USAToday.com of October 22, 2008 has 2 articles listed one above the other: First, an article about parents who are home schooling their children because they will NOT have the children immunized as per school requirements (written by Chris Joyner) and second, an article entitled "FDA inspections of foreign plants lacking".
My comment on the home schooling article is as follows: Most of us have been immunized and have had our children immunized. But 2008 is not other times and concerns these parents express are validated by USA Today's article appearing right beneath this article, discussing the lack of FDA oversight of drugs being manufactured elsewhere. The FDA being asleep at the wheel creates an increased risk that US citizens will receive faulty or even lethal drugs and medical supplies shipped in from other countries because it's cheaper. Combine that with the recent court decision in Riegel v. Medtronic Inc., No. 06-179 the Supreme Court's(http://www.supremecourtus.gov/opinions/07pdf/06-179.pdf) where the Supreme Court has denied the right to sue for damages in state court on claims of strict liability for faulty manufacture for a product the FDA said was okay as long as the product seems to have been manufactured according to those approved guidelines. Our system now confirms that the FDA is not doing its job AND further ties the hands of citizens to sue manufacturers of products that received FDA approval. These facts make the currently minority view that immunizations should not be mandated as less unreasonable than the view might be seen in a country that demanded actual performance by its governmental employees at the FDA. I am amazed that I agree with the parents in this article, but I do.
Please note, the FDA justification for being asleep at the wheel is predictable, we need more staff (somehow our big gov'ment protesters haven't kept track of the growth of government positions in the last 8 years).
