The Minnesota Legislature is considering a bill, SF 1520, that would eliminate conscientious belief exemptions to vaccines for all children attending daycare, public or private elementary or secondary school, or homeschool. Under Minnesota law, that exemption currently allows parents to opt their children out of vaccines based on their conscientiously held beliefs, whether religious or other.
This would leave medical exemptions as the only way out – but medical exemptions are notoriously difficult to obtain. In many states, we’ve seen doctors who do provide medical exemptions come under attack by medical authorities, leaving families with no real options for opting out of vaccine mandates.
Personal and religious freedoms should be protected. Forcing parents to choose between education and vaccinating their children with numerous vaccines is simply wrong.
Please help us protect the right to choose by attending a rally (details below) and contacting your Minnesota state legislators today!
Talking points, which explain more about the problems with SF 1520, are below the Take Action section.
TAKE ACTION
1) Attend a rally with Health Choice Minnesota, MONDAY, February 25, 2019.
Location:
State Capitol Rotunda
75 Dr. Martin Luther King Boulevard
St. Paul, Minnesota 55155
Schedule:
9-10am – Resource Open House
10-11am – Speakers
Optional: 12-3am – Legislator visits
More info: https://www.facebook.com/events/1025960797597603/?ti=as
2) Contact your Minnesota State Senator and ask them to oppose SF 1520.
You can look up who represents you: https://www.gis.leg.mn/iMaps/districts/
Calls are more effective than emails, and only take a few minutes.
Sample script:
“Hi, my name is ____ and I am a constituent. I am calling to ask Senator____ to oppose SF 1520, which would remove conscientious belief (which includes religious) exemptions to vaccination for all children in Minnesota.
Include a brief explanation of why this is important to YOU.
The Minnesota vaccination rate is approximately 93% for the 7 vaccines surveyed by the CDC. The existing philosophical exemptions are not harming the overall vaccination rates.
Religious liberty is a fundamental right, and individuals’ choices about what to put into their bodies – or their children’s bodies – should be respected by the state.
Medical exemptions are notoriously difficult to obtain even when someone has a legitimate concern about the side effects of vaccination. Vaccine package inserts warn of the risk of brain damage, life-threatening allergy, and death, and no one knows in advance whom a vaccine will harm.
Parents need to be able to make informed choices about their children’s care based on their specific situation, not forced to choose between educating and vaccinating their child.
I urge Representative _____ to oppose SF 1520.”
You may wish to use a couple of the talking points below. Don’t copy all of them – just use them as ideas to help structure your own message.
TALKING POINTS for calls and emails:
1) If it passes, SF 1520 would apply to all daycares, public, private and HOMESCHOOL families, making it the strictest vaccine mandate law in the country.
2) This legislation discriminates against families with sincere philosophical or religious beliefs opposing the administration of one or more vaccines to their children.
3) Any medical procedure carries a risk of injury. As recognized by the U.S. Supreme Court – and evidenced by the $4 billion that has been paid by the federal government to victims – vaccines can injure and kill an individual. Parents need to be able to make informed choices about their children’s care based on their specific situation, not forced to choose between educating and vaccinating their child.
4) The Minnesota vaccination rate is approximately 93% for the 7 vaccines surveyed by the CDC. The existing philosophical and religious exemption has not decreased rates and must be left intact. https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/66/wr/mm6640a3.htm
5) The idea that unvaccinated individuals pose a health risk to others is unsupported in the medical literature. In fact, vaccinated individuals can pose greater risk to public health due to a process known as shedding. Scientific evidence demonstrates that individuals vaccinated with live virus vaccines such as MMR (measles, mumps and rubella), rotavirus, chicken pox, shingles and influenza can shed the virus for many weeks or months afterwards. https://www.westonaprice.org/studies-show-that-vaccinated-individuals-spread-disease/
6) Vaccine package inserts warn of the risk of brain damage, life-threatening allergy, and death and no one knows in advance whom a vaccine will harm. Vaccine ingredients vary, but may contain a variety of toxic ingredients including but not limited to; mercury, aluminum, formaldehyde, cells from fetuses, cells from monkey kidneys, chicken egg proteins, gelatin, and viruses. http://www.vaccinesafety.edu/package_inserts.htm
7) Some vaccines are made using aborted fetal tissue. This article shows one of the world’s leading authorities on vaccination describing the use of 3-month-old aborted fetuses in vaccines. https://www.investmentwatchblog.com/worlds-leading-authority-on-vaccines-details-the-use-of-aborted-babies-in-vaccines-while-under-oath/
8) There are hundreds of new vaccines in development including some of the following in clinical trials: HIV, herpes, E. coli, dengue fever, avian influenza, smallpox, tuberculosis, typhoid, norovirus, cholera, smoking cessation, syphilis, and gonorrhea. If vaccine manufactures and others who profit from forced vaccination convince legislators to take away our right to delay or decline a vaccine now, what will our future look like?
