More Than Medicine
More Than Medicine
American Academy of Pediatrics Attacks Religious Exemptions
A monumental clash between religious liberty and medical authority erupted last week when the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) recommended eliminating all religious exemptions for vaccines required for school attendance. Dr. Robert Jackson and his daughter Hannah Miller dive deep into why this recommendation represents a dangerous overreach that threatens fundamental constitutional rights.
The conversation opens with a crucial revelation: the AAP holds absolutely no legal authority. Despite its official-sounding name, it's merely a private membership organization that receives substantial funding from pharmaceutical companies manufacturing vaccines. This glaring conflict of interest explains why the organization would push to eliminate exemptions that represent financial losses to pediatric practices nationwide.
Religious freedom stands as the foundation of all American liberties, protected explicitly by the First Amendment and reinforced by the Civil Rights Act of 1964. When schools or employers attempt to override religious exemptions for vaccines, they engage in illegal discrimination. Dr. Jackson emphasizes that religious beliefs are deeply personal and require no validation from religious leaders or institutions—your "sincerely held religious conviction" is legally sufficient and beyond question.
The episode offers practical, empowering guidance for parents facing institutional pressure. With remarkable clarity, Dr. Jackson outlines a respectful yet firm approach to assert your rights: request to see anti-discrimination policies, ask about exemption committee members' training in non-discrimination law, and even request religious statements from those judging your exemption. These simple steps typically resolve issues without legal intervention.
Perhaps most chilling is the historical context provided through Benjamin Rush's prophetic warning that without constitutional protection for medical freedom, medicine would organize into "an undercover dictatorship." As medical bureaucracies increasingly limit individual choice, we're witnessing the very scenario the founding father feared.
Stand firm in defense of your constitutional rights while navigating vaccine requirements. Whether you're a parent facing school registration challenges or an employee dealing with workplace mandates, this episode equips you with the knowledge to protect your religious liberty and medical autonomy.
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Welcome to More Than Medicine, where Jesus is more than enough for the ills that plague our culture and our country Hosted by author and physician, dr Robert Jackson, and his wife Carlotta and daughter Hannah Miller.
Speaker 2:So listen up, because the doctor is in.
Speaker 1:Welcome to More Than Medicine. I'm your host, dr Robert Jackson, bringing to you biblical insights and stories from the country doctor's rusty, dusty scrapbook. Well, I'm delighted to have in the studio with me today my lovely daughter, ms Hannah Miller. Lovely daughter, ms Hannah Miller. She's with the Hannah Miller Show and she's going to be asking a few questions and we're going to be going through something that happened this week with the American Association of Pediatricians and a statement that they made about. That affects religious liberties, and so I'm going to throw it over to Hannah. Let her bring us up to speed on something that happened this last week.
Speaker 3:So tell us what was. So they put out a statement. It was, of course, on social media, among other places. And what was the official recommendations Because that's what it's, I guess, is the proper term is that it was a recommendation of the AAP. That happened this last week.
Speaker 1:Well, their official recommendation was that they recommended that all states, territories and districts of the District of Columbia eliminate all non-medical exemptions from immunizations as a condition of school attendance. In addition, states and territories should develop policies to ensure that any medical exemption is appropriate and evidence-based. Now, what they're basically saying is that religious exemptions should go by the wayside.
Speaker 3:They're knocking, throwing those out completely, and then they're also saying the second part of that is that medical exemptions are going to be narrower and they're going to be heavily scrutinized. And so this was their recommendation. Yeah, and of course this you know, sent our flags up and we had a lot of thoughts about all this.
Speaker 1:Yes, we sure did, and so first thing is who cares what the American Academy?
Speaker 3:of Nutrition says yeah, does this carry any weight for folks?
Speaker 1:No, no, no, it really doesn't. And let me tell you why. Who cares what the AAP says or thinks? First of all, they have a very serious conflict of interest. Conflict of interest In the last year, there's been a dramatic decrease in parents accepting immunizations for the last two years for their children, and we all understand that COVID pulled the blinders off a lot of parents in regards to the safety and effectiveness of immunizations.
Speaker 1:Regards to the safety and effectiveness of immunizations, and because of that reason, lots of parents are no longer submitting their children to immunizations of any kind, pediatric vaccines included. Well, that, I think, is the impetus for the AAP American Association of Pediatricians issuing a statement like this, and it's because there's a flood of parents saying to their pediatricians no doctor, we don't want our children to receive immunizations. Now think about it. What is the bread and butter of a pediatric doctor's?
