God...
7/10/08 22:16
7/10/08 20:23
Its all about having the last say? surely not
(but just in case it is, I have to post this!)
7/10/08 16:41
I believe the topic is having the last say.
7/10/08 16:33
Okay, so anyway... what was the topic of this thread?
7/10/08 10:08
lol
I DONT agree with the letter but didnt see the religious portion in it.....ah the perils of being a catholic scientist eh?
7/10/08 09:33
This makes me really quite cross!
I would never have guessed
I think we're pretty much in agreement now, ie The letter itself said nothing about any religious motivation, but the Daily Mail quotes someone from the school as having religious motivation (the lifelong marriage commitment bit), which the school now denies - but do we believe the Mail, or do we believe the school's website where they are possibly just back-pedalling? I don't think we can know for sure.
As for the stuff about vaccinations - thanks for the links. It sounds like the school have no idea what vaccinations ARE being done on their premises, which is ever so slightly worrying...
6/10/08 23:43
Well, you can't get much more official than this (scroll to bottom):
http://www.immunisation.nhs.uk/Immunisation_Schedule
"13-18 year olds are offered Td/IPV at school. It is given as a single injection in the upper arm and protects against diphtheria, tetanus and polio."
So this stupid school doesn't even know that they should be giving this triple vaccination? They are more of a joke than I thought!
This makes me really quite cross!
6/10/08 23:29
"They also state on their website that "Preventative inoculations are not now given in schools for any illness." - is this true? anyone know? Is the MMR booster no longer given in schools? or BCG? or any others?"
I was very surprised to hear them say that... I thought I had recently read something to the contrary, so I did some digging. Looks like they might be talking more rubbish. Here is the vaccination schedule:
http://www.netdoctor.co.uk/health_advice/facts/childhoodvaccinations.htm
It's true that BCG is no longer given at school, but the schedule seems to imply the Diphtheria + Tetanus + Polio jab is done at school as always. If that is true, shouldn't they know that?
However, even if no vaccinations were currently given at school, this doesn't give them much of an argument. The environment changes radically over time, so vaccinations will probably always come and go (driven partly because of microbial evolution of course
).This vaccination is a for a reason, that is why it is being mandated - all schools are supposed to do it. They are not supposed to pick and choose the ones they like.
6/10/08 23:10
"Re-reading the letter again, I agree with GKM - the LETTER doesn't show any religious/moral motivation for them refusing the vaccine."
Yep, that is what I meant when I said about the clinic being in the letter, and the school also "seems to have said..." (because I don't trust the Daily Mail much to get anything right)
"And I am actually in agreement with pretty much everything that letter says."
I would never have guessed
They are quoted: "we can offer a vision of a full life keeping yourself for a lifelong partnership in marriage"
Are you saying that is not religiously motivated?
"they state: Moral considerations such as those reported in the Manchester Evening News for 24th September did not form any part of the Governors' decision."
How... convenient.
I'm thinking that they must have got a *real* public relations kicking over all this. So frankly, I just don't believe that - it leaves stupid statements like "only effective for 70% of cervical cancers" for arguments. All I can see is religious motivation defended using a load of anti-scientific arguments. Of course, I could be wrong, we have only their word for it - but for me, with arguments like that, I don't really think their word counts for much.
They are quoted: "vaccination against it is a personal matter for parents to decide in consultation with their family doctor and their children."
As a Catholic school, they probably have a large proportion of parents who also subscribe to their religious dogma on sex, so I'm not really surprised they take this view.
This all seems to comes down to rejecting the medical initiative because it has something to do with sex. If it wasn't about sex, I am quite sure there would be no issue and they would have taken part just like any other school.
"But I think the uptake of this one will be much higher than for jabs like MMR which have had such bad press"
We can hope. The MMR controversy is an absolute scandal. It seems to be emerging that the real problem with the MMR controversy *was* the press, and some scientists are basically saying it was pretty much all their fault, much more than Andrew Wakefield...6/10/08 21:06
DD had to go to the clinic for her booster. DS is getting his earlier, at 3 1/2 for some reason.
School asked permission to do height/ weight/ teeth/ nits (I said NO because I am obstreperous by nature.) Nothing about jabs at all, not even mentioned.
6/10/08 20:59
Dont they have any school age boosters now? I know I had rubella too - but we were both pre-MMR era, lol. I didn't realise that schools don't do any vaccinations there now.
6/10/08 20:31
MMR is given in the surgery here, BCG is given at birth or not at all. Rubella was the only other one I had at school. The tetanus you are supposed to have at 14? ish is also given at the surgery IME.
6/10/08 20:21
Re-reading the letter again, I agree with GKM - the LETTER doesn't show any religious/moral motivation for them refusing the vaccine. And I am actually in agreement with pretty much everything that letter says.
