| American
Association of Physicians and Surgeons
Statement Concerning Mandatory Vaccines
"Ethical Medicine"
AAPS Annual Meeting
October 25 - 28, 2000
St. Louis, MO
Submitted for Member approval:
WHEREAS: The statement of Patients' Freedoms adopted
by the Assembly at the 47th annual meeting of AAPS in
1990 provides that "Patients have the freedom ...
to refuse medical treatment even if it is recommended
by their physician and to be informed about their medical
condition, the risks and benefits of treatment, and
appropriate alternatives"; and
WHEREAS: There are increasing numbers of mandatory childhood
vaccines, to which children are often subjected without
meaningful informed consent, including information about
potential adverse side effects; and
WHEREAS: Parents who exercise their freedom to refuse
one or more vaccines may be subjected to penalties ranging
from deprivation of the right to enroll their child
in school, to threats of removing the child from parental
custody and forcible vaccination; and
WHEREAS: Safety testing of many vaccines is limited
and the data are unavailable for independent scrutiny,
so that mass vaccination is equivalent to human experimentation
and subject to the Nuremberg Code, which requires voluntary
informed consent; and
WHEREAS: The process of approving and "recommending"
vaccines is tainted with conflicts of interest;
BE IT THEREFORE RESOLVED: That AAPS calls for a moratorium
on vaccine mandates and for physicians to insist upon
truly informed consent for the use of vaccines.
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