Freedom in Governor Brown's Hands...YIKES!

  Governor Brown signed another chunk of our freedom away on September 30.

I suppose Brown thinks that parents of non-vaccinated children don't know how to read and so need to be forced by a law to go to a doctor to have him or her teach us about vaccinations.  

 

Never have I heard a doctor admit some children have been killed or maimed by vaccinations.  

 

We are to expect that doctors will happily sign a waiver for us when we get turned away by doctors who won't see kids who are not vaccinated.  

 

Warning: the next vaccination law will cut away at your freedoms even more.

Have You Asked Governor Brown To Veto AB2109 TODAY?

Dear California NVIC Advocacy Team Members,

Even if you’ve called or written the governor before to urge Governor Jerry Brown to Veto AB2109, we need EVERYONE calling, faxing, and emailing him today! There still has not been any action on the AB2109 by the governor and we only have until Sunday to get Governor Brown to Veto AB2109!  If everyone on this list makes a veto request today, maybe the Governor’s office will notice and do the right thing!

Governor Jerry Brown
Phone: (916) 445-2841
Fax: (916) 558-3160
Webmail: http://govnews.ca.gov/gov39mail/mail.php

Below is NVIC’s one page veto request to Governor Brown.  Feel free to use any points you like from it. If you receive any feedback, please let your California NVIC State Co-Directors, Dawn Winkler and Michelle Gutierrez, know at CADirector@NVICAdvocacy.org.  Thank you!

VETO AB2109 GOVERNOR BROWN

Plain and simply put, AB2109 will prohibit a child from attending school if their parent is unable to secure the additional burdensome requirement of a medical office visit and medical signature on their exemption form to mandatory vaccination. This can lead to truancy charges and damaging lapses in the child’s education.  It is very important to note that the vaccination status of the child will not change as a result of this bill becoming law, but the door to a free and public education for some children whose parents choose to delay or decline some vaccines will be closed forever.  

It is well documented that many physicians throw families out of their practice who don’t fully vaccinate (perform any internet search you like regarding doctors refusing to treat unvaccinated children to find numerous articles and studies).  Nothing in AB2109 compels a physician to accept an appointment with a partially vaccinated or unvaccinated child or sign the form if asked. Also, parents who cannot find a willing physician will be denied their right to exercise their religious beliefs in opposition to vaccination since Californians are reliant on the personal belief exemption to take an exemption to vaccine mandates for religious reasons. The state of California should not be putting medical personnel in charge as the gatekeepers of the free exercise of religion.

According to the Centers for Disease Control, vaccine refusals and disease importation are not to blame for pertussis outbreaks as bill supporters have tried to falsely imply.  (http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/2012/08/whooping-cough-outbreak-top-10-things-you-should-know.html) Most cases are in the vaccinated and are due to lower levels of vaccine effectiveness and more rapidly waning protection than previously understood.  Further restricting current vaccine exemptions will not change this fact, it will only promote distrust in and resentment of public health programs by well-educated parents and health care providers who already know this.

AB2109 also creates an additional expense for an office visit with a practitioner that the family may not use.  Many parents cannot afford the time off from work or money for a new doctor visit and signature especially if they have multiple children.

The following is a list of vaccines in use or in current development: AIDS , Asthma, Botulism, Brucellosis, Chlamydia, Cocaine Addiction, Cytomegalovirus, Diabetes, Diphtheria, E-Coli (Shiga toxin), Genital Herpes, Giardiasis, Gonorrhea, Haemophilus influenza, Hepatitis A, Hepatitis B, Hepatitis C, Heroin Addiction, High Blood Pressure, Human Papillomavirus, Influenza, Legionellosis, Lyme Disease, Malaria, Measles, Meningoccocal, Mumps, Novel H1N1 Influenza, Obesity, Pertussis, Polio,  Rubella, Salmonellosis, Shigellosis, Streptococcal group A, Streptococcus pneumonia, Syphilis, Tetanus, Tuberculosis, Typhoid Fever, Varicella (chickenpox), West Nile Virus.  

It is unreasonable to require a family to have a medical appointment and medical provider signature for wanting to delay or decline any of these vaccines. As more vaccines are added to the already fully packed mandatory schedule, this debate will only intensify unless the right to exercise informed consent to vaccination without medical harassment is upheld and respected. 

