California SB277, which would eliminate the personal belief exemption for public school children in California, is currently working its way through the state legislature (discussed in a previous post). This week following a very heated public comment period, SB277 passed the Health Committee. On Wednesday April 15th the bill will be discussed in the Education Committee. Please join me in contacting your legislators and the members of the Education Committee to voice your support of the bill. The group Vaccinate California has made it very easy to contact your representative. You can also sign up for their web alerts to keep up to date about the progress of the bill.
Below are the phone numbers of all Education Committee members, please take the time to call and ask for their support. The anti-vaccination side has been quite vocal, so we need to let our legislators know that a clear majority of Californians know that vaccines are safe and effective and support this bill.
Sen. Bob Huff (916) 651-4029
Sen. Connie Leyva (916) 651-4020
Sen. Carol Liu (916) 651-4025
Sen. Marty Block (916) 651-4039
Sen. Loni Hancock (916) 651-4009
Sen. Tony Mendoza (916) 651-4032
Sen. Andy Vidak (916) 651-4014
Sen. Richard Pan (916) 651-4006 (SB277’s sponsor–you can call to thank his office)
Resources About the Safety and Efficacy of Vaccines
A sample call or email script (including an example of my personalized response in bold):
Dear State Senator/Representative ____,
I am writing/calling to encourage you to support the bill introduced by Senators Pan and Allen that would eliminate the personal belief exemption for vaccination in public school children. The science is clear, vaccines are safe and prevent millions of deaths a year. The efficacy of vaccination rests on herd immunity and California vaccination rates are dangerously low. This has led to recent outbreaks in whooping cough and the measles, which are incredibly dangerous diseases, especially to babies too young to be vaccinated and people with compromised immune systems. Controlling these diseases is also costly to the state and strains our public health resources. [if desired you can add something personalized here like: As a scientist and soon to be mother, this is a very important issue to me. When my baby is born in May, I am worried she will be needlessly exposed to dangerous diseases due to the high concentration of people who have chosen not to vaccinate in the Bay Area. I have a PhD in Biomedical Sciences and am trained to read and understand medical literature. I can assure you that the research supporting the safety of vaccines is sound. I would be happy to discuss this further with your office, provide you with easy to understand information about how vaccines work and the evidence that they are safe, or provide any other assistance you may need in making your decision.] Please help prevent needless outbreaks and deaths by supporting this bill and eliminating the personal belief exemption for vaccination in public school children.
Thank you for your consideration of this issue,
Unless we put medical freedom into the Constitution, the time will come when medicine will organize into an undercover dictatorship to restrict the art of healing to one class of Men and deny equal privileges to others; the Constitution of the Republic should make a Special privilege for medical freedoms as well as religious freedom
This is educational discrimination. Also, if there is risk involved there must be choice.
Just how many mandatory vaccines would it take before even you would say enough is enough. There are 69 now before age 18, is 100 to many? how about 125? This is madness and very telling as to your credibility.
In stating that vaccines are safe and effective, you are in direct contradiction of our own Supreme Court who has ruled vaccines “unavoidably unsafe.” (Bruesewitz v Wyeth). You are also in direct contradiction to the ruling in at least 23 cases at the VICP federal court connecting brain inflammation from vaccines to “autistic-like” outcome. Of course, they won’t directly say vaccines cause autism because of the obvious medical and political bomb it is. However, this will become well known soon. Several whistleblowers including the head of CDC safety studies, Dr. William Thompson, have come forward and hearings are pending.
I have a Bachelors of Science degree and a minor in chemistry. I know how to read scientific studies. I also know how to read vaccine inserts which clearly state there are risks associated with vaccination. If there is risk there must be a choice. NO ON SB277.
This is a huge conflict of interest for you to be promoting this bill. Shame on you! There is no health emergency in this country but their are millions of people w health problems from vaccines. You cannot force someone to inject something w known risks and it is discrimination to deny people employment or education based on whether or not they have an injection.
Education is “essential to the preservation of the rights and liberties of the people.” – California Constitution, Article IX, Section 1
“A person may not be…denied equal protection of the laws.” – California Constitution, Article I, Section 7
California schoolchildren have a constitutional right to “substantially equal opportunities for learning.” – Serrano v. Priest (Cal. 1976)
“The State itself has broad responsibility to ensure basic educational equality.” – Butt v. California (Cal. 1992)
– See more at: http://studentsmatter.org/vergara-101/what-does-the-california-constitution-say-about-education/#sthash.3LrASvs1.dpuf