UPDATE: 12/3/2020
IMPORTANT UPDATE ON DC PREDATORY MINOR CONSENT TO VACCINATION BILL B23-0171
Call for Unified Nationwide Action Asking DC Mayor to Veto B23-0171
Dear NVIC Advocacy Team Members,
PLEASE continue to contact the Mayor of DC, Muriel Bowser, to tell her to VETO B23-0171. WE HAVE MORE TIME! Spread this far and wide!
The DC City Council passed the dangerous and predatory bill B23-0171 by a final vote of 10:3 on Tuesday 11/17/2020. This law will not only permit children 11 years old and older to consent to vaccines on their own without parental knowledge or consent, the bill requires insurance companies, vaccine providers and schools to conceal the fact that the child has been vaccinated from the parent! It also sets up these young children to be targets of bullying and coercion to be vaccinated behind their parents backs! We strongly oppose this bill.
The Mayor of DC has up to 10 days to respond. There are three possible actions the Mayor can take: 1) Veto (our preferred action), which would stop the bill from becoming law as long as 2/3 the council doesn’t vote to override the veto, (2) Sign, which would move the bill forward to Congress for review, or 3) No signature, which has the same effect as her signing it.
Normally the bill would be sent to the Mayor after the bill is passed, and therefore the clock for 10 calendar days for the Mayor to respond would already be expired.
NVIC’s Director of Advocacy spoke directly with the legislative director of the DC Council this morning, and he told her that the DC Council has not sent the Mayor the bill yet for response, so the 10 day period has not even started. This is good news as we have more time to have more people contact the Mayor requesting a veto.
This delay is not typical, and no definitive reason was given for it although stressors from the current COVID-19 situation was cited as likely contributing. He also explained that once the DC Council sends the Mayor the bill, the legislative website will be automatically updated to reflect that. There will be an entry in the legislative history column indicating the bill is under review by the Mayor and the date it was sent will be included. The 10-calendar day countdown (excluding weekends and holidays) will start from there. You can monitor this at https://lims.dccouncil.us/Legislation/B23-0171.
You may be wondering why you are receiving this update even if you don’t live in DC. Over the past 2 years, http://NVICAdvocacy.org has tracked and issued opposing positions on 33 various minor consent to vaccination bills filed across many states, and this is the only one that has passed. Your opposition to the other bills filed in other states helped stop the rest. This bill is different and far worse from the others in that this is the only bill that compels authority figures in the child’s life to deliberately conceal the fact the child was vaccinated from the child’s parent! Also this bill covers ALL ACIP recommended vaccines. DC is our nation’s capital, and if this is allowed to be implemented there, we can expect bills like this to threaten our children and families in all 50 states. All of us in every state and DC need to work together to stop this.
We ALL need to all seize this opportunity of extra time to continue to let the Mayor know that America is watching and undermining the parent child relationship and removing parental rights is not an acceptable action by government!
ACTION:
Contact DC Mayor Muriel Bowser IMMEDIATELY to VETO B23-0171 Vaccinating Children Behind Parents’ Backs
Email: [email protected] & [email protected]
Phone: (202) 727-2643
Facebook: @MayorMurielBowser
Twitter: @MurielBowser & @MayorBowser
Instagram: @mayor_bowser
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION:
NVIC Advocacy Action Alert with Talking Points: https://nvicadvocacy.org/members/Resources/NewsletterArchives/OPPOSEDCB230171MinorConsentforVaccinations.aspx
The Vaccine Reaction: DC Bill B23-0171 Allowing Children 11 Years and Older to Be Vaccinated Without Parental Knowledge or Consent Advances
Epoch Times: New DC Law Would Give Vaccine Decisions to 11-year-Olds, Cut Parents Out
The Highwire: Injecting Kids Without Consent
Sincerely,
NVIC Advocacy Team
National Vaccine Information Center
http://NVIC.org and http://NVICAdvocacy.org
https://nvicadvocacy.org/members/Members/ContactUs.aspx
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.
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UPDATE: 11/17/2020
We need your quick one minute action to reach out to the Mayor of DC, Muriel Bowser, to tell her to VETO B23-0171.
The DC City Council passed the dangerous and predatory bill B23-0171 by a vote of 10:3 on Tuesday 11/17/2020. This law will not only permit children 11 years old and older to consent to vaccines on their own without parental knowledge or consent, the bill requires insurance companies, vaccine providers and schools to conceal the fact that the child has been vaccinated from the parent! It also sets up these young children to be targets of bullying and coercion to be vaccinated behind their parents backs!
There are multiple federal and local laws that will be broken by this new DC law (Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act on 1986, Religious Exemption to Vaccination). The law is also in conflict with Supreme Court precedent affirming parental rights, and it puts children’s health and safety at risk not only for serious reactions and even possible death, but it exposes children to be victims of under documented overvaccination.