But the dailyMail article joliver linked to, gives some quotes from representatives of the school: Monsignor John Allen of St Monica's RC High School in Bury, Greater Manchester, said: 'Morally it seems to be a sticking plaster response. Parents must consider the knock-on effect of encouraging sexual promiscuity. Instead of taking it for granted that teenagers will engage in sexual activity, we can offer a vision of a full life keeping yourself for a lifelong partnership in marriage.'
With the approval of headmaster Frank McCarron, the governors of the 1,200 pupil school have drafted a letter to parents outlining their objections to the vaccine.
In it, the chairman of the governors, Martin Browne, states: 'We do not believe that school is the right place for the three injections to be administered.'So although the letter itself doesn't say that there are religious objections to the vaccine, if you believe the DailyWail the motivation behind the Governor's decision about not wanting it given in school was the morality of "encouraging promiscuous behaviour". And in the responses the article quotes, one parent refers to "medieval views on chastity".
HOWEVER, if you look at the school's website, http://www.stmonicas.co.uk/ they state: Moral considerations such as those reported in the Manchester Evening News for 24th September did not form any part of the Governors' decision.
THey also provide a link to the NHS website so that parents can access info on the vaccine for themselves, and state that they believe "vaccination against it is a personal matter for parents to decide in consultation with their family doctor and their children." (which I do agree with - parents should be making informed decisions, in communication with their child, about whether or not to give the injection and at what age - although i do agree with joliver that realistically, this is the exception rather than the rule. But I think the uptake of this one will be much higher than for jabs like MMR which have had such bad press)
They also state on their website that "Preventative inoculations are not now given in schools for any illness." - is this true? anyone know? Is the MMR booster no longer given in schools? or BCG? or any others?
6/10/08 15:54
"I just read the letter and didnt see any religious motivation in it"
Well I missed it too to begin with, otherwise I would have brought it up earlier. Serves me right for skim reading! But it's not just the letter, it is also what they have been quoted to have said in the main article.
6/10/08 15:51
"I think we're going round in circles now!"
Agreed.
"I still don't get what you're saying about the stats in that other link Less than 40% of respondents believed in God, so I really just don't get how they can say that as people believe in God, they also believe in other paranormal stuff too. I just don't GET IT"
I am probably not very good at explaining statistical correlation then. If somebody else has a better explanation, please chime in... Or you can have a look at the following link, which does a fairly good job of explaining it: http://www.surveysystem.com/correlation.htm
I can see your sticking point - and if you have not done much statistics, I guess it is reasonable to wonder how you can tell if independent variables can be related. I guess the basic idea of it is that, as long as you have a large sample, you can use mathematics to tease out the information. As you add more related questions in a social survey as this, your confidence in your correlation grows, and you can use more variables to reduce a noisy sample.
You are right in that it certainly does not prove the case, as I said before, it is a *suggestion* of an underlying trend. However, as two variables become even more closely correlated, it becomes statistically quite improbable that the trend is some random fuzziness in the data. But I'll say again, it does require you to have decent underlying data.
It's not a completely trivial bit of maths (see here for one mathematical explanation: http://mathworld.wolfram.com/StatisticalCorrelation.html), and there are a few ways of doing it, but it is very well understood technique, and an extremely useful tool.
6/10/08 14:12
I just read the letter and didnt see any religious motivation in it
6/10/08 14:08
I think we're going round in circles now!
Joliver - Thanks for posting the link to that letter - it pretty much contradicts everything I read online beforehand about this school and their position, lol! And having seen that, I agree that their position is at the very least partially motivated by their religious beliefs about abstinence from sex outside of marriage.
I still don't get what you're saying about the stats in that other link
Less than 40% of respondents believed in God, so I really just don't get how they can say that as people believe in God, they also believe in other paranormal stuff too. I just don't GET IT!6/10/08 00:52
lol, im sure dh would find it an interesting read... but that would mean allowing him on 'my' site... not gonna happen!
6/10/08 00:51
I don't blame you, its probably very very boring by now.
6/10/08 00:42
lol i wouldnt know... i can only deal with little posts... i cant read yours my head would explode
Oh y'know I can't be arséd with whether the school were right or not, although I think they HAVE the right. All jabs 'should' be available through surgeries, school's not the place imo, and all parents should be responsible enough to make informed choices.... well that is never going to happen so I guess the schools should offer all jabs, dentists appts, routine check ups, etc etc., but they should have the right to opt out for any reason at all if the governors and PTA etc decide such.... and so we come full circle.
I don't send my kids to this school and I don't have a dd. However IF I had a dd who did go to this school, and I felt the jab was essential (I actually think its a blóody good thing and not at all promoting young catholics to be whóres) then I'd get off my sorry arsé and join the PTA to have a vote on such issues and get myself and my dd down to the local GP where it IS available.
So there you go.... issue??? What issue????