VETO AB2109

Sincerely,

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

FINAL PUSH: Request CA Legislators Who Opposed AAB2109 During Session to ask Governor Brown for his VETO

Also Attend Veto Rally Friday from 12-2 pm in Sacramento, State Capitol West Steps

Dear California NVIC Advocacy Team Members,

AB2109, the bill that would restrict the personal belief exemption to mandated vaccines making it impossible for a child to attend school unless their parent obtains a medical visit and signature on the vaccine exemption form, was passed by the legislature on August 27^th, 2012.

Governor Brown holds the bill now, and if he does nothing with it, or signs it on or before September 30th, the bill becomes law.  However, if he Vetoes the bill, the vaccine exemption could be saved.

AB2109 received opposition from both political parties. Many legislators stepped up and offered oral arguments against the bill at various steps throughout the legislative process.  Some legislators are now contacting Governor Brown and urging his Veto on AB2109. 

We need for all of the legislators who took a stand against AB2109 to contact Governor Brown immediately to request he veto AB2109. 

If your Senator or Assemblyman ever voted “NO” on AB2109, we are counting on you to make a QUICK ONE MINUTE PHONE CALL to your legislator’s office to thank them for their opposition and ask them to contact Governor Brown to ask him to VETO AB2109!

This needs to be done right away! We need Governor Brown to Veto AB2109 on or before September 30^th otherwise AB2109 becomes law.

Here is what you can do to help:

1)    Look on this list of Senators and Assembly Members.  Did either of your legislators vote NO on AB2109 during the legislative process?

California State Senators who voted no on AB 2109: Anderson, Berryhill, Cannella, De León, DeSaulnier, Dutton, Emmerson, Fuller, Gaines, Huff, La Malfa, Runner, Strickland, Walters, Wyland.

California Assembly Members who voted no on AB 2109: Achadjian, Beth Gaines, Bill Berryhill, Conway, Cook, Donnelly, Garrick, Gatto, Gorell, Grove, Hagman, Halderman, Harkey, Huber, Jeffries, Jones, Knight, Logue, Mansoor , Miller, Morrell, Nestande, Nielsen, Norby, Olsen, Silva, Smyth, Valadao, Wagner.Don’t know who your legislators are? Legislative Lookup and Contact Information can be obtained by clicking on http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/yourleg.html and entering your zip code to lookup who your legsislators are or you can log into the NVIC Advocacy Portal at http://NVICAdvocacy.org, select your California State Team Page,  and click on your legislators names automatically displayed on the right side.

2)    If you have a Senator or Assembly Member on the lists above who voted “NO” on AB2109 at any time during the legislative process, call them or fax them and thank them for their NO Vote on AB2109 and ask them to PLEASE contact Governor Brown to ask him to VETO AB2109. Assembly Member Tim Donnelly has written an excellent open request to the Governor to Veto AB2109.  You can read it here: http://arc.asm.ca.gov/member/59/?p=article&sid=427&id=253064

3)    Keep calling and faxing Governor Brown himself to VETO AB2109.http://govnews.ca.gov/gov39mail/mail.php
Governor Jerry Brown
c/o State Capitol, Suite 1173
Sacramento, CA 95814
Phone: (916) 445-2841
Fax: (916) 558-3160

4)    If you can make time to attend and support the AB2109 VETO Rally this Friday, September 28^th from 12 pm – 2pm on the west steps of the Capitol, please go!  Your NVIC California State Directors Dawn Winkler and Michelle Gutierrez will be there, along with comedian/actor Rob Schneider, Assembly member Tim Donnelly, and others! Here is a personal request from NVIC CA State Director Dawn Winkler: “If you can make it, bring signs!!! Be creative! They were great last time. We need every single person possible to attend, this is the final stand. Media will undoubtedly be there and this should be quite the event. Should the bill be signed before then, the event will be a protest. Should the bill be vetoed before then, the event will be a HUGE CELEBRATION! The Governor often waits until the very last couple of days when it comes to controversial bills, so there is a chance he will have done nothing with the bill by then. This is a chance to really make some noise. No matter what, anyone who can come should try to be there! Updates and details regarding the rally can be found on the Californians Against AB2109 Facebook page.”

5)    If you need to contact NVIC California State Directors Dawn Winkler or Michelle Gutierrez about the rally or if you want to share information about your call to your legislators, they can be reached at CADirector@NVICAdvocacy.org.     

