Tag Archives: action alert

Action Alert: Help Pass CA SB277 And Remove Personal Belief Exemptions for Vaccines

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,

 

Action Alert: Ask Your Legislator to Support Federal Science Funding

Now is the time of year that the Appropriations Committees in Congress are starting to draft the budgets for FY 2016. Individual member requests for funding can be influential in setting the final appropriations request, so now is a good time to contact your representatives and voice your support for increased federal science funding. Currently there is a ‘Dear Colleague’ letter circulating in the House requesting an $32B for NIH and $7.72B for NSF. You can use FASEB’s action center to send an email to your House Reps asking them to show their support for increased federal investment in science by signing the Dear Colleague letter. Tomorrow members from the Society for Neuroscience will be on Capitol Hill meeting with legislators to ask for a 10% increase in NIH funding. You can contribute to their effort virtually by sending emails to your legislators through their action center.

Last year I attended the SfN Hill Day, which was an experience I’ll never forget. Many societies organize Hill Days for their members and it is a great way to make sure that your legislators hear about the value of federal science funding. It also gives you a firsthand glimpse into our political process. If you are an early career member of Society for Neuroscience or the American Physiological Society you should check out their policy fellowships.

Action Alert: Contact CA State Legislators in Support of Bill to Eliminate Personal Belief Vaccination Exemption

California state Senators Richard Pan (D-Sacramento) and Ben Allen (D-Santa Monica) introduced legislation to eliminate the personal belief exemption for vaccination in public school children. Currently parents can claim an exemption from the state-mandated vaccination requirements for their personal beliefs. A 2012 law mandates that parents choosing this personal belief exemption must consult a licensed health care provider about their decision, which decreased the number of personal belief exemptions claimed by ~20% in 2013. Even with this decrease, 2.5% of children are entering CA public schools with personal belief exemptions, with this number rising in some communities to over 10% of children. California vaccination rates are ~91% of the population, which compromises herd immunity as we are seeing quite clearly with the current measles outbreak. Vaccines are safe and save literally millions of lives a year (1 or 2 in 1,000 kids who contract the measles will die). Those families who opt out of vaccines put the rest of us at risk, especially those most vulnerable including children too young to be vaccinated or those with compromised immune systems. (For more information on the safety and efficacy of vaccines see an earlier post). Controlling an outbreak of a previously vanquished disease like the measles is also incredibly costly and strains public health resources. Join me in contacting your state legislators to show your support for this bill which would make CA the 33rd state to eliminate personal belief exemptions for all children entering public schools.

How to Contact Your State Legislators

As the saying goes, the squeaky wheel gets the grease. Opinion polls consistently show the majority of Americans are in favor of vaccination and research overwhelmingly supports the safety and efficacy of vaccination. There is a very vocal minority opposed to vaccination, though, and you can bet they will be contacting their legislators. Let your state legislators know that you are in favor of this bill by contacting their offices through email or phone. You can find your state senator and representative here. You will be directed to you to your representative’s official website where you can find contact information for their offices and a web contact form. Below I have a sample email or phone script that I would encourage you to use and customize.

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,

___________

Action Alert: Adjunct Faculty Loan Forgiveness Act Introduced

On Thursday, Senator Richard Durbin introduced the Adjunct Faculty Loan Forgiveness Act which would allow part-time adjunct faculty to access the Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program (PSLFP). The PSLFP provides educational loan forgiveness following 120 on time monthly payments made while employed full time in a public service job (which includes jobs at federal, state, and local governments and tax-exempt non-profits). Currently you must work at least 30 hrs a week for the entire year to have your payments qualify, which makes many part-time adjunct faculty ineligible. The new bill would allow adjunct faculty to be eligible for the PSLFP as long as they teach at least 1 course per year and do not hold a full-time non-public service job.

Actions you can take to support the Adjunct Faculty Loan Forgiveness Act:

As with any bill you support, calling or emailing your legislators is a good first step. This bill was referred to the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, so it is especially important to contact your Senator if they are on that committee (list of members can be found here. No CA Senators are members of the committee).

If you want to learn more about the bill, you can join a call with Senator Durbin and the Adjunct Action Network on August 5th.

Action Alert: Urge Your Senators to Support the FY2015 NSF Funding Bill

Action Alert: Ask your senators to support the FY2015 NSF Funding Bill.

I will be using this blog to keep you up to date on good times to contact your legislators to urge their support for relevant bills, especially related to science funding. The budget process stretches from February, when the President submits a budget request, to September, when Congress hopefully passes a budget for the fiscal year beginning in October. Of the ~$3.8 T in federal spending every year, 2/3 of the spending is mandatory funding for things like Medicaid, Social Security and paying off the national debt. Of the remaining discretionary spending, over half goes to defense ($728 B). Most of the debate rages around the non-defense discretionary spending pool ($535 B), which includes funding for scientific research. There are many points during budget negotiations where advocacy can be effective in maintaining favorable science funding levels. If you are interested in more detail about the budget process, I suggest the Society for Neuroscience webinar section: The Federal Budget Process.

This week the Senate is debating the fiscal year (FY 2015) Commerce, Justice, Science (CJS) Appropriations bill (HR 4660) that funds the National Science Foundation (NSF), National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the US Department of Agriculture (USDA). This bill would provide $7.255 B in funding for NSF, an increase of $83 M (1.2%) above the current level and allow the funding of an additional 140 competitive grants from NSF. The Senate bill would also increase funding for NOAA by $105 M and the USDA would receive an additional $17 M for intramural research and an additional $8.5 M for extramural research. While the bill did leave the Senate Appropriations Committee with bipartisan support, Senators are allowed to add amendments. It is expected that amendments decreasing social science funding are likely. For more on this bill, see here.

You can show your support for increased funding for research at NSF, NOAA and USDA by contacting your senators (in CA our Senators are Barbara Boxer and Dianne Feinstein). Many organizations have easy email forms to fill out, but it often helps to personalize your letter or phone call with information about how this funding will affect you, your lab and/or your students. You can use this site to find out who your legislators are at all levels.