My family and I are relocating to SLC, UT.  It was necessary to turn in either a Utah school immunization record or personal exception form to complete admissions to a local private school.  This is customary for schools in the state.  I believe not necessary for home schoolers but uncertain in that regard.

With work taking us to a number of different states I find the process of receiving immunization information and/or requesting a waiver fairly similar from state to state in the U.S.

Today I was pleasantly surprised. The nurse at the health department was respectable in his speech and not condescending.  Typically the most common denominator in our visits over the past 20+ years is a verbally hostile nurse and/or doctor when requesting an exemption. Ironically another common thread is a biased viewpoint with little study from the employee of additional research outside of pharmaceutical, conflict of interest research.

I received a basic packet of information displaying only one view.  The nurse could tell I was familiar with research on immunizations and said that he didn’t feel necessary to cover much with me since I had been through this process many times..  He calmly filled out my waiver. I probably spent 15-20 minutes at most in his office. I thanked him for his respectful communication.

He did apologize for past experiences when I have met with a biased employee.

When discussing ingredients in the tetanus shot upon my request, the nurse pulled the “pink book” out of the cupboard.  He said every office that administers immunizations should have one. The book listed ingredients for all the shots.  He was surprised to find that their office appeared to have Thirmerosal in the vaccination. We both agreed that the packaging holding a vaccination should list all the ingredients.  The nurse mentioned that he thought there were still some ingredients not listed in some of the vaccinations.  We both agreed that vaccinations should have ingredients all listed.  He said if the pharmaceutical companies have nothing to hide then everything should be listed.

I am so pleased with an open and honest discourse. So happy that so little of my time was taken and no charge for the waiver.