Two Bills Need Opposing Tuesday SB 277 and SB 792 – Save Vaccine Exemption and Stop Daycare Worker Mandates

A CALL TO ACTION –
Today and Tuesday are big days needing your action to protect the personal belief exemption to mandatory vaccination in California. Please follow the action items below.
ask them to oppose SB 277, attempting to repeal the personal belief exemption to mandatory vaccination and SB 792, attempting to mandate vaccines for day care workers. Please educate them as to why personal are religious exemptions to mandated vaccinations are important to your family and explain that the passage of any this bill will create an even more hostile environment for California families who don’t agree with safety, efficacy, or necessity of every single dose of every single government mandated vaccine. [TALKING POINTS BELOW]

If the California Legislature passes SB 277, the only option left for parents will be medical exemptions that must be signed by a licensed physician.  If SB 792 passes, people working in day cares and family day care homes in California will have no options other than very limited medical exemptions.

Only prearranged limited testimony will be taken for and against these bills, but if you are at the capitol to watch the hearings, you will be given the opportunity to state your name and position on the bill for the record.  There will be gathering at 11:00 AM in Area 22.  Area 22 is the first area to the northeast of the capitol, right next to L Street between 12^th and 13^th St.  Wear red and bring a red flower to leave at the capitol if you can. Bring a picnic lunch if possible and bring a sign to carry as the group walks around the capitol. Picnic lunch in Area 22 at Noon and then promptly begin to enter the capitol and get through security at 12:30. 

Hearings are televised live at http://www.calchannel.com/live-webcast/.

LEGISLATIVE EDUCATION ACTION NEEDED NOW:

1)     Plan on attending the hearings on Tuesday, April 28^th and the gathering to show opposition.  Driving directions and parking information – http://capitolmuseum.ca.gov/In%20English/the-museum/directions-museum

2)     Call and fax members of the Senate Judiciary Committee and request that they vote NO on SB277.  The hearing is being held on Tuesday, April 28^th at 1:30 pm in the John L. Burton Hearing Room (4203).  SB 277 will be heard first as a special order of business – http://sjud.senate.ca.gov/agenda. Talking points are below.

3)     Call and fax Members of the Senate Committee on Human Services and request that they vote NO on SB 792.  The hearing is being held Tuesday, April 28^th at 1:30 in Room 3191.  SB 792 is currently listed as being the 7^th bill out of 8 to be heard. http://shum.senate.ca.gov/agenda. Talking points are below.

4)  Lookup your State Representative and Senator and their contact information and ask them to OPPOSE SB 277 and SB 792.
Enter your address here: http://findyourrep.legislature.ca.gov/  for your State Assembly Member and State Senator’s contact information.  Find the location of your State Senator’s district office here – http://senate.ca.gov/senators  Find the location of your State Assembly Member’s district office here – http://assembly.ca.gov/assemblymembers.
Or if you are registered with the NVIC Advocacy Portal, register/login at http://NVICAdvocacy.org. Click on “Check What is Happening in Your State” on the home page or “My State” on the STATE TEAMS Tab.  Your personal state legislators are listed on the right side of the page. Click on them one at a time to display their contact information.

5)  Ask Governor Brown to OPPOSE SB 277 and SB 792 by upholding the right of Californians to exempt their child or themselves from one or more of the vaccines on the one-size-fits-all-schedule.  Contact Information for Governor Brown:  https://govnews.ca.gov/gov39mail/mail.php

California Senate Judiciary Committee Members – 2015

http://sjud.senate.ca.gov/ – committee web page

California Senate Human Services Committee Members – 2015

Committee web page – http://shum.senate.ca.gov/

BAKGROUND INFORMATION:

SB 277 was introduced on 2/20/2015.  This bill is sponsored by Senators Pan and Allen, with cosponsors Senators Beall, Block, De León, Hall, Hertzberg, Hill, Jackson, Leno, McGuire, Mitchell, Stone, Wieckowski, and Wolk.  Assembly Member Gonzalez with cosponsors Assembly Members Baker, Chiu, Cooper, Low, McCarty, Nazarian, Rendon, Mark Stone, and Wood.

SB 277 completely removes the personal belief exemption to vaccination in California.  California does not have a religious exemption written into state law, only Governor Brown’s legislative directive that was given to the health department when he signed AB 2109.  http://gov.ca.gov/docs/AB_2109_Signing_Message.pdf

The bill was referred to three committees in the Senate; Health, Education and Judiciary.  The bill has passed through Health and Education.  If the bill passes the Judiciary Committee it will then go to Senate Appropriations.  If the bill passes appropriations it then goes to the full Senate for consideration.  If the bill passes the full senate, it will then go over to the Assembly where the bill will be assigned to at least one or more Assembly Committees.

