“They simply accept and repeat whatever they have been taught in medical school and, therefore, cannot
be counted as multiple voices.” – Rabbi Rephoel Szmerla’s Teshuva Against Vaccination for Everyone (p. 51)
Who should decide whether or not children must be vaccinated?
Is it the government, the schools, the doctors, or the parents?
In Rabbi Rephoel Szmerla’s Teshuvah Against Vaccination for Everyone, republished on Hayehudi.org, he examines questions of vaccination, informed consent, parental rights, and medical coercion through the lens of halacha, teshuvot of gedolim, medical dogma, and parental experience. He explores whether vaccinatin may be refused or compelled, whether unvaccinated children may be excluded from schools, and how halachic principles should be applied when medical opinions differ.
From his introduction:
Question: non-vaccinated children are said to pose a risk to other children and teachers, especially pregnant teachers, in the school they attend. Do parents have the right to refuse vaccinating their school-age children? May the principal refuse to let unvaccinated children attend school, even when the parents of such children have produced a valid religious exemption?
Answer: This is based on the assumption that vaccines are as effective and safe as promoted by the government, pharmaceutical companies and most pediatricians. Although there is no doubt that vaccines are able to produce immunogenicity responses, thus conferring some protection from disease, there is also no doubt that vaccines may at times cause serious adverse events, neurological or immunologic damage, and death. Therefore, we will have to investigate to what degree are vaccines effective and to what degree they are safe, in order to address this שאלה properly. Nevertheless, I would like to preface this presentation with a topic that requires no medical, scientific or statistical knowledge, and yet, may well resolve our שאלה. I will then address the issues of vaccination safety and effectiveness.
Read Rabbi Smerla’s teshuva here.
