URGENT ACTION ALERT
OPPOSE LEGISLATION IN VIRGINIA WHICH WOULD REMOVE RELIGIOUS EXEMPTIONS TO VACCINATION AND SEVERELY RESTRICT MEDICAL EXEMPTIONS
Virginia needs to urgently mobilize to stop this removal of our rights and freedoms. HB 1342 was introduced at the beginning of the legislative session in January 2016 and subsequently killed due to the tremendous public outcry. However, it has found new life in being referred to the Joint Commission on Health Care (JCHC).
HB 1342 would have removed the religious exemption for children attending daycare, school, and those home-schooled. It also would have required that medical exemptions written by doctors comply with narrow federal vaccine contraindication guidelines, which means that most children would not qualify. If this legislation were to become law, VA would have the most restrictive mandatory vaccine laws in the US.
While, HB 1342 as a bill is dead, the idea behind the legislation is not. The JCHC has assigned a special researcher to investigate the concept of removing religious exemptions and narrowing medical exemptions to vaccines in VA. The researcher will examine the issue then present a report including policy options to the JCHC in September at a public hearing during which public comment will be heard. The researcher will then collate the pubic comments and present a report including a policy recommendation to the JCHC in October followed by a JCHC vote in November.
If this comes to a vote in January, it will likely be too late to stop this egregious violation of individual rights.
Read the bill here: http://leg1.state.va.us/cgi-bin/legp504.exe?161+sum+HB1342
ACTION TO TAKE:
- Meet your Delegate and Senator in person. This is VERY important and not hard to do as most legislators are at home in their districts until the next session begins in January 2017. Make an appointment to meet with them and share your opinion. Ask them to oppose any legislation that removes religious exemptions or restricts medical exemptions to vaccines.
Find who represents you and his/her contact information here: http://whosmy.virginiageneralassembly.gov
- Contact members of the JCHC and tell them you OPPOSE any legislation that removes religious exemptions or restricts medical exemptions to vaccines. If you email, please write, “OPPOSE restricting vaccine exemptions in VA” in the subject box and be sure to include your name, address, and district. If you call, be sure to share this information. See email list and phone numbers below.
- Contact your Delegate via phone and email and ask them to oppose any legislation that removes religious exemptions or restricts medical exemptions to vaccines. Please write, “OPPOSE restricting vaccine exemptions in VA” in the subject box and be sure to include your name, address, and district. Find who represents you here: http://whosmy.virginiageneralassembly.gov
- Plan to attend the public hearing of JCHC regarding this legislation in September. Details and dates to follow.
- Please let us know how your meetings and phone calls.
CONTACT LIST:
JCHC email list:
district39@senate.virginia.gov, DelDBulova@house.virginia.gov, district40@senate.virginia.gov, DelBCline@house.virginia.gov, district21@senate.virginia.gov, DelSGarrett@house.virginia.gov, DelPHope@house.virginia.gov, DelRIngram@house.virginia.gov, DelKKory@house.virginia.gov, district18@senate.virginia.gov, district01@senate.virginia.gov, DelJOBannon@house.virginia.gov, DelCPeace@house.virginia.gov, DelCStolle@house.virginia.gov, DelRTyler@house.virginia.gov,
JCHC phone list: Richmond District Office
Sen. George Barker (804) 698-7539 (703) 303-1426
Del. David Bulova (804) 698-1037 (703) 310-6752
Sen. Charles W Carrico, Sr. (804) 698-7540 (276) 236-0098
Del. Benjamin L. Cline (804) 698-1024 (434) 946-9908
Sen. John S. Edwards (804) 698-7521 (540) 985-8690
Del. T. Scott Garrett (804) 698-1023 (434) 455-0243
Del Patrick A.Hope (804) 698-1047 (703) 486-1010
Del. Riley E. Ingram (804) 698-1062 (804) 458-9873
Del. Kaye Kory (804) 698-1038 (703) 354-6024
Sen. Louise Lucas (804) 698-7518 (757) 397-8209
Sen. John C. Miller (804) 698-7501 (757) 595-1100
Del. John M.O’Bannon, III (804) 698-1073 (804) 282-8640
Del. Christopher K. Peace (804) 698-1097 (804) 730-3737
Del. Christopher P.Stolle (804) 698-1083 (757) 633-2080
Del. Roslyn C.Tyler (804) 698-1075 (434) 336-1710
Talking Points:
- You have DEEP concerns about any legislation that would remove religious exemptions or restrict medical exemptions to vaccines and are strongly opposed to it.
