<p>My college requires me to fulfill immunization requirements in order to matriculate. Question: can there be ANY problems if I submit the religious exemption form (problems with insurance, medical service, etc.)?</p>
<p>Is it a public or private school? Public school can probably only prevent you from living in student housing, private school might be able to rescind acceptance.</p>
<p>I would ask you to challenge yourself as to why you accept your religious belief that you should not vaccinate. Normally I would just let be anyone foolish enough to increase their chances of disease or death for no good reason but in this case unfortunately your choices do not only affect you as your body can serve as an incubator and distribution center for diseases that can be fatal to those around you who for medical reasons were unable to receive the vaccine or whose bodies failed to respond to the vaccine.</p>
<p>What religion are you? The only religion I know of that still genuinely forbids it are the Amish and if you were Amish you wouldn’t be posting here.</p>
<p>I would highly advise you to get vaccinated. They require these things because it is necessary in order for vaccination to work. Without being vaccinated, you become a breeding ground for a virus to grow and mutate, and potentially infect other people despite them being vaccinated. </p>
<p>If you’re interested in reading them, I can link you to numerous peer reviewed scientific studies that conclusively demonstrate the safety of vaccination, and debunk all of the pseud-scientific claims pertaining to them.</p>
<p>The main problem would be that you would be more vulnerable to catching the disease and spreading it to others. (Administrative requirements and exemptions would depend on the school.)</p>
<p>If you want to live in a public forum then please respect the needs of others and get your shots. You will be doing it for others which is always a tenet of a kind religious act.</p>
<p>Go for it. The worst that can happen is that they’ll say “no, sorry.”</p>
<p>Wow. People here.</p>
<p>Anyways. My family has been using the religious exemption for years.</p>
<p>I was able to enroll in my college with no problems, but I only exempted one vaccination and I already had all of the others, as I recall. (I got them as a child.)</p>
<p>Check this link out: [How</a> to Legally Get a Vaccine Exemption](<a href=“http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2011/12/27/legal-vaccine-exemptions.aspx]How”>Archived Article Notice)</p>
<p>I think as long as you aren’t going to school in Mississippi and West Virginia, then you should be fine.</p>
<p>I doubt you will be barred from matriculation to the after-life if you get a shot. Do everyone a favor and get a vaccination.</p>
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<p>Potentially damaging procedure? Please cite me all of these studies that demonstrate how vaccination is a “damaging procedure.” I really want to see them.</p>
<p>Here’s a good article. Seems like they were having some issues with outbreaks of diseases that were formerly under control because of vaccination. There was a sizable percentage of students that weren’t vaccinating “because of religious reasons” or just general pseudo-scientific hokum. How did they Canadian health system and school system respond? By suspending all of the students that were unvaccinated…until they got vaccinated. I applaud them.</p>
<p>[Anti-vaccination</a> fraud: Health officials get tough as dormant diseases returning | Canada | News | National Post](<a href=“Breaking News, Headlines and Stories | National Post”>Breaking News, Headlines and Stories | National Post)</p>
<p>As someone who can’t get most vaccinations because of a compromised immune system, I beg all healthy people that can to get one. If your religion LEGITIMATELY says no, then you are in the extreme minority and it probably isn’t going to affect anyone other than yourself and your religious community. However, if you’re using it as an excuse, I hope you realize how many people you’re endangering.</p>
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<p>Wow. People who don’t immunize. They are freeloading off everyone else who gets their kids immunized. The freeloaders are relying on the “herd immunity” so they don’t get exposed to dangerous diseases (because fewer people around them will be sick if everyone else immunizes). There are a few (small number) of legitimate medical reasons not to get immunized, like skipping the flu shot because you are allergic to eggs. But using some some vague notion that vaccines aren’t good for you or an anectdote that someone got the flu after getting a shot as an excuse not to immunize is just intellectual laziness. I suspect some “vaccine deniers” hide behind the religious exemption (which I honestly also think should not be allowed – if you don’t vaccinate for any reason except legitimate medical reasons, your kids should not be allowed in school or college).</p>