Speaker 3:office.
Speaker 1:Oh, it's the immunizations, it's immunizations, because every year 4 million children are born in the United States and that means there's 4 million new children that go into pediatric doctor office and family practice doctor's offices too, for that matter that are going to be receiving pediatric immunizations.
Speaker 1:So that's bread and butter for pediatric doctors, family practice doctors, nurse practitioners, physician assistants all of whom prescribe and provide immunizations and provide immunizations. And so when, all of a sudden, huge numbers of parents are saying we decline, we're not wanting our children to get immunizations, well, that hurts them financially.
Speaker 3:Yeah, then they got to rely on the flus and the colds and those are things that go ebb and flow and they're seasonal, that's right.
Speaker 1:Immunizations is year round.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and they can schedule those in because they know, you know, they know when this child is x amount of months old and then x amount of months old, and so they have that consistency in that schedule and oh boy, isn't that really nice that's exactly right, you know well.
Speaker 1:But what's the conflict of interest? Well, the aap is funded or receives huge grants from, moderna, pfizer, sanofi, all of these pharmaceutical companies that do what they manufacture pediatric vaccines, and so it's very self-serving for the AAP to crack down on pediatric religious exemptions and even medical exemptions. And it's also a conflict of interest because they receive the organization receives huge grants from pharmaceutical immunization manufacturers. Now who cares what the AAP says?
Speaker 3:They're not a government entity. Do they have any legal authority?
Speaker 1:They don't have any legal authority. You have to understand that the AAP is a private member, private member organization. Pediatricians pay dues to be a member of the AAP and in turn the AAP lobbies the federal government for the 17,000 pediatricians in the United States, many of whom are members not all, but many of the pediatricians are members of the AAP pay their dues and in turn the AAP lobbies the federal government for their members. But they're not a federal entity, they're not a government entity and they don't have any right to say to parents you may not have a religious exemption. They don't have any more authority than the American Society of Uppity Women United. So parents can ignore completely the AAP when they say you can't have a religious exemption.
Speaker 3:You see, and if your child's pediatrician tries to bring this out to you and pressure you with the AAP, you now can look at them and be like, look, they don't have any legal authority, I have no obligation to them whatsoever, none whatsoever. So why would the AAP be concerned at all with religious exemptions?
Speaker 1:What I just said. Yeah, it represents for them a financial loss.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Religious exemptions represents to pediatric doctors across the nation a financial loss. That's all it is. It's a bottom line.
Speaker 3:Yeah, always come down to that, don't it? And that's what they're concerned about. So why is religious freedom, though, so critical? Why do you see this as such an important thing?
Speaker 1:Well, religious freedom is the foundation of all other freedoms, and if you and I, as God-fearing, right-thinking citizens in the United States, begin to lose even one particle of our religious freedom, then everything begins to crumble. So it's imperative that we stand shoulder to shoulder, back to back, and defend our religious freedom. We shouldn't let any part of our religious freedom be taken away from us. The very first amendment of the United States Constitution protects this right. Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof. And that means we in this country have the right to believe, which means we can think what we want and we can believe what we want.
Speaker 3:And look, beliefs are not facts, beliefs yeah, there's a lot of people who believe a lot of things and you and I would look at him and say, well, that's not true. You can believe it, but it's not true.
Speaker 1:And we have the right to not believe. All right, you see Right, and so uh and I. It is totally out of bounds for a school or an employer to look at my patients and say well, you have to bring to me something from your pastor or your church that validates that you are a faithful attender and that what you believe is in concert with what your denomination or your church believes. That's not true. That's totally out of bounds, because my beliefs are personal and my beliefs do not have to be in accord with any church or any denomination, or even with my pastor. My belief is personal. It is my sincerely held personal religious conviction.
Speaker 3:Well, and here's my question too, what other medical procedure out there or medication is there out there where you have to prove to your doctor that you don't want to have it when, no, I don't want? That is not enough, that's right, it's nowhere else. Just immunizations, just immunizations.
Speaker 3:Immunizations is the only one where they basically hold your child hostage and they and they and you have to give them reasons for why you do not want a medication, whereas everything else out there. We have to twist our doctor's arms, we have to twist the insurance arms to get provision for it, we have to beg for medications for certain things and and and they're. You know we it's make. They make it so difficult sometimes, but yet when it comes to immunizations, it's totally flipped around and your no is not enough.
