Warning for California Residents

Here we go again. California's legislators are attempting to destroy our right to choose not to put poisons into our kids once again. Here is an e-mail from the NVIC Advocacy Team that is a must read.

Dear California NVIC Advocacy Team Members,

Please read this important alert from one of your California NVIC Advocacy Team Directors, Dawn Winkler, and take action to contact your legislators to fight this new threat to vaccine exemptions in California.
Sincerely,

Dawn Richardson, Director of Advocacy
National Vaccine Information Center
http://NVIC.org and http://NVICAdvocacy.org
Dawn@NVICAdvocacy.org

AB2109 Threatens Vaccine Exemptions in California
Immediate Action Needed
February 26, 2012

AB2109 was introduced on February 23, 2012 by Assembly Member Richard Pan, a Democrat physician. The bill is co-authored by Senator Wolk and Assembly Member Fuentes.

This bill, if passed, would require parents to obtain the signature of a “health care practitioner” for a personal beliefs/religious exemption. MD’s, nurse practitioners, and physician’s assistants can sign. Naturopaths and chiropractors cannot.

The signature will need to be obtained on a separate form provided by the Department of Public Health which states that the health care practitioner has provided risk and benefit information to the parent.

This bill “may be heard in committee” March 25th, but at this time we have no concrete information on which committee or date. It is critical that you contact your own CA state legislators NOW and ask them to oppose AB2109.

As soon as we know which committee the bill will be assigned to, we will let everyone know contact information for each committee member and the time and date of the committee hearing for this bill.

Text of the bill can be found here:
http://www.statescape.com/ssBillText/CA20112012/CA_20112012_AB_002109_Current_1127.html

Please register or log into the NVIC’s state advocacy portal at www.nvicadvocacy.org and find your state legislators’ contact information by entering your zip + four information on the right hand side. By logging into the portal, you will be able to follow the progress of the bill and find information regarding what action is needed when.

You can also access legislator and bill information at the CA Legislature’s website:
http://www.legislature.ca.gov/

Please contact Dawn Winkler if you live in the Sacramento area and are willing and able to attend committee hearings. CADirector@NVICAdvocacy.org (530) 283-1018

Reasons to Oppose AB2109/Talking Points

· Forcing parents into a paid contractual relationship with a health care provider they might not otherwise utilize for their children’s health care is a violation of basic parental rights.

· Health care practitioners should not have anything to do with a parent’s personal beliefs/religious exemption.

· Parents who utilize exemptions are typically far more educated regarding the benefits versus risks of vaccination than the health care providers who would be asked to sign off on an exemption.

· How can any health care practitioner fully educate a parent regarding the risks and benefits of vaccination in 20 minutes or less? A study in Pediatrics showed 80% of parents reported “well” visits lasted less than 20 minutes. One third of parents reported visits of less than 10 minutes.
http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/128/4/657.abstract

· This bill does nothing but put parents who are exercising their rights under the law in a position in which they will have to pay money to be harassed by someone who disagrees with their views.

· There is NO current crisis that would indicate that CA needs to make it more difficult to obtain exemptions from vaccination.

· NOT ALL parents utilize mainstream, Western medicine based practitioners. There is no law stating that parents must utilize such practitioners. AB2109 forces parents to do so in order to obtain an exemption to mandatory vaccination for personal/religious reasons.

--
In Health and Liberty,

Dawn Winkler

California NVIC Advocacy Team Director
CADirector@NVICAdvocacy.org
Executive Director
Health Advocacy in the Public Interest (HAPI)
www.hapihealth.com
hapi.vaxinfo@gmail.com
530-283-1018
970-209-3919