5/2/2012 UPDATE: NVIC State Director from VT Jennifer Stella just reported that the House is in recess until after lunch today which means right now they don't have enough votes and we need as many calls as possible to your representatives in VT asking them to VOTE NO on S199 so it stays that way - tell your name, city and message to your Rep that EVERY Vermont Family deserves the right to informed consent to vaccination and an education for their kids, not just 10% of us! Number is 802-828-2228. More info below. EVEN IF YOU’VE ALREADY CALLED, CALL AGAIN. THANK YOU!
VT: Crucial Calls Needed TODAY to OPPOSE S199
Philosophical Exemption in Danger TODAY
PLEASE CALL NOW!
Dear Vermont NVIC Advocacy Team Members,
It is imperative that you pick up the phone today right away and make three calls asking legislators to VOTE NO on S199 in order to save the philosophical exemption to mandatory vaccination for school from becoming eliminated: one to your representative, one to the speaker of the House, and one to your governor. Scroll down below for numbers and instructions.
Families who have worked in good faith at the legislature have been betrayed and cut out of the process when the conference committee yesterday returned a horrible bill from behind closed doors filled with restrictions, expirations, condemnations, and limitations of which NONE were ever presented or debated in a public hearing or in a filed piece of legislation allowing the public this affects to officially respond to their elected officials.
Jennifer Stella, our NVIC State director, writes: “House Conferees have changed the bill to give the VT Health Commissioner (an unelected official) the sole power to SUSPEND the philosophical exemption if Vermont's vaccination rates drop below 90% for MMR, DTap or TDaP. It also requires parents who use the philosophical or religious exemption to sign that they are putting their children and others at risk for vaccine preventable diseases and changes the very name, from "philosophical exemption" to "personal conviction." Click here to view the bill coming out of conference and moving to the house floor for a vote.
PLEASE MAKE THREE CALLS RIGHT NOW:
1) 828-2228 TO DELIVER THE FOLLOWING MESSAGE TO YOUR STATE REPRESENTATIVE:
"name, town, Please VOTE NO on S199 because all Vermont families deserve the right to informed consent to vaccination and a pubic education for their children, not just 10% of us! This is bad policy because these restrictions on the exemption were NEVER presented or debated publically throughout the legislative process allowing for my public input and they ARE NOT BEING USED IN ANY OTHER STATE!"
2) 828-2245 to tell the Speaker of the House Shap Smith to “Stop S199! I am outraged that the legislature is voting on a bill stating that only 10% of us deserve the right to informed consent to vaccination and a public education for our children and that these changes restricting MY RIGHTS to vaccine exemptions were never vetted in a public hearing or before a committee taking public input cutting my family out of the public process and they are not in use in ANY OTHER STATE in the country!
3) 828-3333 to Governor Peter Shumlin asking him to VETO S199 and to urge his colleagues in the legislature to vote against S199 because all Vermont families deserve the right to informed consent to vaccination and access to a public education – not just 10% of us! No other state is doing this!
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Sincerely,
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