Something” video at its last board meeting.
The Flagler Health Department sees something and said something at a board workshop on Tuesday. It was all but sent packing, because cancer doesn’t have the swank of school shooters.
Health officials approached the board to describe the heavy cost of cervical and other cancers to men and women from the HPV virus. They told the board how effective it is to prevent those cancers, with a simple vaccine given to children mostly 9 to 11 years old, and how the district could be at the forefront of that safety campaign by allowing the department to voluntarily offer the vaccine in schools. Board members Trevor Tucker and Andy Dance were fine with it. Janet McDonald and Maria Barbosa were not, and Colleen Conklin leaned their way. Since the vaccine is not mandatory for attendance, they said they want to hear from parents first whether it’s even necessary to have it offered in schools. So it wasn’t an outright rejection, but pretty close.
The parent thing is a pretext to avoid doing the right thing now. It’s also a double standard. The board is not asking for parental opinions on mandatory vaccines such as t-dap, the triple cocktail offered in schools that inoculates against tetanus, diphtheria and whooping cough, though it very well could, on the principle that parents could be better informed of the religious exemption and take advantage of it. The board wouldn’t dream of doing that because it would undermine the health department’s efforts and put people at risk for communicable diseases.
“Surveying” parents, as Barbosa is doing on her Facebook page, or asking the health department to gauge parental sentiment at PTO and School Improvement Council meetings, is also nonsensical, because we are dealing with a voluntary offer exclusively to parents who wish to take advantage of the service. Should their choice be held hostage by a likely majority who won’t be interested in the vaccine and don’t have to be concerned with it? And what would the permissible threshold be to approve the vaccine? 70 percent approval? 80 percent? Who decides, and by what rational criteria in this irrational demand? Should the entire parental body be surveyed about the presence of Junior ROTC on campus? Or the appropriateness of Key Club, Future Farmers of America or–forgive me father–a Gay-Straight Alliance club? Of course not. Those who want to join the clubs are welcomed with open arms. The majority who don’t want to are free not to. But they don’t get to veto the clubs’ existence.
So why are board members giving that veto potential to parents predisposed to decline the HPV vaccine? Because the three board members are looking for an excuse not to allow it in the schools, and going the parental-survey route is the perfect shield. They don’t want to allow it because of the vaccine’s connection to sex. Because the 80 million people who have HPV got it from sexual contact. And because the board members are under the wrong-headed assumption that offering the HPV vaccine somehow opens the door to promiscuity.
Dr. Stephen Bickel, the health department’s medical director, went blue in the face citing six studies that refute the fallacy. He and Health Department Director Bob Snyder went blue in the face repeating the word voluntary. It didn’t matter. The board members found various vague excuses to say no, citing time out of the classroom, the 2016 vintage of a CDC document explaining the vaccine (since when is 2016 outdated in medical literature? Should med schools throw out their Gray’s Anatomy? And I don’t mean the TV show, board members, but the book now in its 41st edition, the last dating, alas, back to 2015.) I imagine the board would be just as irresponsible if one day an AIDS vaccine is developed and was offered voluntarily.
McDonald is worried about time out of the classroom, when the vaccine is already freely available at the Health Department. She raises two fair points. But the health department’s Gretchen Smith refuted them: “I’m a parent. My kids just graduated last year, they went all the way through Flagler schools,” Smith said on the radio Friday, “and if I had gotten something in the mail or if I had gotten something that said you know, we’re going to be giving these shots in schools, I’d be all over it, because you know what, I don’t need to take the time out of my–it’s kind of a burden sometimes to take your kids out of school for half a day, sometimes for a whole day, sit in the pediatrician’s office for like an hour, maybe more, and then go back to work. Then they’ve been out of the classroom for several hours. It also cuts into your worktime.”
Of course there’s skepticism about vaccines, either from people who think vaccines are harmful on their face or because this country has a history of experimenting on human beings no less grimly than the Nazis did, whether to test biological agents, radiation, truth serums or communicable and sexually transmitted diseases, as in the infamous Tuskegee experiment on black people. That one didn’t end until 1972. There’s also something counterintuitive about injecting yourself with a disease on the assumption that doing so reduces your chance of getting that disease. And the pharmaceutical industry doesn’t exactly have the most stellar reputation.
But standard vaccines have also revolutionized public health and played an immeasurable role in lengthening life expectancy and quality of life. When it comes to the science of specific vaccines, most of the stories are made up, as are the fears. In the case of the HPV vaccine, which should be the next standard on offer, the risk factors are almost zero, the benefits as dramatic as preventing some 30,000 cancers a year. Of course I inoculated both my children, as Dance did his. But personal experience should have nothing to do with it. It’s all in the evidence, and in that age-old principle of health care: first, do no harm.