Speaker 1:That's right my, my patients decline uh medications all the time. They don't want statin drugs and they they may not want a blood thinner, they may not want a transfusion, and all they have to do is say no.
Speaker 3:And you don't look at them and say, well, you need to go to your church and I need to make sure. How ludicrous is that? I?
Speaker 1:respect entirely their decision to say no. And this whole thing about immunizations is ridiculous.
Speaker 3:It is ridiculous and I think we've just been so, we're just so used to it, especially, I think, my generation and a little bit older-ish where we were. You know, we came up through and everybody was just getting them and so it was just a part of life. And you know the immunizations were and everybody just knew you go into school, everybody got the immunizations. Of course I was homeschooled so things were different for me, but it was still a part, very much a large part, of our culture was to get the immunizations. Nobody asked any questions.
Speaker 1:Nobody challenged it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, nobody challenged it, and so when it just became this required thing, it was just everybody was already doing it like okay, whatever, and it just wasn't a thing. And then now, all of a sudden, it's like the veil has been lifted and people are looking around and saying wait a minute, you don't have any right to tell me that I can't refuse a medication.
Speaker 1:Your right to speak, think and believe the way you want to is protected by the supreme law of the land, which is the Constitution. But suddenly, that's not enough. Now watch this In 1964, congress passed the Civil Rights Act and that's when these protections were spelled out even more clearly. And why did that happen? Well, it's because black students weren't being allowed into white schools. People were being refused jobs or housing or equal access to society based on race, color and religion. That's why the Civil Rights Act laid it all out and it said you have the right to vote without discrimination, the right to work or apply for a job without discrimination, the right to go to school any school, including a training school, training program without discrimination, and the right to operate in society without being punished because of your age, religion, race or ethnicity. Now, if a parent is told that their child can't attend school because they object to a shot on religious grounds, that is illegal, plain and simple it's illegal.
Speaker 3:So that's what you would tell a patient if they came in to you.
Speaker 1:Exactly right and it violates the First Amendment. It also violates Title IV of the Civil Rights Act and it violates the most basic principles of ethics and freedom. But it still happens All the time, all the time in schools. And oh, I got so many friends who they're, the schools and the doctors.
Speaker 3:Just shame them, browbeat them. I mean pediatricians offices that won't even take them as patients, that's right because they won't keep them. They, yeah they say if you don't get your immunizations, we you know you can't be a patient. You know why because they got to make room for other kids who will take the medications to get the immunizations. Because they get kickbacks, they get, and so they want to make sure.
Speaker 1:The pharmaceutical. No, the insurance companies pay pediatricians and some family doctors a bonus. They reach a certain percentage of their pediatric population that gets vaccinated and they get a bonus at the end of the year. And so if you say to them we're not going to take the vaccine? They'll kick you out of their practice because it hurts their percentage.
Speaker 3:That's right. Not only do they not get the money from giving you the vaccine itself, but they also don't get the kickbacks that they get from the insurances when their whole practice gets. So they get a twofold and, and so that's why you know, that's why you're more and more you're realizing why it's so important to these doctors um, to you know, for them to be backing this and why they try to browbeat you and shame you into all of this. And I hate it for my friends who deal with this. I mean I'm just super blessed because my kids are able to come to your office and I know people are beating down the doors because they're trying to find doctors like yourself.
Speaker 1:I still have patients come into my office who are disgusted with their doctor, who they've seen for 20 or 30 years, that is trying to compel them to get a COVID vaccine that they don't want, or has dismissed them from their pediatric practice because they declined a pediatric vaccine, and it just hurts my heart so much. Listen, our medical freedom and our personal autonomy is being stolen and we have to stand up and stand firm for our First Amendment rights. Now, watch this. I want to read you a quote from Benjamin Rush. Wow, now listen to this.
Speaker 3:He said this way back in the 17th this is the first Surgeon General, right Surgeon General the first Surgeon General of the United States.
Speaker 1:He was a physician, a social reformer in Philadelphia. He was a signer of the Declaration of Independence and the first Surgeon General in the Continental Army. Now you pay attention to what he said. Unless we put medical freedom into the Constitution, the time will come when medicine will organize into an undercover dictatorship to restrict the art of healing to one class of men and to deny the privileges to the others. The Constitution of the Republic should make special privileges for medical freedoms as well as religious freedoms.
