NJ Violates Nuremberg Code With Forced Injections

NJ Assemblywoman compares state-mandated immunizations to Nazi experiments on humans.

About 500 activists rallied outside the State House on Thursday, many with children who they said developed autism and other disorders after state-mandated immunizations.

"The shots just have to stop," said Lisa Driscoll of Maplewood, who brought her 4-year-old son Matt. "He's allergic to everything in the shots."

For years, activists across the country have protested compulsory vaccines for such diseases as chicken pox, flu, rubella and polio.

Some suspect that mercury-derived preservatives in some formulas trigger autism and other neurological ailments. Others say they're not opposed to vaccines in general, but they want to choose when and if their children will receive them.


The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, in a program called Healthy People 2010, is aiming to immunize 95 percent of the country's kindergartners and first-graders against seven diseases.

In New Jersey — home to the country's highest rate of autism, with one in 94 children affected — the issue erupted late last year, when the state adopted a Public Health Council recommendation for additional vaccines. Starting last month, all infants and toddlers in public schools and day cares were required to get annual flu shots, and sixth-graders had to receive a meningitis vaccination and a booster for diphtheria/pertussis/tetanus, or DPT.

At the rally, Assemblywoman Charlotte Vandervalk, R-Westwood, told the crowd that forced immunizations violate the Nuremberg Code, the set of ethical standards created in the wake of Nazi experiments on humans.

"We have a right to informed consent," Vandervalk said. "This once was a closet fear that now has become a public outcry."

Vandervalk is the sponsor of a bill to allow parents a conscientious exemption from vaccinating their children. Parents would claim a "sincerely held or moral objection" on paperwork to be filed with local health departments.

An identical bill in the Senate is sponsored by Sen. Gerald Cardinale, R-Cresskill, with a half-dozen more North Jersey lawmakers as co-sponsors.

Nineteen states have such a provision, according to the New Jersey Coalition for Vaccination Choice. Right now, the only way New Jersey parents can avoid vaccinations — and stay within the law — is to claim a medical or religious waiver. Roughly 2,200 children have such exemptions.

At the rally, Christine Levin said she drove for two hours from Sparta with her six children, ages 12 years to 5 months. None of them is vaccinated, she said.

"With my first child, I took classes in natural childbirth and learned that at birth, children are given eye drops, a Vitamin K shot and a shot for hepatitis B," Levin said.

"Hepatitis B, for a newborn? That's something that drug addicts and prostitutes get, and the vaccine is only good for 10 years. So we're protecting 10-year-old prostitutes and drug users. I said no way. We'd rather take our chances getting an illness."

Many protesters said their main fear was that a vaccine, once injected, can't be removed.

"I want to have a choice," said Melanie Miller of Bernardsville, Somerset County, mother of 3-year-old Frances Miller. "I'm not going to put a vaccine in her body every year."