http://articles.sun-sentinel.com/2014-06-13/news/fl-anti-vaccination-kidnap-20140613_1_lilly-sunrise-woman-custody

Sunrise mom accused of kidnapping girl to avoid vaccination, preschool
June 13, 2014|By Rafael Olmeda, Sun Sentinel

A Sunrise woman who disappeared with her 2-year-old daughter last month to avoid having the child vaccinated now faces a federal criminal charge, according to court records.

Megan Elizabeth Everett, 22, was last seen on May 6, when Robert Baumann dropped off their daughter, Lilly, in compliance with a shared custody agreement. Lilly was supposed to be returned to Baumann a week later, but Everett never showed up.

According to court records, Everett left a note for her boyfriend, Carlos Lesters, vaguely explaining her actions.

"You are a great dad," she wrote, with the word "great" underlined. "If I let them take her and vaccinate her and brainwash her, I wouldn't be doing what's right. I cannot let a judge tell me how my daughter should be raised. We will miss you. But I had to leave."

The child was the subject of a custody battle that appeared to be resolved in April, when Broward Circuit Judge Steven Feren granted each side 50 percent custody. Lilly was to alternate between each parent's home, with the exchange taking place every Tuesday, said Baumann's lawyer, Donna Goldman.

Broward Circuit Judge Michele Towbin Singer signed a warrant on May 19 to arrest Everett on charges of kidnapping, interference with custody and concealing a minor contrary to a court order. The federal charge accused Everett of crossing state lines to avoid prosecution for the state charges.

Baumann, an air-conditioning repairman, and Everett, a bookkeeper, were never married.

Everett's mother, Pam Everett, said Friday that the child belongs with her father.

"In the state of mind my daughter is in, Lilly would be better off with Robert," Pam Everett said. "I have four kids, and Megan is my baby. I don't know what happened to her."

Lilly and Megan Everett lived with Pam Everett for the first eight months of the baby's life, until Megan became involved with Lesters. After that, she all but severed ties with her family, her mother said.

Court docuмents describe Lesters as a Confederate-flag-waving gun enthusiast with family members in Georgia and Kentucky.

Lesters, who could not be reached for comment despite phone calls to his last known phone number, has not been accused of any crime.

"One of the issues we had was, she wanted to home-school my daughter," said Baumann. "I didn't want that to happen. She didn't want Lilly to learn about black history. She just wanted her to learn about the Confederacy."

Baumann had planned to have his daughter receive vaccinations the next time he had custody, and also planned to enroll her in preschool.

"She found this new idea that vaccines are horrible," Baumann said. "I think she wanted to keep her from being vaccinated because that would keep her out of day care."

After Lilly's disappearance, Sunrise police went to her last known address, where they were greeted by Lesters.

He told them Everett and her daughter were gone and "not coming back," according to the federal criminal complaint.

"Lesters informed detectives that Everett … knew she would have to live her life as a fugitive," the complaint states. "However, in her mind, the time that she spent with her daughter 'free' of Baumann would be 'worth it,' regardless of how brief the time was."

Correction: An earlier version of this article indicated that the letter left by Everett was addressed to Baumann. It was addressed to Lesters. The Sun Sentinel apologizes for the error.

This is rather a piece of writing which makes homeschoolers and those opposed to vaccination seem to be unstable people and a danger to their children.

This woman is obviously very unstable, becoming pregnant through fornication and then running off to live with another man, whom she has now left. She is going against a seemingly best solution court order. And her mother seems to think so too.

The child has far greater dangers to her life and health than whether or not she is vaccinated or home schooled. As many here know, I am wary of the former and supportive of the latter. But these are not the problem here.

Unfortunately, some people see this as an attempt to subvert the parental right of determination regarding children, but framing it that way is disingenuous.  The problem is not that they want to refuse immunizing their children, it's that they want that child to continue to have unrestricted contact with the population at large.  That's where I have an issue.  In such a case, one is deliberately enabling one's child to be potentially a vector for highly communicable and occasionally deadly pathogens.

If you don't want to immunize your children because you accept the autism/cancer/tracking chip/mark of the beast/whatever else lunacy, that's your affair and I don't begrudge you for it.  But leave your child at home; that's the price you pay, and I don't feel that it's an unreasonable one.

That's just plain idiotic.  If vaccines are so effective, then you have absolutely nothing to fear from an unvaccinated child.

Fact is, however, that vaccines do nothing but destroy the health of the children, causing all manner of auto-immune disorders and neurological problems.

So all unvaccinated children should be locked up at home, never come out and not mix with others. It seems to me it is you who suffer lunacy.

If the parent decides that they don't want to immunize their children, it's regrettable but totally their decision.  Conversely, others should not have to bear the burden of isolation or ensuring personal safety because of that parent's choice.  Let's look at the example of measles, which has exploded in recent years because of anti-vaccine stupidity, except in Mississippi and West Virginia, where there are zero exemptions for any childhood vaccination and consequently haven't experience a measles outbreak since '92 and '94 respectively.  The MMR vaccine is only given at age one, with a booster at 4 - 6.  Let's assume that an unvaccinated child of 5 is out with their parents; they're quick and ambulatory and if they are a measles vector, they have the ability to communicate it to every single child under the minimum vaccination age.  That is an unacceptable scenario.

If immunizations work then why worry about being around the unvaccinated?  You can't have it both ways.  Vaccines MAY work, if so, go right ahead and risk your own child but you have no right to force me to risk mine.

I'm not having it both ways.  I'm in no way saying that you have to, only that it's unfair to unduly expose children that cannot yet be vaccinated to those that very well could be passive or active carriers becuase they haven't been vaccinated.

