Refusal of vaccinations is the legal right of parents in relation to their own children who have not reached their 15th birthday (there are cases when they have reached their 16th birthday). All adult citizens of Russia have a similar right, and if you refuse vaccinations, then vaccination cannot be carried out (Federal Law of September 17, 1998 No. 157-FZ “On immunoprophylaxis of infectious diseases” - Article 5. Rights and responsibilities of citizens when carrying out immunoprophylaxis clause 1. When carrying out immunoprophylaxis, citizens have the right to: refuse preventive vaccinations).
In this article we will consider the following questions: how to refuse vaccinations; what consequences can you expect after refusing vaccinations; where to get a refusal form; how to protect the rights of the child and your own if doctors or teachers insist on vaccination.
- Refusal of vaccinations from a legal point of view
- Who has the right to submit a vaccination refusal?
- How to correctly write a refusal to vaccinate
- What consequences can there be if you refuse vaccinations?
- Sample application for refusal of vaccinations
- What to do if your child is vaccinated despite refusing vaccinations
Refusal of vaccinations from a legal point of view
You need to know that even such, at first glance, a familiar and ordinary thing as a vaccination, on the territory of Russia falls under the scope of the Federal Law “On the Fundamentals of Protecting the Health of Citizens in the Russian Federation” No. 323-FZ of November 21, 2011. If we turn to clause 5 of Art. 2 part 1, it says that vaccination is nothing more than a medical intervention. And by virtue of other articles of this Federal Law (Article 19 and Article 20), every Russian citizen has the right to refuse such medical intervention without negative consequences from a legal point of view. You should be aware that you may expect consequences of a different nature, therefore, regarding the medical advisability of vaccination, it is recommended to seek the advice of a doctor in each specific case.
This provision applies to absolutely all types of vaccination:
- Vaccinations that newborns need to receive while still in the maternity hospital - against hepatitis B, against tuberculosis (BCG), etc.
- Flu vaccinations. Recently, there has been a widespread imposition of such vaccinations.
- Age-related vaccinations that are given to children upon reaching a certain age (against diphtheria, paratitis, etc.).
Important information: despite the fact that there is a corresponding law that establishes the rights of citizens to refuse vaccination, there is no need to use it thoughtlessly. For example, refusal of flu vaccinations is not equivalent to denial of preventive drug measures for polio ; the severe consequences in case of polio are not comparable to the consequences of influenza.
Attitudes towards vaccinations among the population
The last decade gave the world bird and swine flu, from which dozens of people died. After these cases, the authorities began to appeal to the population with recommendations to get vaccinated against the flu, but such calls do not always meet with approval and support. Opinions are divided: some categorically refuse to be vaccinated, others are first in line at the medical office. Flu vaccination is performed during exacerbations of respiratory diseases.
Who has the right to submit a vaccination refusal?
If we turn to Article 20 of Federal Law No. 323, then according to its provisions, the following categories of persons may refuse vaccinations:
- Competent citizens who have reached the age of majority, if they refuse vaccination for themselves;
- One of the parents (trustees, guardians, adoptive parents) – in relation to children under 15 years of age. If we are talking about children who suffer from drug addiction, then the age here is 16 years;
- Guardians - in relation to persons recognized as incompetent, provided that the citizen, due to his state of health, cannot independently make such decisions. In simple terms, if a person is declared incompetent due to mental illness.
Important: an employee of a medical institution authorized to accept refusal of vaccinations is obliged to inform the applicant about all the consequences that are possible in the event of this refusal.
Why is vaccination necessary?
People tend to view events in life through the prism of how much it personally affects them. A person spends a certain part of his life at work. No matter how much he likes her, he must fulfill his functional duties and ensure order in the workplace. If you are a creative person who does not recognize conventions and restrictions, your best workplace is in your own home, without bosses and rush jobs. But even in such conditions, there is no guarantee that you will not get sick with something like the common flu.
If the work simmers in your hands, literally burns, you have no desire to give up your favorite activity because of illness. If the work is not particularly loved, no one will cancel your function anyway. Even if you take a break for five to seven days, many unsolved tasks will accumulate during your absence.
How to correctly write a refusal to vaccinate
Refusal to vaccinate should be submitted in the form of an application addressed to the head of the medical institution who has the right to vaccinate. As a rule, this is the chief physician of the district clinic (as you know, vaccinations are done in this particular medical institution). If vaccination is carried out on a newborn baby, then the application must be written to the head doctor of the maternity hospital.