Sincerely,

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

The National Vaccine Information Center (NVIC) works diligently to prepare and disseminate our legislative advocacy action alerts and supporting materials.  We request that organizations and members of the public forward our alerts in their original form to assure consistent and accurate messaging and effective action. Please acknowledge NVIC as originators of this work when forwarding to members of the public and like-minded organizations. To receive alerts immediately, register  at http://NVICAdvocacy.org, a website dedicated to this sole purpose and provided as a free public service by NVIC.

AB2109

					California Pediatrician Legislator Pushing Bill to Make Parents Pay For a Dr. Appointment to TRY to Obtain a Personal Belief Exemption Contact California Legislators NOW to Oppose AB2109 Dear California NVIC Advocacy Team Members, Your rights to make informed independent vaccination choices for your family are under attack by forced vaccination proponents in California who want to profit from restricting your independent access to a personal belief exemption to mandatory vaccination. We need your timely help to contact California legislators to oppose Assembly Bill 2109. AB2109, introduced by Assembly Member Richard Pan, who himself is a pediatrician, would impose these additional costly and time consuming burdens on parents wanting to use a personal belief exemption to: 1) pay for an expensive appointment at a medical doctor’s office to be given vaccine risk and benefit information that is already available online for free; and 2) jump through the bureaucratic hoops of obtaining yet additional new forms provided by the Department of Public Health which state that the health care practitioner has provided risk and benefit information to the parent; and 3) find a health care provider actually willing to take the appointment and then sign the new forms within 6th months of starting school for the exemption to be valid. This raises many questions legislators need to answer including: · How will the state pay for all these extra required office visits for families on public assistance and for the kids of state employees who have their health coverage provided by the state? · What happens to a parent who can’t find a provider willing to make these types of appointments and then sign the form? · What will stop doctors from using this law to deny access to philosophical exemptions? It is already hard enough for families to find providers who are willing to just treat children in their practice at all when they deviate from the required vaccination schedule. The bill has been referred to the Assembly Committee on Health. Text of the bill can be found here: http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/pub/11-12/bill/asm/ab_2101-2150/ab_2109_bill_20120223_introduced.html. We will let you know as soon as we know the hearing date. In the meantime, we need you to take the following actions to help oppose this bill: 1) Contact members of the Assembly Committee on Health and ask them to oppose AB 2109 (suggested phone call outline below). Assembly Member Phone and Fax Link to Contact Form William Monning (D) - Chair Tel: (916) 319-2027 Fax: (916) 319-2127 Contact Assembly Member William W. Monning Dan Logue (R) - Vice Chair (P) 916-319-2003 (F) 916-319-2103 Contact Assemblyman Dan Logue Tom Ammiano (D) Tel: (916) 319-2013 Fax: (916) 319-2113 Contact Assembly Member Tom Ammiano Toni Atkins (D) Tel: (916) 319-2076 Fax: (916) 319-2176 Contact Assembly Member Toni Atkins Susan Bonilla (D) Tel: (916) 319-2011 Fax: (916) 319-2111 Contact Assemblywoman Susan Bonilla Mike Eng (D) Tel: (916) 319-2049 Fax: (916) 319-2149 Contact Assembly Member Mike Eng Martin Garrick (R) (P) 916-319-2074 (F) 916-319-2174 Contact Assemblyman Martin Garrick Richard .S Gordon (D) Tel: (916) 319-2021 Fax: (916) 319-2121 Contact Assemblyman Richard S. Gordon Mary Hayashi (D) Tel: (916) 319-2018 Fax: (916) 319-2118 Contact Assembly Member Mary Hayashi Roger Hernandez (D) Tel: (916) 319-2057 Fax: (916) 319-2157 Contact Assembly Assistant Majority Whip Roger Hernández Bonnie Lowenthal (D) Tel: (916) 319-2054 Fax: (916) 319-2154 Contact Assembly Member Bonnie Lowenthal Allan R. Mansoor (R) (P) (916) 319-2068 (F) (916) 319-2168 Contact Assemblyman Allan R. Mansoor Holly J. Mitchell (D) Tel: (916) 319-2047 Fax: (916) 319-2147 Contact Assembly Member Holly J. Mitchell Brian Nestande (R) (P) 916-319-2064 (F) 916-319-2164 Contact Assembly Member Brian Nestande Richard Pan (D) – sponsor Tel: (916) 452-0505 Fax: (916) 452-5525 Contact Assembly Member Richard Pan V. Manuel Perez (D) Tel: (916) 319-2080 Fax: (916) 319-2180 Contact Assembly Member V. Manuel Peréz Jim Silva (R) (P) 916-319-2067 (F) 916-319-2167 Contact Assembly Member Jim Silva Cameron Smyth (R) (P) 916-319-2038 (F) 916-319-2138 Contact Assembly Member Cameron Smyth Das Williams Tel: (916) 319-2035 Fax: (916) 319-2135 Contact Assembly Member Das Williams Additional contact information for district offices is available by clicking on the assembly members name here - http://ahea.assembly.ca.gov/membersstaff Emails are listed as assemblymember.lastname@assembly.ca.gov , however most assembly members prefer to be contacted via the online contact form linked in the table above. 