SB 277 passed the Senate Health Committee on April 8^th by a vote of 6 yes and 2 no, with Senator Hernandez abstaining.  Video of the Senate Education Committee hearing on April 8 is available here – http://www.calchannel.com/recent-archive/

The bill was heard in the Senate Education Committee on 4/15.  However, the committee did not take a vote until April 22^nd.   Several committee members had questions and concerns that were not addressed by the sponsor, Senator Pan. The video of the hearing on April 15th is available here – http://calchannel.granicus.com/MediaPlayer.php?view_id=7&clip_id=2742

SB 792 sponsored by Senator Mendoza will mandate vaccines for day care workers.  No exemptions would be allowed for religious or personal beliefs.

The bill would add a new law forbidding a person to be employed at a day care center or family day care home if he or she has not been immunized according to the schedule for routine adult immunizations, as recommended by the federal Centers for Disease Control’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, with the exception of immunization against human papillomavirus (HPV).

The bill originally mandated flu, pertussis and measles vaccines; however the bill was amended to include all vaccines recommend by the ACIP for adults.  It is not clear if this would include vaccines on the schedule that may be recommended if you have certain risk factors related to your job, or if it would only mandate Flu, MMR, Chickenpox, TDaP or TD, Shingles for those over 60 and  Pneumococcal for those 65 and older. Additional vaccines that could be mandated are Pneumococcal, Meningococcal, Hib, Hepatitis A and Hepatitis B vaccines.  http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/schedules/downloads/adult/adult-schedule-easy-read.pdf – current adult schedule.

SB 792 passed the Senate Health Committee on April 15, 2015 by a vote of 8 yes and 0 no with Senators Hall, Hernandez, Mitchell, Monning, Nguyen, Pan, Roth and Wolk voting yes and Senator Nielsen not voting.  You can watch the video of this hearing here – http://calchannel.granicus.com/MediaPlayer.php?view_id=7&clip_id=2746

http://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=201520160SB792  – status of SB 792

TALKING POINTS ON SB 277 – OPPOSE SB 277

This bill, if passed, would make the only vaccine exemption option in California a difficult to obtain medical exemption.

There are many outstanding questions the bill sponsor and other legislators have failed or refused to answer if this bill passes including:

·        How will families who still decide to delay or decline vaccines provide a legally required education for their child? Have you considered the implications for the future for these children for whom you would be denying an education?

·        What happens to a parent who still refuses to vaccinate their child if this bill passes? Will they be punished for truancy? Will they be arrested? Will families be broken apart by child protective services?

·        What happens to the child whose parent does not agree with the safety, efficacy, or necessity of every single California mandated vaccine? Will the child be taken from their loving parents and forcibly vaccinated?

·        What will happen to children who have family histories or personal histories with vaccine reactions that families can’t find a doctor to write a medical exemption?

It is wrong for the bill authors to promote this type of condemning and discriminating legislation without clearly telling families of this state and other legislators what passage would actually mean for families in disagreement with the use of every mandated vaccine.

There are many legitimate reasons why families may question the use of some or all vaccines including:

·        Vaccines are pharmaceutical products that cause injury and death for some.  The United States Government has paid out more than $3 billion dollars to vaccine victims. Many more people have adverse reactions. Nobody can predict who will be harmed from vaccines.

·        Vaccines manufacturers and the doctors who administer vaccines are completely shielded from liability for vaccine injuries and deaths.

·        Vaccines fail sometimes where even fully vaccinated people become infected.  Nobody can predict who will or will not respond to vaccines.

·        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 the exemption is filed for one dose or all doses. 35 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 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?

·        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, and it doesn’t imply a skepticism of science.

It is particularly disturbing that Physicians, in the American Medical Association Code of Ethics, affirm philosophical and religious exemptions for themselves (see Opinion 9.133 Routine Universal Immunization of Physicians) and yet they want to remove this same right in law for California parents and their children.