The vaccination refusal form is issued by the doctor himself or another employee of the medical institution, so citizens do not have to worry about the correctness of the document. But there are situations when doctors do not share the citizen’s desire to refuse vaccination, so you need to stock up on information in advance on how to correctly write a statement yourself. Correctness and correctness in this case play a significant role, and everything must be done so that the most bureaucratic and strict chief physician does not find any flaws in the application form. Otherwise, you will have to rewrite the application again, which will require additional stress and time.
We suggest that you familiarize yourself with important recommendations on the content of an application for refusal of vaccinations:
- You should indicate a specific type of vaccination or list several.
- It is necessary to indicate the applicant’s residential address and full personal data.
- It is imperative to note that refusing vaccination is a balanced and deliberate decision.
- If you provide links to the norms of current legislative acts, this will be a plus.
Refusal of vaccinations in kindergarten or school should be classified as a separate category, because this is in the interests of a child attending a preschool institution or studying in a comprehensive school. Everyone knows that in these institutions they monitor timely vaccination very strictly. In this case, the application must also include a request to release the child from any medical interventions that are carried out without the consent of parents or guardians.
In addition to Art. 19 and Art. 20 of Law No. 323-FZ, which we mentioned above, depending on the type of vaccination, the following legal acts should be cited as a legal justification for refusing vaccination:
- Part 3 of Article 7 of the Law “On preventing the spread of tuberculosis in the Russian Federation” No. 77-FZ of June 18, 2001. In accordance with this law, medical assistance against tuberculosis can be provided to children under 15 years of age only with the consent of the parents (or one of them).
- Part 2 art. 11 of the Law “On Immunoprophylaxis of Infectious Diseases” No. 157-FZ of September 17, 1998. According to this article, vaccinations for preventive purposes for children under 15 years of age can only be carried out with the consent of the parents or one of them.
Important information: the Mantoux test, although not fully considered a vaccination, is also a medical intervention for preventive purposes, so refusal of it will be equivalent to refusal of vaccinations and can be declared on the same basis.
These legislative norms do not lose their relevance for those citizens who have expressed a desire to refuse vaccinations in the maternity hospital.
What to do if an employee does not want to be vaccinated
Nowhere does it state that the clinic is required to ensure that all employees are vaccinated. If an employee’s work activity does not involve a high risk of infection, he has the right to refuse preventive vaccinations. For example, a statistician who does not see or interact with infectious patients may not be vaccinated without consequences. The employer who provided the opportunity to get vaccinated has fulfilled his obligations, so in this case he will not be fined.
On the contrary, an infectious disease specialist cannot refuse vaccination, otherwise the clinic will be obliged to remove him from work. The decision must be formalized as an order and familiarized with it to the employee against signature. A sample order is in Appendix 2.
| Appendix 1. Notice | Appendix 2. Order of suspension from work |
If an employee does not want to be vaccinated, obtain his written refusal indicating the reason. For example, “unwillingness” or “presence of a medical contraindication.” He is not obliged to describe in detail the reasons for the refusal.
Suspend the employee from work until he is vaccinated (Article 76 of the Labor Code). Also, with the consent of the employee, he can be transferred to another job or to another area where vaccination is not required (Articles 72.1, 72.2 of the Labor Code).
Since it is not the clinic’s fault that the employee did not get vaccinated, there is no need to accrue wages for the period of suspension.
Which healthcare workers are considered at risk?
The list of work, the performance of which is associated with a high risk of infection, was approved by Government Decree No. 825 dated July 15, 1999. Work in medical organizations is not directly mentioned in it. However, the list includes work with patients with infectious diseases, with live cultures of pathogens of infectious diseases, with human blood and biological fluids.
Those who work with patients with infectious diseases now mean employees of infectious diseases offices and departments. It is not yet clear whether the approach will change due to the coronavirus situation or not.
What consequences can there be if you refuse vaccinations?
Despite the fact that refusal to vaccinate, its possibility, procedure and grounds, is regulated at the legislative level, in life it often happens that representatives of educational institutions do not agree with the opinion of parents and try to fight it. An effective lever of influence is the refusal to admit children to kindergarten (and sometimes to school) who have not undergone certain types of vaccination.