9) Vaccine makers and the healthcare providers who administer them bear zero liability for vaccine injuries and deaths. The vaccine manufactures reap all the profits from vaccines, without having to pay for any of the injuries or harm.
MORE INFORMATION
View SF 1520 here: https://www.revisor.mn.gov/bills/bill.php?b=senate&f=SF1520&ssn=0&y=2019
If you want to learn more about other vaccine bills being considered in Minnesota visit: The National Vaccine Information Center (NVIC) https://nvicadvocacy.org/members/Home.aspx
🖨️ Print post
Nick says
There is so much wrong here this is just straight up misinformation. Here straight from the World Health Organization threats to global health in 2019
Vaccine hesitancy – the reluctance or refusal to vaccinate despite the availability of vaccines – threatens to reverse progress made in tackling vaccine-preventable diseases. Vaccination is one of the most cost-effective ways of avoiding disease – it currently prevents 2-3 million deaths a year, and a further 1.5 million could be avoided if global coverage of vaccinations improved.
Measles, for example, has seen a 30% increase in cases globally. The reasons for this rise are complex, and not all of these cases are due to vaccine hesitancy. However, some countries that were close to eliminating the disease have seen a resurgence.
The reasons why people choose not to vaccinate are complex; a vaccines advisory group to WHO identified complacency, inconvenience in accessing vaccines, and lack of confidence are key reasons underlying hesitancy. Health workers, especially those in communities, remain the most trusted advisor and influencer of vaccination decisions, and they must be supported to provide trusted, credible information on vaccines.
In 2019, WHO will ramp up work to eliminate cervical cancer worldwide by increasing coverage of the HPV vaccine, among other interventions. 2019 may also be the year when transmission of wild poliovirus is stopped in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Last year, less than 30 cases were reported in both countries. WHO and partners are committed to supporting these countries to vaccinate every last child to eradicate this crippling disease for good.
Nancy says
Feb. 26, 2019
The Association of American Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS) strongly opposes federal interference in medical decisions, including mandated vaccines. After being fully informed of the risks and benefits of a medical procedure, patients have the right to reject or accept that procedure. The regulation of medical practice is a state function, not a federal one. Governmental preemption of patients’ or parents’ decisions about accepting drugs or other medical interventions is a serious intrusion into individual liberty, autonomy, and parental decisions about child-rearing.
A public health threat is the rationale for the policy on mandatory vaccines. But how much of a threat is required to justify forcing people to accept government-imposed risks? Regulators may intervene to protect the public against a one-in-one million risk of a threat such as cancer from an involuntary exposure to a toxin, or-one-in 100,000 risk from a voluntary (e.g. occupational) exposure. What is the risk of death, cancer, or crippling complication from a vaccine? There are no rigorous safety studies of sufficient power to rule out a much lower risk of complications, even one in 10,000, for vaccines. Such studies would require an adequate number of subjects, a long duration (years, not days), an unvaccinated control group (“placebo” must be truly inactive such as saline, not the adjuvant or everything-but-the-intended-antigen), and consideration of all adverse health events (including neurodevelopment disorders).
Vaccines are necessarily risky, as recognized by the U.S. Supreme Court and by Congress. The Vaccine Injury Compensation Program has paid some $4 billion in damages, and high hurdles must be surmounted to collect compensation. The damage may be so devastating that most people would prefer restored function to a multimillion-dollar damage award.
The smallpox vaccine is so dangerous that you can’t get it now, despite the weaponization of smallpox. Rabies vaccine is given only after a suspected exposure or to high-risk persons such as veterinarians. The whole-cell pertussis vaccine was withdrawn from the U.S. market, a decade later than from the Japanese market, because of reports of severe permanent brain damage. The acellular vaccine that replaced it is evidently safer, though somewhat less effective.