These days, our Flagler County School Board is seeding unnecessary harm. Maybe the number of children who’ll get cancer isn’t high. But unlike the millions of dollars we’re spending and untold hours we’re burning on 10 drills a year to prevent a shooter’s attack that will most likely never happen, the board is refusing to spend zero dollars and allow children a few minutes’ voluntary access to a vaccine that we absolutely know will kill some of them, year after year after year.
The board majority’s rationales have no leg to stand on. Not even a wooden one. Its opposition is not just inexcusable. It’s hypocritical. And it’s immoral.
Pierre Tristam is FlaglerLive’s editor. Reach him by email here.
JimBob says
Calls to mind a Phyllis Schlafly trope: “Sex education classes are like in-home sales parties for abortions.”
These are the folks who claim Jesus took the flu shot for us all. Science, no matter how beneficial, is the enemy of their Bronze Age worldview.
Peaches McGee says
I hope they enjoy their terms on the board.
Re-election for them is almost non-existent now.
JustAnotherParent says
What I dont understand is the schools are allowed to teach Sexual Education and the School Board finds that appropriate yet doesnt feel that may somehow “open the doors for sexual promiscuity” or the fact that middle school and high school aged children are given resources for free contraception but that doesnt “open the doorway” but good grief if we include information and a voluntary vaccine that could also offer protection should they decide to become sexually active smh. So its quite okay to teach them about the differences between boys and girls, sex, risk of pregnancy, STDs, contraception but Do Not include a vaccination that could protect them against something that could possibly kill them. I guess we should only continue teaching them about the STDs like crabs, gonnorhea, herpes, syphillis, HIV and Aids and offer testing but not about HPV and offer a vaccine with a signed parental consent. Why cant the School Board get their heads out of the Stone Age and stop with the denial that kids are being sexually active, its pretty obvious with the amount of teenage pregnances in the county, hell the high school even offers free day care to the teen moms because thats not “opening the doorway” lol. Why not when they send home the parental consent form for Sex Ed they also include a brochure and consent form for the vaccine. I mean then the parent can read through, discuss with their child and make an informed decision whether or not they want it and it doesnt force anyone nor take away from those that want to get the vaccine. I guess sending home a brochure and a piece of paper giving or declining consent must cost the School Board too much but in that case put a link on each schools website where the parent can click and give or decline consent in the privacy of their own home. If the schools can educate our children about sex then they should be edcuating them completely not half ass… especially high school aged, give them the reality, tell them the facts, give them information, resources, options, testing, vaccinations because it is apparent now a days they are learning online, from friends, and not so much from parents, they may not feel comfortable to discuss with parents, they may be active and have no one to talk to, no one to help them make safer decisions, no one to bring them to get protection or vaccination. The School Board wants our children to have a well rounded education and become responsible citizens yet continue to teach narrow mindedly.
Reader0825 says
These closed-minded morons are in charge of managing our kids’ education? They should be removed from the school board.
Josie says
If the health department wanted this to pass so badly why didn’t they come prepared the Second time they went to the workshop and bring the requested information for the board? I’m a nurse and im for having the vaccine available. The Health department is such am amazing community resource for the misinformed. Why would they not want to also educate parents and school board members? Seems as though they want to give the vaccine without having to do the work. Teaching is key. Before you get any vaccine at the doctors or health department they provide you with information BEFORE hand so you can know the risks, and although the benefits definitely outweigh the risks you still have that piece of information to make an educated decision.
Ann says
I really don’t understand the dilemma. It’s no different than the flu vaccine. The kids with permission slips get it, the others don’t. Shame on all three of them.
WILLIAM J NELSON says
AMEN
Flagler Parent says
Oh man. How many kids got cervical cancer in Florida? It must have Sky rocketed sinc rlast year for this to be a hot topic. I would love to know how many 6th graders are getting STDs in Flagler County. If anyone can post this information so we can all see the numbers and what we are working with? Maybe this will help more people to understand how bad the HPV virus causing cancer is spreading in our community.
Michael Cocchiola says
So disappointing. We are walking backward. There will be casualties due to regressive conservative thinking. I hope parents rise up and set McDonald and Barbosa straight and Coleen leans left on this.
Sue Dick8nson says
This doesn’t even make sense. They want to hear from the parents when the parents would have to give consent anyways. Come on ladies.
Jane K says
I cannot fathom the ignorance. Just get on board ladies. This is for the future of our kids. Don’t you believe in educating yourselves? Don’t chicken out. Just do the right thing. JUST FO IT!!!
Dontbelievethehype says
https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/dec/31/us-court-pays-6-million-gardasil-victims/
The adverse reaction reports detail 26 new deaths reported between September 1, 2010 and September 15, 2011 as well as incidents of seizures, paralysis, blindness, pancreatitis, speech problems, short term memory loss and Guillain-Barré Syndrome. The documents come from the FDA’s Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) which is used by the FDA to monitor the safety of vaccines.
That’s 26 reported deaths of young, previously healthy, girls after Gardasil vaccination in just one year.
Pierre Tristam says
Dontbelievethehype should live up to her name. She does not. The claims in her comment are false and pulled either out of thin air or out of the kind of bad reporting the Washington Times has never been inoculated against.
The FDA’s Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) sounds like the most authoritative database there could be. Of its own reckoning, it is not. In VAERS’s own words: “VAERS data are from a passive surveillance system and represent unverified reports of adverse events temporally associated with one or more vaccines. Such data are subject to limitations of under-reporting, simultaneous administration of multiple vaccine antigens, reporting bias, and lack of incidence rates in unvaccinated comparison groups. When reporting and evaluating data from VAERS, it is important to note that for any reported event, no cause and effect relationship has been established. The event may have been related to an underlying disease or condition, to drugs being taken concurrently, or may have occurred by chance shortly after a vaccine was administered.”
Those “26 reported deaths” from Gardasil? Pure bunk. The Washington Times, of course, cites VAERS data without citing VAERS’s disclaimer.
The story leaves out the same context of the federal Health Resources and Services Administration and its (or rather our) National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program, which states–very clearly, for anyone who can spell Google: “Vaccines save lives by preventing disease. Most people who get vaccines have no serious problems. Vaccines, like any medicines, can cause side effects, but most are very rare and very mild. Some health problems that follow vaccinations are not caused by vaccines. In very rare cases, a vaccine can cause a serious problem, such as a severe allergic reaction. In these instances, the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (VICP) may provide financial compensation to individuals who file a petition and are found to have been injured by a VICP-covered vaccine. Even in cases in which such a finding is not made, petitioners may receive compensation through a settlement.”
The compensation program, in other words, and again in its own words, “is a no-fault alternative to the traditional legal system for resolving vaccine injury petitions,” giving claimants a chance of relief without being hung up in court an untold number of years.
Again, the Washington Times story goes from leap to leap to make it seem as if people are dropping left and right from Gardasil and getting compensated for it. But the original documents on which the Washington Times hack job is based make clear that even within that sample, the majority of claims are thrown out, and only two deaths were linked to any form of compensation–deaths that, again, have not necessarily been tied to Gardasil. Not that death from vaccines don’t occur: no one claims that anymore than deaths from Tylenol or flu shots wouldn’t occur. They do. But they’re within the range of the expected, not the conspiratorially presumed.
Fortune’s Matthew Herper some years ago had to write a similarly exasperated “Here Is How We Know Gardasil Has Not Killed 100 People,” noting: “You can’t directly link any of those adverse events or deaths directly to the vaccines, any more than you could blame it on my morning coffee if I got hit by a truck later today. … It’s really important not to rely too much on VAERS, because it can lead to some totally Alice-in-Wonderland-type conclusions – fantastical results that we can tell aren’t true.”
But we keep getting anonymous cranks like Dontbelievethehype and we’ll keep getting them, because we’re again in a Medieval-like age of faith (or Facebook, which is really the same thing) rather than evidence. Just beware the cherrypicked bullshit. There’s plenty more ahead.
Sherry says
This is not about 6th graders getting STD’s. Just attended a funeral service for a 50 year old man who died a very miserable death from throat cancer. This cancer was caused by the HPV virus he was exposed to at the age of 21, according to the team of oncologists treating him.
Florida Voter says
@Flagler Parent:
http://www.ashasexualhealth.org/stdsstis/statistics/
http://www.ashasexualhealth.org/teachers/stis-and-young-people/
I found some information for you to read through. Since there is so little to do in this county, you can bet that Flagler’s numbers are at least as bad as the national averages.
1) “By twelfth grade, 65% of high school students will have engaged in sexual intercourse, and one in five sexually active teens will have had four or more sexual partners.”
2) “…80% of sexually active people will have an HPV infection at some point in their lifetime.”