Mayor Bowser has up to 10 calendar days (excluding holidays and weekends) to respond. The final day she can decide is December 2, 2020. We need her to VETO this new law. Please help her get the message loud and clear that America is watching and this is not an acceptable action by government!
Contact DC Mayor Muriel Bowser IMMEDIATELY to VETO B23-0171 - Vaccinating Children Behind Parents’ Backs.
If we don’t stop it, it will come to your state!
Email: [email protected] & [email protected]
Facebook: @MayorMurielBowser
Twitter: @MurielBowser & @MayorBowser
Instagram: @mayor_bowser
Phone: 202-727-2643
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Dear District of Columbia, Virginia, and Maryland NVIC Advocacy Team Members,
Your action is needed to stop a predatorial bill in DC that would not only permit children 11 years old and older to consent to vaccines on their own without parental knowledge or consent, the bill requires insurance companies, vaccine providers and schools to conceal the fact that the child has been vaccinated from the parent!
B23-0171 was passed 12:1 at the October 20th first reading, and it was announced that it would have have a second reading and final vote by the DC Council at their legislative meeting scheduled on November 10th. Council Member Trayon White Sr. was the only Council Member to vote against the bill because it violates parental rights. The discussion of the bill starts at 5:36 in the archived video.
However, at the November 10th meeting, the bill was postponed for the final reading and vote until Tuesday November 17th. You can watch the discussion on the archived video beginning at the 39:50 time stamp - http://dc.granicus.com/MediaPlayer.php?view_id=2&clip_id=5876
Council Member Gray, who is the chair of the Health Committee, had proposed an amendment to require the vaccine provider to notify the insurer that the immunization has been provided under the authority of the “Minor Consent for Vaccinations Amendment Act of 2020”, so the insurer will know that they should not send an Explanation of Benefits (EOB) for the vaccination. This amendment underscores the intention of deception to keep parents in the dark about their children receiving liability free vaccines without their knowledge or consent. Fortunately, because Council Member Gray was not able to attend the meeting and answer questions about his amendment, the vote on the bill was postponed. We have this week to make sure the DC Council knows that this bill is not acceptable to families.
NVIC first alerted our members to this bill when it was scheduled for a hearing originally in June of 2019. After no activity for over a year, the bill was just passed by a voice vote in a virtual meeting of the Health Committee on Wednesday, October 7, 2020 after it was amended to make it even worse. In the archived video, the amendments are discussed at the 8:44 mark and the sponsor’s comments begin at 9:48 time mark.
The chair of the Health Committee who passed the bill, Vincent C. Gray (D-Ward 7), was quoted in the Washington Post saying “the hope of an imminent coronavirus vaccine gave the bill new urgency.”
If the bill passes second reading, it goes to the Mayor who has up to 10 days sign the bill, let it go into effect without a signature, or veto it. If the mayor vetoes the bill, the Council can override the veto by a two-thirds vote.
The final step before becoming law is the bill must be sent to the United States House of Representatives and the United States Senate for a period of 30 days before becoming effective as law. During this period of Congressional review, the Congress may enact into law a joint resolution disapproving the Council’s Act. If, during the review period, the President of the United States approves the joint resolution, the Council’s Act is prevented from becoming law. If, however, upon the expiration of the congressional review period, no joint resolution disapproving the Council’s Act has been approved by the President, the bill finally becomes a Law and is assigned a law number.
ACTION NEEDED:
1) Contact Members of DC Council Committee of the Whole and ask them to VOTE NO on B23-0171 at the second reading on November 17th. See reasons to oppose and committee contact information below.
Only those who live, work, or send their kids to school in the District of Columbia should be contacting Council Members to oppose this bill, but we need everyone no matter where you live to:
- Share this with all your DC contacts, and
- Be ready to contact your U.S. Congressional Representative and two U.S. Senators to support a resolution to prevent this bill from becoming law.
2) Contact Mayor Bowser and ask her to VETO B23-0171 if it comes to her for consideration. https://mayor.dc.gov/page/invite-mayor
3) Login to the NVIC Advocacy Portal often to check status of this bill.
REASONS TO OPPOSE B23-0171
B23-0171 permits minor children 11 years old and older to consent to any vaccine recommended by ACIP without parental knowledge or consent (lines 33-36).
- A child is less likely than their parent to understand personal and family medical history including vaccine reactions, allergies, and autoimmune or neurological disorders.
- Kids do not have the same kind of critical thinking skills or emotional maturity required to make a vaccine benefit-risk decision compared to an adult. Vaccines can cause injury and death as evidenced by the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program, which has paid out over $4.4 billion dollars to vaccine victims.
- Children and adolescents are vulnerable to peer and authority-figure persuasion.
- If a child consents to vaccination without their parent knowing and has a reaction, the parent may not recognize the reason for their child’s decline in health and this lack of knowledge could be life threatening for the child.