2) Contact your state senator and state assembly member and ask them to oppose AB2109. If you log in to the NVIC Advocacy Portal at http://NVICAdvocacy.org and view this alert on the California state page, we will automatically lookup who your legislators are and display them to the right of this alert. You can click on their names to open up their contact information. This free confidential service requires your registration and login in order for us to be able to calculate who you legislators are. 3) Let us know if you can help with the hearings by contacting NVIC CA State Directors, Dawn Winkler or Michelle Gutierrez, at CADirector@NVICAdvocacy.org or call Dawn Winkler at (530) 283-1018 if you a) are willing to attend the committee hearings and/or testify against the bill; or b) have a family member who has suffered an adverse reaction to a pertussis containing vaccine and are willing to provide written or oral testimony against the bill while describing that reaction; or c) you have been thrown out of your doctor’s office for delaying or declining a vaccine and are willing to share your story with legislators; or d) you are a health care provider who is willing to provide testimony against the bill. 4) Send this to as many friends and family in California that you can and ask them to please register for the NVIC Advocacy Portal at http://NVICAdvocacy.org so they can get added to this state email list and receive updates how they can help fight this bill during this session. TO LIKE AND SHARE THIS ALERT ON FACEBOOK, link to http://nvicadvocacy.org/members/Resources/CAOPPOSEAB2109RestrictingVaccineExemptions.aspx and click on “like” or “send” by the Facebook tag on the top of the page. Sample Phone Plan: · Call the office number and introduce yourself and ask to talk to someone about AB 2109. If this is your assembly member’s office, let them know you are a constituent and what town/city you are from. · Let the appropriate person know you are opposed to AB 2109 because it requires you to have to pay for an extra medical office visit you don’t want or need, it requires additional bureaucratic paperwork, and as a parent if this passes, you have no guarantee you will be able to find a provider who will take these appointments or sign the form. (If you’ve ever been harassed by a doctor before or denied care, this is a great place to talk about this). · Let the legislative office know that this bill wastes your time and money because you are already well educated on vaccine risks and benefits (explain the steps you have taken to educate yourself above and beyond any handout could provide). · Let them know about your personal story what got you involved in this issue and why an unrestricted personal belief exemption is important to your family especially if anyone in your family has had a vaccine reaction. Additional Talking Points Against AB 2109 to be used in your written letters/email: · Forcing parents into a paid contractual relationship with a health care provider they wouldn’t otherwise utilize for their children’s health care is not only a violation of basic parental rights, it creates distrust and resentment towards public health programs run by the state. · Especially in California, many families utilize health care providers not reliant on pharmaceutical drugs and vaccines, and only practitioners part of the pharmaceutical paradigm or medicine are allowed to provide the information and sign the form under this bill. · AB 2109 discriminates against families utilizing complementary and alternative medicine by forcing them into paying money to a medical practitioner they wouldn’t otherwise use who is already philosophically opposed to the parent’s personal and religious convictions regarding vaccination. · Parents who utilize vaccine exemptions are typically more educated regarding the risks and benefits of vaccination than both the parents who choose vaccination and aren’t required by this bill to receive this information and the health care providers who would be required to sign the exemption in order for it to be valid. · Many doctors’ offices throw families out of their practice for delaying or declining a vaccine. There is nothing in this bill to prevent a doctor’s office from refusing to take these appointments to begin with or for refusing to sign the form once a family pays for a visit. These real obstacles will restrict or deny access to the personal beliefs exemption for some families currently using it. · The