North Carolina Parent Seeks to Halt ‘Medical Tribalism’ in Schools

Stock photo of children in a classroom. Taylor Wilcox/Unsplash

A North Carolina parent seeks to prohibit “medical tribalism” in schools after his child reported school officials differentiating between the vaccinated and unvaccinated students.

Chad Slotta spoke of two reported incidents to The Epoch Times: one in which his child recorded a Wake County school principal advising students over the intercom to get vaccinated, and the other in which a teacher had asked for a show of hands of who has had the COVID-19 vaccine and who hasn’t.

Slotta read the principal’s quote from what was recorded at a Wake County School Board meeting on Sept. 7: “I spent the last three or four days on the phone all day talking with students and parents who were forced into quarantine.  If you are not vaccinated, I encourage you to seek out a vaccine if you are able to get one.”

In the meeting, Slotta asked the board to issue directives to all school officials that medical recommendations, including those regarding taking specific medications, remain between the parent and the child.

“If I have to sign a waiver that says my child is allowed to take an Ibuprofen, certainly I should have the say on if my child gets the vaccine,” Slotta said.

He also asked that the board issue a directive precluding teachers from inquiring about a student’s vaccination status, or any other private medical information.

“I advocate for a student’s right to privacy and secondly a parent’s exclusive and inviolable right to make all medical decisions and recommendations for their children without the influence or interference of a school official,” Slotta told the board.  “Children rightly listen to and obey the authority figures in their lives. This administrator overstepped their authority in an unwise and an unethical manner.”

Transgressed Lines

A line of demarcation has been transgressed, Slotta said.

“It really concerned me,” he said. “I was very clear. I said I wasn’t there to argue for or against the wisdom of any vaccine, mask, or any other medical decision related to the current pandemic.  I was specifically addressing a parent’s right to make those medical recommendations and decisions for their children.”

There could be numerous reasons why parents aren’t allowing their kids to get the vaccine, he said.

Vested Interest

One of the Wake County school system’s sources on COVID-19 policy is the ABC Science Collaborative (pdf), coordinated by Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, and funded by the National Institute of Health (NIH), a government agency that also has what NIH Director Francis Collins said in 2020 was a “particular stake in the intellectual property” of the Moderna vaccine.

The NIH is currently under criticism for its funding of gain-of-function research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, where the first outbreak of the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus occurred.

“You’ve got the NIH with a financial interest in the Moderna vaccine funding the ABC Science Collaborative, which is coming into school districts promoting vaccine mandates,” Slotta said.  “That doesn’t mean that their advice is necessarily bad. What it does mean to me is that this information should be shared with parents.  It should be pointed out that the school districts are listening to organizations who happen to be funded by people who have a vested interest in the vaccines.”

When this information is not disclosed, “it sadly creates doubt,” Slotta said.

“I think that’s something that we are seeing in our culture,” he said. “There is a mishandling with the rollout of this information that may be unnecessarily creating doubt where it might not need to be.”

Slotta emphasized that he and his family are not anti-vaccine, however, he said the money trails running through the COVID-19 vaccine narrative “are concerning.”

‘Creating Tension’

“Now you have a school administrator telling students to go get vaccinated, and that may very well put a child against their mom or dad at home in terms of creating tension,” Slotta said.

Just by having a show of hands, the “blatant violation of students’ right to privacy” can lead to dividing students into groups, pitting them against not just their parents, but against one another, Slotta said.

“We must never divide students into groups of any kind,” Slotta said.  “We must never allow medical tribalism or any other form of tribalism to be taught or to take hold in our schools.”

While tribalism is festering in many areas of the country, Slotta said, it’s not the way to raise children.

“We are teaching the future leadership of this country, and we will certainly reap from the seeds that we are sowing, so I hope, as it relates to tribalism on a number of levels, that we make wise decisions here,” Slotta said.

Wake County School District Response

When reached for comment, the communications director for the Wake County School system said the school district doesn’t ask for the COVID-19 vaccination status of its students and has no plans to do so.

In accordance with North Carolina law, however, the school district is required to collect other vaccination information, such as measles, mumps, and rubella.