3) “HPV is responsible for NEARLY ALL cases of cervical and anal cancer, about 75% of vaginal cancer, 70% of [throat] cancer, and 69% of vulvar cancer.” [emphasis added by Florida Voter]
4) “Within 6 years of the introduction of the first HPV vaccine, there was a 64% decrease in HPV prevalence among females aged 14 to 19 years …”
TL;DR https://www.cdc.gov/std/products/youth-sti-infographic.pdf
re 2) (look around you in church at the “sexually active” people: (past/present/future) infected, infected, infected, infected, lucky
re 4) that’s 64% infection decrease in ALL F 14-19, not just those who receive the vaccine.
Concerned Citizen says
I saw something so I’m saying something…………….. I saw two Flagler County Police vehicles hiding back in the wooded area of the old Tennis Club. They where not near the road, they where WAY back hidden from view unless you stopped, pulled over and looked back with binoculars. I came back 1 hour later and they where still there………. I saw something so I’m saying something.
wow says
Lots of tin hat wearers in Florida schools. Such ignorance when you could prevent deaths.
Pogo says
@Sherry
This is about the selfishness – and depraved indifference to other human beings – that is at the core of the so-called beliefs of many of the rustic Machiavellis who fondly remember good old days that never were; And too, the enormous cohort of retirees the rustics understandably resent as carpetbaggers who moved to floriduh for the same reason ugly ‘muricans move to OTHER poor countries.
Floriduh is a swamp created by a twenty year stranglehold of Republican retirees and the racist erstwhile Dixiecrat machine that became floriduh’s Republican party. Poor Republicans hate other poor people anytime they think they might be helping, i.e., paying taxes, to buy them (other poor people) anything. And the well known belief of wealthy Republicans that they can pay half of the poor to murder the other half of the poor is vindicated over and over.
And so it goes.
Sherry says
@ Sherry, Pogo and others who follow me . . . I’ve been commenting on Flaglerlive as “Sherry” as an educated, open minded, Democrat for over 10 years now. I would sincerely appreciate the new person commenting as “Sherry” using a different handle, as this creates great confusion.
Thanks so much!
Percy's mother says
“Bob Snyder went blue in the face” . . .
I think the above is laughable given the fact that Mr. Snyder has no medical and/or hard science training whatsoever. He has a masters degree in public health . . . a generic degree which doesn’t take a lot of smarts to obtain.
Ditto for the other person pushing the vaccine . . . Gretchen Smith. What are her medical and hard science credentials? From what I recall, she was previously employed by the Flagler Chamber of Commerce. Was she a medical doctor or in hard science research before that, which gives her the knowledge and credibility to be pushing vaccines now?
In my view, neither Mr. Snyder nor Ms. Gretchen Smith have any credibility regarding this issue since as far as I can tell, neither of them have the medical or hard science training to be pushing vaccines on anyone.
How did Gretchen Smith go from working at the Flagler Chamber of Commerce to pushing vaccines in Flagler County Schools?
Joseph pulitzer says
I’m in my seventies and have been battling HPV tonsil cancer for over 5 years. I was more than likely infected in my twenties. Get the shot. This is not fun. Parents go to a clinic and have your child inoculated.
kamamani says
I applaud these ladies for their stance. Offering it in the schools is equivalent to endorsing it. Many parents trust the school board to provide due diligence in vetting new vaccines that are offered on school grounds, during school hours, and would have their child take the vaccine simply because it is being offered in the schools.
This is a very controversial vaccine. There is enough negativity surrounding possible side effects to make any sane person pause and take a closer look. It is NOT like the flu and other vaccines in that HPV is not a public health risk. It is not airborne and is only transferred from person to person via intimate, sexual contact. The school board should NOT make it a habit to offer any and every vaccine just because they can, and should keep it to only those viruses that can be easily transferred from person to person.
If parents want it for their kids they can go to the health department and get it, but it should NOT be offered in the schools. Good job ladies!!!
Flagler Parent says
I am not anti-vaccine however the HPV Gardasil has some serious side effects for some people. My daughter experienced debilitating symptoms after receiving the second Gardasil vaccine. She was in her first year of college and a varsity athlete. She became so disabled she had to drop out for 6 months. I reported her adverse event to the VAERS reporting system. https://vaers.hhs.gov. I know of others that had adverse almost fatal reactions after receiving the second and third HPV vaccine. Only the physician that knows the medical history should recommend vaccinations.
Richard says
My opinion is that all children should be inoculated with all vaccines administered by a physician in a doctor’s office and NOT in school. School is for education, both mental and physical. A doctor’s office is for maintaining our health. There are some vaccines that are mandatory before entering school and there are some that are optional. It’s up to the parents as whether the optional ones are given to their children or not. The burden should always be ON the parents not the school or the school board. As stated earlier, school is a place for education not for babysitting people’s children while the parents are off working or doing their “thing”.