- This puts minor children at risk of being pressured and coerced into getting a COVID-19 vaccine behind their parents’ back once it is available and added to the ACIP recommended schedule for children.
B23-0171 compels insurance companies (lines 46-47), vaccine providers (lines 43-45 and 54-58), and schools (lines 58-60) to conceal vaccine administration and insurance payment information from parents whose children consent to vaccines on their own and their parents have already declined or filed a religious exemption.
- This proposed legislation is a blatant violation of parents’ constitutional right to raise their children without undue interference from the state.
- The legal right of parents to give their informed consent for minor children to take medical risks, which can result in injury or death, trumps the goals of health agencies or vaccine corporations and medical organizations, whose employees, stockholders or members profit or professionally benefit from increased, widespread vaccine use.
- This bill violates the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA). FERPA, 34 CFR § 99.10, affords parents the right to have access to their children’s education records. "Education records" include health and vaccine records at the K-12 level.
- B23-0171 blatantly ignores the existing intent of other laws and regulations putting parents in charge of vaccination decisions including section 5300.11 providing the legal right of the parent to claim a medical or religious exemption to vaccination.
- There is no justification to override a parent’s legal right to make an informed benefit and risk decision about vaccination on behalf of their minor children, ignore their religious rights to decline vaccination, and then hand that responsibility to vaccine providers who are protected from liability and have no accountability for what happens to the child after vaccination.
- Both The National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act of 1986 and U.S. Supreme Court Decision Russell Bruesewitz et al v. Wyeth et al guarantee that vaccine manufacturers, doctors and other vaccine administrators have no legal accountability or financial liability in civil court when a government recommended or mandated vaccine(s) causes permanent injury or death.
B23-0171 requires the Department of Health to produce their own dumbed down version of vaccine information sheets to be given to the minor children (lines 40-42).
- Federal legislative history provides evidence that Congress never intended for a minor child to make decisions to get a vaccine without parental knowledge or consent.
- When the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act of 1986 was passed, the Act clearly stated that before the administration of vaccines, to a child, a health care provider shall give a copy of the CDC’s vaccine information materials to the, “parent or legal representative of any child to whom the provider intends to administer such vaccine…”
- The CDC asserts the requirement that their Vaccine Information Sheet is provided to the parent/legal guardian prior to vaccination of a minor child on their Q&A page on VIS sheets: Under the question “Is there a requirement to verify that parents/legal representatives have actually received and reviewed the VIS,” the answer is a clear and undebatable “YES”.
B23-0171 permits schools to share the vaccination record with the department of health or the school-based health center (lines 59-60).
- 34 CFR §99.30 also requires prior written parental consent before personally identifiable information (PII) is disclosed and requires schools to provide copies of those records disclosed. While FERPA does allow for release of PII under the health and safety emergency exception, this is extremely limited.
COMMITTEE CONTACT INFORMATION
District of Columbia Committee of the Whole Council Members:
Allen, Charles Ward 6
Email: [email protected]
Telephone: (202)724-8072
Fax: (202)724-8054
Bonds, Anita At Large
Email: [email protected]
Telephone: (202) 724-8064
Fax: (202) 724-8086
Cheh, Mary Ward 3
Email: [email protected]
Telephone: (202)-724-8062
Fax: (202)-724-8118
Gray, Vincent Ward 7
Email: [email protected]
Telephone: tel:(202) 724-8068
Fax: (202) 741-0911
Grosso, David At Large
Email: [email protected]
Telephone: (202) 724-8105
Fax: (202) 724-8071
McDuffie, Kenyan R. Ward 5
Email: [email protected]
Telephone: (202) 724-8028
Fax: (202) 724-8076
Mendelson, Phil Chairman
Email: [email protected]
Telephone: (202) 724-8032
Fax: (202) 724-8085
Nadeau, Brianne K. Ward 1
Email: [email protected]
Telephone: (202) 724-8181
Fax: (202) 724-8109
Pinto, Brooke Ward 2
Email: [email protected]
Telephone: (202) 724-8058
Fax: (202) 724-8023
Robert C. White, Jr., At Large
Email: [email protected]
Telephone: (202)-724-8174
Fax: (202)-727-8210
Silverman, Elissa At Large
Email: [email protected]
Telephone: (202)-724-7772
Fax: (202)-724-8087
Todd, Brandon Ward 4
Email: [email protected]
Telephone: (202)724-8052
Fax: (202)741-0908
Trayon White, Sr., Ward 8
Email: [email protected]
Telephone: (202)724-8045
Fax: (202)724-8055
Sincerely,
NVIC Advocacy Team
National Vaccine Information Center
http://NVIC.org and http://NVICAdvocacy.org
https://nvicadvocacy.org/members/Members/ContactUs.aspx
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.