Speaker 1:Now, I'm sure he didn't claim to be a prophet or the son of a prophet, but I'm telling you his words were prophetic, because that's exactly what has happened in the United States All these years later. Anthony Fauci, the CDC and the FDA has organized itself into an undercover dictatorship and it has preserved the right of medical freedom to a small group of doctors and bureaucrats, freedom to a small group of doctors and bureaucrats, and it has excluded those freedoms from certain citizens and certain medical professionals. And we've heard of medical professionals who lost their credentials and their licenses and the privilege to practice medicine because they were dissenters, like over the COVID vaccine. And I'm promising you right now that there will be some doctors who are going to lose their privileges because they dissent from pediatric vaccines, and if Robert F Kennedy doesn't really stand up and stand strong for us, you're going to see that happening.
Speaker 3:Just mark my words.
Speaker 3:It really does. You know, I'd like to you know. This statement goes out and and and the concern for me for for everybody it should be even more than because there may be somebody who's listening to this show who says, well, I'm not a Christian, I would have never used a religious exemption anyway. This is all neither here nor there. Well, of course you and I would say well, you should be, it's still, as a good American, you understand the fact that religious and having that First Amendment is imperative for you because it means that the United States is not going to force any religion on you. But even that aside is the second part of their statement, which is that they're going to be scrutinizing even more any kind of medical exemption that you might get.
Speaker 3:And it's already complicated enough for moms and dads to get their children the help that they need for certain things. I mean, I see people every week who are just fighting with their doctors to help get their child Somebody sent me a message literally last night about this and their child not able to get the treatment that they need because of insurance companies and doctor's offices and it just being such a convoluted mess. And you want to add this in too. Yeah, that's right. You really want to add this in too. And they're saying well, we're now going to be scrutinizing medical exemptions even more than we already do. Who do you think you are? That's just absolutely right. Well, I think I don't know. Was there something else that you wanted to add?
Speaker 1:That's pretty much all the questions that I specifically had written down that I wanted to ask. Let me make a couple things clear All right.
Speaker 1:I want my listeners to understand that you have the right to a religious exemption. That is your constitutional right and don't let anybody tell you differently. And in simple terms, you're the one who informs your employer or the school that they are legally obligated to work with you to find an accommodation. All right, if you're not wanting that immunization. They are obliged to find an accommodation that does not conflict with you and your religious beliefs. It's your individual right to believe and hold those beliefs and or objections and it doesn't have to be approved by anybody.
Speaker 1:Now, remember this statement. Fix this in your little pea brains out there. Listen to me my sincerely held religious conviction. That's the only thing you have to say to the school or your doctor or your employer. Say to the school or your doctor or your employer my sincerely held religious conviction is such and such. You don't have to elaborate any more than that. That's all you ever have to say, and the school or your employer has to honor that. No man, no employer, has the right to judge that statement. No man, no employer has the right to judge that statement, period.
Speaker 1:Now let me go a little further than that. If somebody says to you and this happens all the time we accept the fact that you declined all your other immunizations, but to go to college you have to take the meningitis vaccine. I hear that all the time. That's like an employer looking at you and say you're going to have to sleep with me to stay, to be employed here. And then you say look, no, I'm not sleeping with you and I'm not going to be. I'm not trying to be crass, but I'm trying to help you understand. Well, then the employer says, okay, you don't have to sleep with me, but you have to take your top off. Yeah, that's exactly what the school system is saying to students who've refused all vaccines. But they say, well, that's okay, but you still got to take the meningitis vaccine.
Speaker 1:That's crazy talk. That's a violation of their constitutional rights. That's like saying to Jewish folks well, you don't have to eat the ham sandwiches, but you're going to have to eat the bacon bits at lunch. That's a violation of their religious convictions and that's foolishness. That's crazy talk. Listen, you don't have to take any immunizations if it's a violation of your sincerely held religious convictions.
Speaker 1:And don't let anybody push you over the line. Now let me give you another little bit of understanding here. If people want to push you and they're not willing to accept that statement, then I want you to go to the next thing. First of all, always be polite and always be respectful, and this is the way to say it. You make a very simple, polite statement. May I say this very respectfully I am exempt from this policy based on my sincerely held religious belief. Say that very simply.