Officials of children's educational institutions justify these actions by Resolution of the Chief State Sanitary Doctor of August 13, 1992 No. 33 “On the prohibition of admission to preschool institutions and schools of children who are not vaccinated against tuberculosis, polio, diphtheria, whooping cough, measles, and tetanus.” a vaccination refusal form to fill out , without thinking about sanctions: this argument has no legal basis, since the act given above was canceled back on November 2, 2000 by decree of the State Sanitary Doctor of Moscow No. 12 .
Sample application for refusal of vaccinations
In 2009, the Ministry of Health established a form for refusing vaccinations, which was approved by the Ministry of Justice on April 28, 2009 (Order of the Ministry of Health and Social Development of the Russian Federation No. 19n dated January 26, 2009 “On the recommended sample of voluntary informed consent for preventive vaccinations for children or refusal them") and has registration number 13845. The form has the official name “Voluntary informational consent to carry out preventive vaccinations for children and refuse them.” This paper contains all the necessary information, which parents and legal representatives of the child should carefully study before signing. In addition to the main points, the form also contains information about the possible consequences of refusing vaccination.
applications for refusal of vaccinations
in DOC format
Following legal norms, if vaccinations are planned for a child, then this form should in any case be offered to the parents for review and signing, since any manipulations are performed solely with their consent.
But practice shows that this is not how things happen. In most cases, obtaining consent for vaccination is widespread, and parents simply do not have time to thoroughly familiarize themselves with the paper that educators or teachers hastily hand them to sign.
For this reason, if parents decide to refuse vaccination, it is better to prepare for this in advance and resolve this issue by going to the kindergarten that the child attends, the school where he is studying or the clinic.
Keep in mind that an application to refuse vaccinations submitted to the clinic is not sufficient in all cases, and in order to eliminate possible misunderstandings, you should write a duplicate application and send it to the head of the educational institution.
In addition to the fact that there is an officially approved form for refusing vaccination, there are a sufficient number of options that will also be legal and valid.
For example, a vaccination refusal form for a maternity hospital provides a warning about contacting law enforcement agencies in case of vaccination of a newborn. Parents have the right to submit a separate application to refuse the Mantoux test. In other words, despite the fact that there is an approved form, there is still no mandatory form. That is why any of them, which is drawn up in compliance with all requirements, will be endowed with legal force.
Flu danger
In children's and other educational institutions, students and teachers who sniff around, talk through their noses are not only unsightly, but also dangerous to the health of others. Especially if someone in the team is undergoing medical procedures or has recently recovered from an exacerbation of a chronic illness. Or among colleagues there are early pregnant employees, for whom the flu is like a death sentence for an unborn child. And you’re unlikely to like it if, during the next emergency, one of your loved ones falls down with a fever and runny nose, and you have to watch it at night.
It is especially difficult with children, they become capricious, constantly demand attention, and sleep poorly. If a child sweats heavily in his sleep during illness, he needs to be constantly changed into dry clothes to prevent it from getting worse. Despite such obvious selfish reasons, some people believe that the flu vaccine is an evil in disguise.
What to do if your child is vaccinated despite refusing vaccinations
Life shows that such situations, although extremely rare, still happen. Initially, you will need to contact the prosecutor's office and write an application to conduct an investigation into the fact of illegal vaccination of a child. It would be a good idea to make copies of the application and send it to the regional health departments. If the vaccination was done in kindergarten or school, then to the regional departments of education.
If the refusal to vaccinate was issued in accordance with all legislative norms, standards and rules, then the prosecutor's office must take appropriate measures. This can be expressed in a decision to bring the perpetrators to administrative responsibility or to send a request to bring them to disciplinary liability. For example, these measures can be taken against the pediatrician who performed the vaccination.
If the development of events was unfavorable and the parents were forced to incur material costs (for example, after vaccination, the child required treatment and restoration of health), then the medical institution in which the vaccination was carried out will be obliged to compensate for the damage and, it is possible, also for moral damage. Such measures can only be possible on the basis of a decision of a judicial authority or on a voluntary basis.
If the doctor, despite the fact that there was an application to refuse vaccinations, decided to vaccinate the child, then the consequences can be quite severe. If, after this manipulation, serious or moderate harm was caused to the child’s health, the doctor may face criminal liability. To determine the severity of the harm caused to health, a forensic medical examination will be appointed, which will issue a conclusion. In addition, a cause-and-effect relationship between vaccination and the resulting consequences must be established.