- Why this is personal to you: a vaccine reaction in someone you know, harassment, etc.
- Your body and your children’s bodies do not belong to the state. You want to be free to choose how you nourish and keep yourselves healthy. This bill takes away the right to informed consent to vaccination for our children. I am pro-information and pro-civil rights.
- Vaccines are given to healthy individuals and thus should carry zero risk to the recipient but this is not the case. In fact, the US Supreme Court recognizes vaccines to be “unavoidably unsafe” (http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/10pdf/09-152.pdf) and to cause injury and death in some recipients. The US government has paid out more than $3 billion to the victims of vaccine injury. Hundreds of thousands have reported an adverse reaction to vaccination. Vaccine package inserts warn of the risk of brain damage, life-threatening allergy, and death and no one knows in advance who will be harmed by a vaccine.
- Vaccines fail even in fully vaccinated people and no one knows who will not respond to a vaccine nor how quickly the vaccine’s protection will wane if it did provoke a response in the first place. According to the CDC, the 2014-2015 flu shot was only approximately 19% effective. Individuals vaccinated with an acellular pertussis vaccine may show no symptoms yet still become infected and spread pertussis to others including infants.
- Science does not support vaccine mandates of health workers. The Cochrane Collaboration concluded, “There is no evidence that only vaccinating healthcare workers prevents laboratory-proven influenza or its complications (lower respiratory tract infection, hospitalization or death due to lower respiratory tract infection) in individuals aged 60 or over in LTCIs and thus no evidence to mandate compulsory vaccination of healthcare workers”.
- Vaccinated individuals can spread disease for several weeks after receiving a live virus vaccine.
- Vaccine makers and the healthcare providers who administer them bear zero liability for vaccine injuries and deaths. Vaccine makers have no incentive to make vaccines safe.
- Most of the vaccines given today are for diseases that are either rare or mild. For example, there have been no deaths from measles during the last 10 years, but 108 deaths reported after the MMR vaccine during the same time period.
- It is immoral to force a person to inject a pharmaceutical product into their body, or anything for that matter, even more so when that product could injure or kill them.
- There are many other ways to stay healthy: a healthy diet, adequate rest, sunshine and exercise, etc. without any risk of vaccine injury.
- If we mandate vaccines, will we also mandate other medical procedures, such as fetal ultrasound, mammograms and colonoscopy? Will we dictate medical procedures based on genetic testing? Will we have a medical police to determine whether someone can leave the house with a cough?
- Children today receive 69 doses of vaccines for 16 different viral and bacterial illnesses which more than doubles the government childhood schedule of 34 doses of 11 different vaccines in the year 2000. A vaccine exemption is filed regardless of whether it is for one dose or all doses. Thirty-five doses and 5 more unique vaccines have been added to the schedule in the last 15 years. Those supporting forced vaccination are being dishonest by not acknowledging the exploding vaccine schedule while sounding alarms over small increases in overall non-medical exemptions.
- There are hundreds of new vaccines in development and several thousand vaccine clinical trials being conducted, including for infectious and non-infectious diseases such as gonorrhea, syphilis, chlamydia, HIV/AIDS, genital herpes, RSV, avian flu, asthma, strep B, cytomegalovirus, hepatitis C, tuberculosis, e-coli, salmonella, asthma, diabetes, obesity, anti-cocaine and heroin use. If vaccine manufactures and others who profit from forced vaccination convince legislators to take away our right to decline a vaccine now, what will our future look like?
- In the past 5 years, drug makers have paid the U.S. Government 19.2 billion in criminal and civil FRAUD penalties. Skepticism of the pharmaceutical industry is well deserved.
- Physicians, in the American Medical Association Code of Ethics, affirm philosophical and religious exemptions for themselves. See Opinion 133 Routine Universal Immunization of Physicians. Parents should have that same right.
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