Speaker 1:If you want to go beyond that, then and if they continue to push you, then you will say this to them I want you to understand that you're discriminating against me and I want to see your policy, the school or the company that you work for. I want to see your policy against discrimination because, you see, every school and every employer has a statement somewhere that says we have zero tolerance for discrimination. That's right, everybody's got that, everybody has that. And you say I want to see your statement of against discrimination. And then you go one more statement further than that and you say I want to see your vaccine exemption committee or individual. I want to know who they are and I want to know what their training is in Title VII or Title IV non-discrimination law, all right.
Speaker 1:And when you say that they're going to be bum-fuzzled because probably nobody's ever asked that from them. But that's your prerogative, that's your privilege, and let me say that again. You look at them and say I want to know the name of the individual or committee and their roles and their training in Title VII or Title IV non-discrimination law. And then here's the final biggie I want a religious statement from every member of that committee. Now, why do you want to do that? Because if everybody on the committee is an atheist and you're a Christian, you want to know that, don't you? Or if everybody's a Protestant and you're Jewish, you would want to know that, don't you? Or if everybody's a Protestant and you're Jewish, you would want to know that, wouldn't you? So you tell them I want to know a religious statement from everybody on that committee. Now, there's no lawyers involved. Up to this point, all you're doing is asking simple questions and religious I'm sorry things that are your prerogative to know as a citizen of the United States.
Speaker 3:So because why should they be able to query you on your? Religious exemption if you're not even allowed to ask them well, what's your religious statement? Because they're all going to bow up and they're going to back off and they'll say that's not any of your business, and you say that's right, and this is not any of your business.
Speaker 1:They're asking you to divulge your sincerely held religious belief. Well, if they're going to do that, then you have the prerogative to ask them the individual or committee their religious position. All right, now I'm just going to tell my listeners right up front if you do those three or four simple things, they're going to fold, they're going to capitulate, because they know that you know the Constitution, they know that you know your rights and they're not going to want to get a lawyer involved. They don't want to spend the money on a lawyer to fight against you when you're clearly in the right and you clearly have your constitutional position understood.
Speaker 3:And parents have to do this. You have to be as kind and as considerate as you can be in these interactions, but you have to stand your ground, because we're where we're at now because of folks not standing their ground and the government, the AAP they have to grant you the accommodation they have to by law grant you an accommodation.
Speaker 1:They may not realize it up front, but if you're very polite, very firm, very respectful and you explain it to people step by step, they're going to realize that they're up against a wall.
Speaker 3:And a lot of folks who are in that position. You know you're looking across at the front desk lady.
Speaker 3:You know, she has no clue. She's just been told that everybody's got to get this shot. She doesn't know the Constitution, she doesn't know the law, she doesn't know any of this stuff, and so she's just trying to get the paperwork done. She's just trying to get the paperwork done, she's just trying to get everybody shuffled through. And it's going to, and unfortunately you got to be the cog in the wheel, and nobody likes to be the cog in the wheel. But you could be the nicest, prettiest cog in the wheel that you possibly can be in that moment, all right, but you've got to be the cog because somebody's got to point out to her hey, this is not legal, you can't do this and then she's gonna to and she's never heard that in her whole life.
Speaker 3:Yeah, she's not heard that, or if she has nobody's really carefully or clearly explained it to her. And you know, because I'm sure that there's more and more of these folks who are getting this now Because, as you've already pointed out at the beginning of the show, more and more parents are not getting the immunizations.
Speaker 1:They're not complying, that they're not complying and they're declining, and you can be the very first one in your school or at your place of employment and understand clearly. It is your constitutional right.
Speaker 3:That's right.
Speaker 1:All right, that's the end of our program. Tonight You're listening to More Than Medicine. I'm your host, Dr Robert Jackson. My co-host today is my lovely daughter, Ms Hannah Miller. I encourage you to listen to the Hannah Miller Show. She has lots of wonderful information and I'll be back again with you next week. Until then, may the Lord bless you real good.
Speaker 2:Thank you for listening to this edition of More Than Medicine. For more information about the Jackson Family Ministry or to schedule a speaking engagement, go to their Facebook page, instagram or webpage at jacksonfamilyministrycom. Also, don't forget to check out Dr Jackson's books that are available on Amazon His third book Turkey Tales and Bible Truths, and his father's biography on Laughter Silvered Wings the story of a country doctor, a family man, a patriot and a political activist. This podcast is produced by Bob Sloan Audio Productions.