The risk: benefit ratio varies with the frequency and severity of disease, vaccine safety, and individual patient factors. These must be evaluated by patient and physician, not imposed by a government agency.
Measles is the much-publicized threat used to push for mandates, and is probably the worst threat among the vaccine-preventable illnesses because it is so highly contagious. There are occasional outbreaks, generally starting with an infected individual coming from somewhere outside the U.S. The majority, but by no means all the people who catch the measles have not been vaccinated. Almost all make a full recovery, with robust, life-long immunity. The last measles death in the U.S. occurred in 2015, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Are potential measles complications including death in persons who cannot be vaccinated due to immune deficiency a justification for revoking the rights of all Americans and establishing a precedent for still greater restrictions on our right to give—or withhold—consent to medical interventions? Clearly not.
Many serious complications have followed MMR vaccination, and are listed in the manufacturers’ package insert, though a causal relationship may not have been proved. According to a 2012 report by the Cochrane Collaboration, “The design and reporting of safety outcomes in MMR vaccine studies, both pre- and post-marketing, are largely inadequate” (cited by the National Vaccine Information Center).
Mandate advocates often assert a need for a 95% immunization rate to achieve herd immunity. However, Mary Holland and Chase Zachary of NYU School of Law argue, in the Oregon Law Review, that because complete herd immunity and measles eradication are unachievable, the better goal is for herd effect and disease control. The best outcome would result, they argue, from informed consent, more open communication, and market-based approaches.
Even disregarding adverse vaccine effects, the results of near-universal vaccination have not been completely positive. Measles, when it does occur, is four to five times worse than in pre-vaccination times, according to Lancet Infectious Diseases, because of the changed age distribution: more adults, whose vaccine-based immunity waned, and more infants, who no longer receive passive immunity from their naturally immune mother to protect them during their most vulnerable period.
Measles is a vexing problem, and more complete, forced vaccination will likely not solve it. Better public health measures—earlier detection, contact tracing, and isolation; a more effective, safer vaccine; or an effective treatment are all needed. Meanwhile, those who choose not to vaccinate now might do so in an outbreak, or they can be isolated. Immunosuppressed patients might choose isolation in any event because vaccinated people can also possibly transmit measles even if not sick themselves.
Issues that Congress must consider:
Manufacturers are virtually immune from product liability, so the incentive to develop safer products is much diminished. Manufacturers may even refuse to make available a product believed to be safer, such as monovalent measles vaccine in preference to MMR (measles-mumps-rubella). Consumer refusal is the only incentive to do better.
There are enormous conflicts of interest involving lucrative relationships with vaccine purveyors.
Research into possible vaccine adverse effects is being quashed, as is dissent by professionals.
There are many theoretical mechanisms for adverse effects from vaccines, especially in children with developing brains and immune systems. Note the devastating effects of Zika or rubella virus on developing humans, even though adults may have mild or asymptomatic infections. Many vaccines contain live viruses intended to cause a mild infection. Children’s brains are developing rapidly—any interference with the complex developmental symphony could be ruinous.
Vaccines are neither 100% safe nor 100% effective. Nor are they the only available means to control the spread of disease.
AAPS believes that liberty rights are unalienable. Patients and parents have the right to refuse vaccination, although potentially contagious persons can be restricted in their movements (e.g. as with Ebola), as needed to protect others against a clear and present danger. Unvaccinated persons with no exposure to a disease and no evidence of a disease are not a clear or present danger.
AAPS represents thousands of physicians in all specialties nationwide. It was founded in 1943 to protect private medicine and the patient-physician relationship.
Respectfully yours,
Jane M. Orient, M.D., Executive Director
Association of American Physicians and Surgeons
https://aapsonline.org/measles-outbreak-and-federal-vaccine-mandates/
Bob says
Curious nick, but I think you missed the part where the science is not settled [fact]……..
Paula says
Any updates on this bill they are trying to pass?
In mn
Kay says
I, too, want to know the status of this very, very disturbing bill. Any updates?
Bob says
Curious
Bob says
Update??
Nonya says
Just signed and shared a petition to enact a law in MN to only accept medical exemptions for vaccination 🙂