Life does not come with a guarantee that there are no risks.  If someone is worried about the risks their child is exposed to in this life then they have the responsibility to protect their OWN child, keep him indoors, don't let him play in the dirt, and never let him ride in a car.  Almost 200 babies under 12 months are killed in car accidents every year.

Does that mean you've never provided your child with any sort of medical care?  After all, there are no guarantees, so why bother, right?  And the automobile analogy is a poor one.  To establish equivalency with median non-vaccination rates, between 20% and 25% of drivers in your vicinity would have to be drunk or otherwise functionally impaired at any moment.

Fortunately during the first 12 months of life children born to women who actually HAD measles have a natural immunity and therefore are NOT at risk.  I do not know if this is true for women who only had a vaccine.

On average, the children mothers who were vaccinated against measles have a little over three months of protection.  That means for over 8 months, they are susceptible to anyone carrying the disease.

Don't rely on anyone else, you should do your own research to come to your own decision.  As you can read in this thread people are passionate on both sides of the issue.  The issue also extends to the "shots" adults take.

Read deeply and broadly before making your decision.

I heartily disagree with John Grey on this issue, but it is pointless to "debate" on a forum such as this, no one's mind will be changed by a stranger.  For all I know JG has millions invested in big pharma so has a vested interest in demonizing those who do not believe in a "one size fits all" program of vaccination.  And for all he knows I am a paranoid, bi-polar, schizophrenic sociopath.

I encourage you to do your research with an open mind.

Marsha

Based on the research I have done so far, I've concluded that vaccinations are indeed a blessing and in most cases are worth being administered.  From a scientific perspective (and I come from a biology background), I can't find any support for the positions of many traditionalists against immunizations.  I don't only mean such things as published research, but just an understanding of immunology and epidemiology, even if only a basic level of knowledge like I have, makes what JohnGrey is saying very apparent.  I can assure you that I have nothing to do with big pharma aside from the occasional prescription and over-the-counter medication like the rest of us.

I'm just trying to better understand the viewpoints of other trads on this to see if there are indeed any valid points to what they espouse, but it is difficult because I can't find any cohesive explanation.  They say things like "vaccines cause auto-immune disease" and "they make children sick" but what I'm really looking for is something specific.  I'm not trying to start an argument, I'm genuinely curious.  

As I said before, I do not have children, so it's really no skin off my nose either way.  I'm just interested in the truth.  

The problem is that most people take the medical advancements we have for granted.  Most of them have never met someone crippled by polio, rendered sterile by the mumps, or grotesquely scarred by smallpox.  Their knowledge and understanding of the 1918 Spanish Flu pandemic is as abstract as Stalin's purges or the Black Plague.  And most of them have never seen the effects of cholera, typhus, or yellow fever.  Well I have seen these things, and a number of them I've seen firsthand, and it's unspeakably horrible, not just in terms of physical dysfunction, but in the abject terror written on the faces of people that have no access to such luxuries as vaccines, and who have seen grandparents, parents, siblings and children cut down in awful stinking sickness, the kind that we have not seriously faced in 60 years or more.

Quote from: JohnGrey

Quote from: LatinMassFan

Based on the research I have done so far, I've concluded that vaccinations are indeed a blessing and in most cases are worth being administered.  From a scientific perspective (and I come from a biology background), I can't find any support for the positions of many traditionalists against immunizations.  I don't only mean such things as published research, but just an understanding of immunology and epidemiology, even if only a basic level of knowledge like I have, makes what JohnGrey is saying very apparent.  I can assure you that I have nothing to do with big pharma aside from the occasional prescription and over-the-counter medication like the rest of us.

I'm just trying to better understand the viewpoints of other trads on this to see if there are indeed any valid points to what they espouse, but it is difficult because I can't find any cohesive explanation.  They say things like "vaccines cause auto-immune disease" and "they make children sick" but what I'm really looking for is something specific.  I'm not trying to start an argument, I'm genuinely curious.  

As I said before, I do not have children, so it's really no skin off my nose either way.  I'm just interested in the truth.  

The problem is that most people take the medical advancements we have for granted.  Most of them have never met someone crippled by polio, rendered sterile by the mumps, or grotesquely scarred by smallpox.  Their knowledge and understanding of the 1918 Spanish Flu pandemic is as abstract as Stalin's purges or the Black Plague.  And most of them have never seen the effects of cholera, typhus, or yellow fever.  Well I have seen these things, and a number of them I've seen firsthand, and it's unspeakably horrible, not just in terms of physical dysfunction, but in the abject terror written on the faces of people that have no access to such luxuries as vaccines, and who have seen grandparents, parents, siblings and children cut down in awful stinking sickness, the kind that we have not seriously faced in 60 years or more.

I agree.  The only reason there remains this luxury of not vaccinating is because of how medicine has improved so much in the recent past.  I do think that these concepts of individualism, to the point of Americanism (we'll all do what's best for ourselves- personal freedom and all that), has encouraged the anti-vaccine movement.  What people forget is that it's not just themselves or their child.  If one mixes with the population at large then they are affecting a whole lot more than just one person, and public health is critical.  I'm sure someone will call me a Communist for saying so, but just think of the epidemics we've had, and tell me, if there was a way of preventing that, would you not have done so?  Would you have refused vaccination?

Anyone that cannot believe that a child is an excellent vector for disease should think about just how fast a cold spreads in a family, or a chapel.  It only takes one individual to start to infect anyone susceptible.

Yes, exactly, well-said.

Communist.  :roll-laugh2: