Vaccine Retailers PUSH Restricting Vaccine Exemptions
Contact House Rules Committee and Ask them to Kill SB 132
Hearing and Possible Work Session June 12th at 3pm in Room HR E
Dear Oregon NVIC Advocacy Team Members,
SB 132, an Oregon Pediatric Society bill which eliminates Oregon’s statutorily protected religious exemption and instead inserts a limited personal exemption controlled by doctors and the health department, passed the Senate by only 3 votes and is scheduled for a hearing and possible work session on Wednesday June 12, 2013 at 3:00 PM in the House Committee on Rules in Room HR E.
It is imperative that the 9 members of this committee hear loudly and clearly from the families in Oregon that you don’t want the legislature messing around with your vaccine exemption period.
Please call and email the following members of the House Rules Committee right now and request that they let SB 132 die in their committee. There is no way to fix this bill because you don’t want your current religious exemption to vaccination messed with and restricted. If there is any way you can attend the hearing and testify against this bill, please do!
Oregon House Rules Committee Members – 2013
[email protected] ; [email protected] ; [email protected] ; [email protected] ; [email protected] ; [email protected] ; [email protected] ; [email protected] ; [email protected]
Also, if you haven’t done so already, please also immediately contact your State Representative (http://www.leg.state.or.us/findlegsltr/) and ask him/her to OPPOSE SB 132 in case the bill is passed out of the rules committee to the House.
For more information, or to have your personal legislator’s contact information displayed, please register with or sign in to the NVIC Advocacy Portal at http://NVICAdvocacy.org and link to the Oregon state team page.
Here is a copy of NVIC’s statement of opposition to the bill to give you ideas for your own email and phone calls to your representative and the members of this committee:
Dear Honorable Members of the Oregon House Rules Committee,
Please oppose SB 132 which completely removes Oregon’s longstanding statutorily protected religious exemption to vaccination (ORS 433.267 (1) (c)) and instead inserts a limited personal exemption controlled by doctors and the health department. SB 132 forces a parent to overcome government defined hurdles and use a government issued and controlled form when current law only requires a simple written statement of religious exemption from the parent.
Additionally, SB 132 forces the parent to submit themselves to a lecture by a doctor or state approved health care practitioner about vaccination and obtain their signature on the government form OR to complete a state government defined vaccine education module and obtain and show certification of completion for the exemption to be valid. SB 132 was filed under the false assumption that parents making the decision to delay or decline a vaccine are not “educated” enough on the benefits and risks of vaccination. If these restrictive new barriers are not fully complied with to obtain this new vaccine exemption paperwork, the child will be denied an education.
Bill supporters are trying to deflect criticism by claiming “all parents have to do is watch an online video” but nowhere does the bill limit the education requirement to simply watching an online video and it is not defined anywhere what effort it will take to actually obtain certification of completion of this education. Parents who fully vaccinate in ignorance of the risks of vaccination are not required to receive any education by the state under this bill or current state law. SB 132 was specifically requested by the Oregon Pediatric Society with the intention of making the vaccine exemption process more burdensome on parents. Let’s not forget what vaccines mean to the bottom line of pediatricians.
Bill supporters are misleading legislators by misrepresenting vaccination and exemption rates in Oregon to make legislators incorrectly believe more parents are refusing all vaccines. That simply isn’t happening. The truth is, there is absolutely no immunization rate crisis in Oregon and there is no valid reason for putting unreasonable barriers between parents and vaccine exemptions. According to the CDC’s most recent National Immunization Survey (http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/stats-surv/nis/data/tables_2011.htm), the individual vaccination rates for core vaccines in Oregon are already high and don’t justify government restrictions on vaccine exemptions: 3 DTaP – 92.5%, 4 DTaP – 76.6%, 3 Polio – 90.2%, 1 MMR – 90.6%, 3 Hib – 90.2%, 3 Hep B – 85.3%, 1 Varicella – 89.3%, 3 Pneumococcal – 90.2%. The vaccine most refused is the Hepatitis B vaccine and the 4th dose of the DPT vaccine. This slightly lowers the overall high vaccination rate since the overall rate calculated is how many kids have received all doses of all vaccines. Otherwise, Oregon’s rates are high. Please oppose SB 132.
Sincerely,
Dawn Richardson,
NVIC Director of Advocacy
Sincerely,
Dawn Richardson, Director of Advocacy
National Vaccine Information Center
http://NVIC.org and http://NVICAdvocacy.org
[email protected]
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