By targeting only those students with personal belief exemptions, SB 277 has absolutely nothing to do with public health and protecting immune compromised students. Some people are non-responders to some vaccines and vaccine effectiveness for some vaccines, especially for pertussis containing vaccines, wanes rapidly. Some students are provisionally enrolled and not fully vaccinated at the time of enrollment. Federal law, the McKinney-Vento Act, requires that homeless students be allowed to attend school without proof of immunizations.   Some students are delinquent on vaccinations (no vaccine and no exemption to comply with the mandate). There are no requirements (and there shouldn’t be) that teachers, staff, and administration be vaccinated with the same childhood vaccine schedule. These all are people who are no different immunologically than a healthy student with a vaccine exemption and yet they represent a much larger percentage of the school population than the small percentage of students holding a personal belief exemption targeted for expulsion by this bill.

On the other hand, students with active HIV infections are not only allowed to attend school, the confidentiality of their infection status is protected in law. Students infected with Hepatitis B and Hepatitis C also attend school without parents of other students being told. Students who are vaccinated with live viral vaccines experience viral shedding and can infect susceptible individuals for a period of several weeks post vaccination and yet they are allowed to attend school too. Some people who are vaccinated still get the illness (vaccine failures) while some have subclinical infections and can still transmit vaccine preventable diseases and not show symptoms because the vaccine suppresses them.

Prohibiting kids with personal belief vaccine exemptions from attending school won’t prevent vaccine targeted communicable diseases. There was a recent outbreak of pertussis at Monterrey Park School in Salinas, California.  All 4 cases were in vaccinated students even in spite of a 99.5% school vaccination rate.  The previous year in that same school district, only 9% of the cases of pertussis were in students never vaccinated.  Claiming SB 277 will create a safe environment for immune compromised students is not only dishonest, it puts those students at risk of being a victim of a false sense of security.

SB 277 will not make parents vaccinate their children who don’t want to; the bill just kicks their children out of school, but these kids still live here and are part of the community and future of this state. SB 277 is based on the faulty assumption that denying partially or unvaccinated children an education produces an overall desirable outcome for the state of California. The bottom line is SB 277 needs to be opposed because it isolates, marginalizes and punishes healthy California children whose parents don’t agree with all government mandated vaccines by extorting an education with vaccination.

TALKING POINTS ON SB 792 – OPPOSE SB 792

·        SB 792 forces vaccination as a condition of employment for childcare workers with no exemptions other than strict limited CDC approved medical contraindications.

·        Childcare workers shouldn’t have to choose between a vaccine and their job.

·        Vaccines are already available to any adult who wants them, so what this bill is really about is forcing vaccination on those who don’t voluntarily want to be vaccinated in order to keep their jobs.

·        There is no crisis warranting government forced vaccination of childcare employees. There is no state or federal agency demonstrating a need through any scientific research or epidemiological studies for the mandatory vaccination of childcare workers.

·        There is NO personal belief exemption in the bill. Most states don’t have child care worker mandates. While Texas does require vaccines of daycare workers, they have conscientious exemptions required by law. Childcare workers who don’t agree with all of the CDC recommended adult vaccines could lose their jobs if this bill passes.

·        Vaccines are pharmaceutical products that cause injury and death for some.  The United States Government has paid out more than $3 billion dollars to vaccine victims. Many more people have adverse reactions. Nobody can predict who will be harmed from vaccines.

·        Vaccines manufacturers and the doctors who administer vaccines are completely shielded from liability for vaccine injuries and deaths. California workman’s compensation programs will have to pay for employees who are  injured as a result of vaccine requirements for their jobs.  This is not included in the fiscal note for the bill.

·        Vaccines fail sometimes where even fully vaccinated people become infected.  Nobody can predict who will or will not respond to vaccines.

·        The current CDC adult recommended vaccination schedule includes vaccines for Influenza, Tetanus, diphtheria, pertussis (Td/Tdap), Varicella, Human papillomavirus (HPV), Measles, mumps, rubella (MMR), Pneumococcal 13-valent conjugate (PCV13), Pnumococcal polysaccharide (PPSV23), Shingles, Meningococcal, Hepatitis A, Hepatitis B, and Haemophilus influenzae type b (Hib).

·        There are hundreds of new vaccines in development including some of the following in clinical trials that could be considered controversial for religious reasons: 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 take away school employees rights to delay or decline a vaccine now for whatever reason, including a religious belief, what will our future look like for this and other employment scenarios for adults?

·        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 RELIGIOUS and philosophical exemptions for themselves. See Opinion 9.133 Routine Universal Immunization of Physicians.  School employees should have that same right.
Sincerely,

NVIC Advocacy Team
National Vaccine Information Center
http://NVIC.org and http://NVICAdvocacy.org
https://nvicadvocacy.org/members/Members/ContactUs.aspx

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