A Detroit mother is fighting mad after school officials defied her specific instructions and gave her daughter four vaccinations, including one that has been linked to adverse physical reactions and even death in its recipients.
Sighle Kinney told Detroit’s WXYZ News that her 14-year-old daughter was pulled out of class at Marcus Garvey Academy on January 30, and administered vaccinations for hepatitis A, seasonal influenza, meningitis, and HPV (Human Papillomavirus, a sexually-transmitted disease) by nurses from St. John Providence Health System, the company that operates the school’s clinic.
Kinney was furious with the school and the nurses, explaining that she had never given her consent for the vaccinations, and had even signed a form specifying that she did not want the school to administer unnecessary medical treatment to her daughter. “I told them – if she falls, give her a Band Aid, or if she has a headache, give her an aspirin – that’s it,” she recalled.
“She comes home, hands me the envelope with the shot record in it that they gave her at school,” Kinney recalled of the day the school nurses defied her orders. “And when I looked at it I said, ‘What is this?’ And she was like, ‘They gave me shots, and they took blood, and they took urine.’”
The mother said that she was adamant to officials about protecting her daughter from vaccines, particularly the HPV vaccine, which, according to some sources has been linked to thousands of adverse reactions and scores of deaths (www.sanevax.org).
“Why would they give you an HPV vaccine?” Kinney recalled asking her daughter. “I never wanted you to have an HPV vaccine. And as far as you getting injections, you have your own private physician. I don’t need them to do that in school for you.”
A week after receiving the vaccinations, Kinney’s daughter came down with a rash that spread over her body – what her family doctor determined was an adverse reaction to one or more of the shots. She missed a week of school and her mother became concerned over potential long-term conditions because of the vaccines.
“I’m angry with everybody,” Kinney told the news network. “How are you going to overlook something like this? You injected my child with medicine I never wanted her to have.”
Officials with the Detroit public school system issued a meandering statement absolving themselves of blame. “The staff at the clinic must maintain confidentiality with the students and the parents of the students,” the statement read. “Detroit Public Schools staff members are not informed of any services that are provided for any students, and this policy is regularly communicated by the clinic staff to the school staff. All paperwork or parent permission slips are provided to students who are instructed by the clinic to return it directly to the nurse.”
Additionally, the statement explained that upon learning of the problem, the school’s principal “was immediately responsive to the mother and instructed her to take her very serious concerns to [St. John]….”
The understandably worried officials of St. John Providence Health Systems released their own statement concerning the situation, assuring the press that they were “aware of a situation involving a student treated at the health clinic at the Marcus Garvey Academy. We will meet with the student’s family to ensure that the issue is addressed appropriately.”
While school vaccination has been a tradition for decades, and some shots are required before kids can even get into school, Kenney is among a growing number of parents who are backing away from demands that children be immunized for everything from chicken pox and polio to HPV. Some parents simply forget or find it easier to hedge on getting the shots their school districts require. But other moms and dads are skeptical about how necessary the vaccinations are, and some are opting out because of potential dangers and other concerns they have about the substances schools want to inject into their children’s bodies.