Michelle Trunfio says
I AM SHOCKED OVER THE reasons I am reading for denial of the school being allowed to give a life saving vaccince because of its link to sex???? That is absurb!!! GROW UP PEOPLE IF YOU THINK YOUR CHILD AT 9 -11 DOESN’T KNOW WHAT SEX IS THEN YOU’RE CLUELESS. 1st of all most children have access to the internet so they know more by 9-11 then we ever did, It can be beneficial & of course it can be harmful, but that’s life. Another thing that it alot differnet now is we are a lot more open about sexual abuse and what to do should it happen.1 so yes they should be well aware of their bodies by then they may not know exactly what to do with them (God Willing) but they do need to be aware of good touch, bad touch. I wish I had access to the internet at their age so I could have known that certain things were harmful to me. Now as far as the talk over not allowing a vaccine because of its “link to sex” please get real how did we get here, alot of children have younger or older siblings so most know about it.already our school had already informed our kids via the school system by 1st. Grade about good touch, bad touch which is sexual based so let’s get real! This is about saving lives our future generations. This disease is so prominate in the world already, kids are having sex at younger ages then we did, do I wish they weren’t yes, but reality is they are so let’s give them a fighting chance arm them with something that can help, I wish I knew what HPV was when I was younger before I engaged in sexual activity as that is the best time to get the vaccine so yes 9-11yrs old seems young, but I had already spoken to my child about sex, not so he could go out & do it, but to prevent anything bad from happening & what to do & where to go if something were to happen. There are so many people i am quite sure that are walking around out there in the world infecting others because they are totally UNNAWARE they have it. DO YOU WANT THAT FOR YOUR CHILD?I DON’T.IT’S JUST LIKE A WHEN ANOTHER CHILD CAME INTO SCHOOL WHO MAY OR MAY NOT OF NOT YOU OR YOUR CHILD BUT THEY KILL THEM, THEY SILENTLY CAME IN TO A SCHOOL AND TOOK YOUR CHILDS LIFE, WE HAVE NO CONTROL ALOT OF THE TIME OVER PEOPLE AND THEIR ACTIONS UNLESS THEY HAVE TOLD OTHERS OTHERWISE THEY ARE SILENT KILLERS , BUT WE ARE NOW MAKING A STAND! WE ARE TRYING TO STOP THEM FOR HARMING OTHERS THATS A HARD JOB CAUSE YOU JUST NEVER KNOW WHEN OR WHERE THEY COULD STRIKE AND OUR YOUNG CHILDREN FROM VPK THRU 12TH GRADE LIVE WITH THAT FEAR. YET THERE IS A VIRUS THAT TURNS INTO CANCER AND THERE IS A LIFE SAVING VACCINE OUT THERE FOR 9-11 YEAR OLDS, THAT SOME DON’T WANT IN OUR SCHOOLS BECAUSE OF ITS AFFILIATION TO SEX??. HERE’S WHERE WE CAN DO SOMETHING TO SAVE OUR FURTURE GENERATIONS,HERE’S A CHANCE TO STOP SILENT KILLERS FOR BOTH BOY’S & GIRL’S OF CANCER OF THE CERCIX WHICH IS SILENT JUST LIKE IT CAN BE FOR PROSTATE,ANAL,TOUNGE,MOUTH &THROAT,LYMPHNODE CANCERS BUT IF WE CAN HELP OUT OUR KIDS WITH A VACCINE AT SCHOOL. GIVE THEM A FIGHTING CHANCE THAT MAYBE THEIR FURTURE WONT HAVE THE HPV VIRUSES LIKE OURS THEN WHY WOULDN’T WE? I ALWAYS FEEL LIKE WE FIGHT FOR THE WRONG THINGS WHEN IT COMES TO OUR KIDS BECAUSE TO ME WHEN IT COMES TO THIS IT SEEMS LIKE A NO BRAINER? I CAN’T BELIEVE ANYONE WOULD WANT TO FIGHT AGAINST NOT ALLOWING THE HPV VACCINE TO BE DONE IN SCHOOLS WHY DO YOU SEE THIS AS WRONG FOR OUR KIDS???
Sherry says
Thank you so much for sharing your story with us, Joseph! You are quite the inspiration for believing in “Scientific Studies and Facts”.
In my opinion, these “anti-vaxxers” are using their positions to IMPOSE their personal beliefs on others. Parents should be at least given the option for their kids to be vaccinated.
These women should be required to resign from office!
Dave says
These woman should be ashamed and hide their faces in public, that is if they feel they are still welcome to live in this county.
CB from PC says
Chastity belts for all the females. The males can use the traditional windowsill slam to curb the urge.