state is not in the financial position to pay for all these extra required office visits within 6 months of school starting for families on public assistance and for the kids of state employees who have their health coverage provided by the state and who want to delay or a decline one or more vaccines. · The information required by this bill is already available to parents online for free and coercive measures like this bill do nothing but create and further distrust and resentment towards public health programs run by the state. · There is NO current crisis that would indicate that CA needs to make it more difficult to obtain exemptions from vaccination. · Most vaccination rates in CA for children 19 to 35 months old for individual vaccines are at or above the CDC Healthy People 2020 goal of 90%. (http://www2a.cdc.gov/nip/coverage/nis/nis_iap2.asp?fmt=v&rpt=tab03_antigen_state&qtr=Q1/2009-Q4/2009) · Vaccination rates for children entering kindergarten in California have increased from 2010 to 2011 and are at or above the CDC Healthy People 2020 goals of 90%, except for one category, which is at 89.4%. (http://www.cdph.ca.gov/programs/immunize/Documents/2011SelectiveReviewResults.pdf) · Bill Sponsor Assembly Member Dr. Richard Pan, claims in a press release that his bill will help prevent outbreaks of pertussis. It is important for legislators to understand that the pertussis outbreaks in CA are due to waning immunity of the vaccine, and not because of families taking the exemption. Here are some references to back this point. o "The rise in pertussis doesn’t seem to be related to parents’ refusing to have their children vaccinated for fear of potential side effects. In California, pertussis rates are about the same in counties with high childhood vaccination rates and low ones. And the C.D.C. reports that pertussis immunization rates have been stable or increasing since 1992."(http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/08/16/vaccination-is-steady-but-pertussis-is-surging/ ) o Children can be susceptible to pertussis even if they are completely vaccinated. (http://www.inewsource.org/2011/03/28/experts-zero-in-on-waning-immunity/ ) o The acellular pertussis vaccine’s failure to deliver durable infection protection to children aged 7-10 years led to the 2010 California pertussis epidemic. (http://www.internalmedicinenews.com/news/conference-news/infectious-diseases-society-of-america-conference/single-article/acellular-pertussis-vaccine-s-waning-immunity-caused-california-epidemic/71de9826f4.html) o The pertussis vaccine has been found to wane after only 3 years, leaving a much larger population of fully vaccinated children susceptible to pertusssis than unvaccinated children. KPBS and the Watchdog Institute performed a joint investigation into the recent increasing pertussis rates in California and found the majority of cases of pertussis were occurring in fully vaccinated populations of children in the 8-12 year old age group. They went on to show that the vaccine wanes after only 3 years. (http://www.kpbs.org/news/2011/sep/20/whooping-cough-vaccine-wanes-after-three-years/) · Bill supporters claim that vaccines are safe. The reality is there is real risk. The Vaccine Injury Compensation Program was established by Congress in 1986 to protect vaccine manufacturers and doctors from liability for vaccine injuries and death. As of Jan. 3, 2012, there have been 14,073 claims filed for vaccine injury and 1077 death claims. The total dollar amount of vaccine injury and death awards granted and paid to families of vaccine victims by our government is $2,366,649,931.96. (http://www.hrsa.gov/vaccinecompensation/statisticsreports.html#Claims) · Just for pertussis containing vaccines alone administered in the state of California, 11,516 reports of Vaccine Adverse Events have been filed with the federal government’s Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System where 77% of the reports of adverse events are for children 6 and under. There have been 5,775 disorders of the nervous system reported and 172 deaths. 96% of the deaths reported were in children three and under. (http://www.medalerts.org/) Sincerely, Dawn Richardson, Director of Advocacy National Vaccine Information Center http://NVIC.org and http://NVICAdvocacy.org Dawn@NVICAdvocacy.org The National Vaccine Information Center (NVIC) works diligently to prepare and disseminate our legislative advocacy action alerts and supporting materials. We request that organizations and members of the public forward our alerts in their original form to assure consistent and accurate messaging and effective action. Please acknowledge NVIC as originators of this work when forwarding to members of the public and like-minded organizations. To receive alerts immediately, register at http://NVICAdvocacy.org, a website dedicated to this sole purpose and provided as a free public service by NVIC.