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Did you read the link I posted above? You’d probably find it quite interesting. I agree…kids should not be allowed in school or college if they’re not immunized. They’re going to be around thousands of other kids, and the potential for infection is huge. </p>
<p>I’d also add that I don’t buy into the “religious exemption” notion. If you are part of a religion that doesn’t allow you to partake of one of the single greatest creations of humanity, that has saved the lives of millions of people and is widely hailed as the greatest medical accomplishment of our history…then you need to find a new religion. </p>
<p>Get immunized. It is absolutely unquestionable that this whole anti-vaxxer movement has caused diseases like pertussis, and polio to start popping back up in areas where vaccination levels are deemed to be too low to be completely effective. Do some research.</p>
<p>I definitely advise to get vaccinations! I know you can be bared from housing for not doing so…</p>
<p>My sisters boyfriend has a pretty weak immune system and his roommate wasn’t immunized and his roommate contacted meningitis and luckily it was caught early, but prior to that he had passed it to my sisters boyfriend who already suffers issues and he was in turn in the hospital for a verrry long time coping with it.</p>
<p>I have no idea how they can allow someone to live in housing without the meningitis vaccine.</p>
<p>Am I seriously reading this? Religious exemptions to vaccines? ***. Get vaccinated so you don’t get other people sick. I can’t believe I’m reading this.</p>
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<p>However, when there are enough vaccine refusers in the community, herd immunity becomes ineffective as they (and the small number who are medically unable to get the vaccine or who do not seroconvert after receiving the vaccine) become a large enough subpopulation to spread the disease around to each other (and others like infants too young to receive the vaccine and elderly with waning immunity).</p>
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<p>That’s exactly it. When the entire population isn’t immunized, viruses now have a host that provides a medium in which they can mutate. Once the virus mutates, it can develop into new strains that the already administered vaccines do not protect against, leading to infection despite vaccination. This is why widespread vaccination is so important.</p>
<p>I believe in vaccinations for polio, smallpox, meningitis, etc. if they are obviously deadly to the masses, get your freaking shots, people!</p>
<p>Now chickenpox, flu shots, etc? That should be up to parents and individuals to decide. No one should be forced to protect themselves. Now obviously there is the mutation issue, but you can’t force people to get shots under law, like some people want. If our country did that, it would be a country I would not want to live in. I am not trying to undermine the issue that this is how a deadly virus can be created. I am just saying that people have the rights to do what they want with their own bodies.</p>
<p>My brother doesn’t get shots for “religious reasons”, and he isn’t overly religious. It is fairly simple to do.</p>
<p>You know the virus causing chickenpox is a severely problematic one that can lead to death or longterm neurological deficits right?</p>
<p>Flu can also easily be fatal, in fact thousands of people die every year.</p>
<p>I don’t think people should be forced to get shots but if they want to be in close contact with other people at schools then they should have to by school policy and if they want to attend that school there should be no exceptions. The problem with infectious diseases as opposed to say, heart disease, is that the decisions you make do not only impact your body but also my body. If you want to eat horribly and not exercise, you won’t increase my risk of heart disease, but if you don’t vaccinate you increase my risk of disease.</p>
<p>Chicken pox tends to be more severe among adults, especially pregnant women. So people who did not have it during childhood may want to consider the vaccine as adults.</p>
<p>Influenza varies in severity, but it (the real influenza, not the various less severe diseases that people commonly call “the flu”) is extremely unpleasant in any case.</p>
<p>At D1’s school they had a case of mumps this year! So I’m all for vigilance when it comes to immunizations. Do you have to get flu shot or similar? Well it’s nice to those attending school with you. If you don’t, please don’t go to class…which leads to big point. If you choose not to get flu shot or chicken pox vaccine or whooping cough booster (WC also making comeback), can you afford to miss a week or more of class? To me that’s a big gamble if you care about keeping grades up.</p>