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.