Contact Your State Representative and Senator to OPPOSE SB 64 and SB 674

Originally published by https://NVIC.org

OPPOSE SB 64: Removing Religious and Restricting Medical Vaccine Exemptions

OPPOSE SB 674: Minimum Vaccination Requirements for Child Care

Dear Florida NVIC Advocacy Team Members,

It is important for Florida families to maintain vaccine exemptions to be able to delay or decline vaccination for religious and medical reasons without restriction.

Your action contacting your state representative and senator to OPPOSE SB 64 and SB 674 is critical to maintaining vaccine exemption rights in Florida.

SB 64, filed by Senator Lauren Book on 8/2/2019, would eliminate the religious exemption to vaccines required for public and private school children. It would also add a new section of law requiring the Board of Medicine and the Board of Osteopathic Medicine to jointly create a medical exemption review panel that shall review all medical exemptions.

SB 674, filed by Senator Lauren Book on 10/25/2019, would require a minimum percentage of all children enrolled in a child care facility to be vaccinated.

Both bills, if passed, would become effective on 7/1/2020. (Text Status and History:
SB 64 https://www.flsenate.gov/Session/Bill/2020/64, SB 674 www.flsenate.gov/Session/Bill/2020/674 ) 

We have seen what happens to families in California and New York where religious exemptions have been removed and medical exemptions are reviewed and restricted. SB 64 should be opposed strongly and defeated as it is unnecessary, it repeals religious rights and interferes with the individual doctor patient relationship. SB 674 will have the same effect on some children in child care.

The 2020 legislative session in Florida convened today on January 14, 2020. It is very important that families who support the religious and medical exemptions to state mandated vaccines get out ahead of Senator Book’s attack on vaccine exemptions and talk to their legislators and like-minded families right away as the Florida legislative session moves quickly!

ACTION REQUIRED:

1. Contact your Florida state senator and state representative and respectfully ask them to oppose SB 64 and SB 674 in the 2020 legislative session.
   1. As soon as possible, schedule an in-person meeting with your state senator and representative to express to them how important it is to your family to have religious and unrestricted medical exemptions available. Share your vaccine reaction, denial of medical care, and harassment or discrimination stories. Tell YOUR story. More talking points are listed below.
   2. Email your state senator and representative also using their preferred method of contact (see d.)
   3. Call your state senator and representative and ask them to vote no on SB 64 and SB 674.
   4. Legislative contact information: you can login to the NVIC Advocacy Portal at https://NVICAdvocacy.org, click on the “State Teams” tab and then “My State,” and your elected officials are automatically posted on the right side of the page. You can click on their name to display contact information and social media accounts that you can follow. You can also find your representatives here and senators here.
       
2. Register for and login to the NVIC Advocacy Portal OFTEN to check for updates. We review bills and make updates daily. Bills can change many times over the legislative process and your timely visits, calls, and emails directed at the correct legislators are critical to this process. Even though the Florida legislature is not currently in session, you can see how this is important because bills are already being filed.
    
3. Please copy this for family and friends and ask them to register for the NVIC Advocacy Portal at https://NVICAdvocacy.org and share their concerns with their legislators as well. By registering, they will get email action alert updates.
    
4. Please forward any legislative responses you receive or a summary of your meetings to our Florida State Director Toni and our Florida affiliated group Health Freedom Florida at [email protected].

ADDITIONAL TALKING POINTS

OPPOSE SB 64, by Senator Lauren Book. SB 64 would eliminate the religious exemption to vaccines required for public and private school children and add a new section of law requiring the Board of Medicine and the Board of Osteopathic Medicine to create a medical exemption review panel would review and be able to revoke medical exemptions. SB 64 repeals religious freedoms and interferes with the doctor patient relationship.

OPPOSE SB 674, by Senator Lauren Book. SB 674 would require the Department of Children and Families to include in licensure standards for child care facilities a minimum percentage of children enrolled in a facility who must have received immunizations. The Department would be able to set the percentage, which could be anything, even 100%. SB 674 makes one child’s religious rights and medical necessities subjective and dependent on whether or not other children exercise those rights and protections. SB 674, if passed, would be state sponsored segregation as it would eliminate the ability of only some babies and young children from using all vaccine exemptions in their preferred child care facility resulting in their exclusion.

Vaccination rates for Florida school children are already high and exemption numbers are already low. Kindergarten vaccination rates for all required vaccines including measles and pertussis containing vaccines are 93.8% and 7^th grade rates are 96.3%. Out of 210,607 kindergarten students there are only 6,472 religious exemptions and 828 medical exemptions. Out of 243,835 7^th graders, there are only 4,217 religious exemptions and 959 medical exemptions. (https://www.floridahealth.gov/statistics-and-data/immunization-coverage-surveys-reports/state-surveys.html)

Exemption rates are being misrepresented. An expanded bloated vaccine schedule is not accounted for in claims of rising of exemption numbers. Having an exemption doesn’t mean unvaccinated. Children today receive 69 doses of vaccines for 16 different viral and bacterial illnesses which more than doubles the government childhood schedule of 34 doses of 11 different vaccines in the year 2000. A vaccine exemption is filed regardless of whether the exemption is filed for one dose or all doses. 35 doses and 5 more unique vaccines have been added to the schedule in the last 20 years leading to more possibilities for an exemption. Don’t be fooled by those who incorrectly assume a student with an exemption is unvaccinated as most students with exemptions are partially vaccinated.

Personal religious beliefs are included in rights granted by the U.S. and Florida Constitutions. There have been unsubstantiated claims including by the bill author that parents in Florida are misusing religious exemptions. Those who are asserting this think that one has to belong to a recognized or organized religion to have constitutionally protected religious beliefs. This is not true. Personally held sincere religious beliefs are protected as well. Many families who experience trauma turn to closer to religion. Vaccine reactions and deaths are traumatic. 

Vaccine exemptions need to be expanded and preserved for many vaccines in the future. America’s biopharmaceutical research companies are developing more than 260 vaccines. The U.S. Vaccine Market alone was $36.45 billion in 2018, and is expected to reach $50.42 billion by 2023. This is a very powerful industry with lots of resources to lobby and influence policy to remove parental rights to be able to delay or decline a vaccine. The industry benefits financially from forced use.

Vaccines cause injuries and deaths for some and manufactures and doctors have no liability. The United States Government has paid out more than $4 billion dollars to vaccine victims through the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (VICP). The law passed by Congress in 1986 establishing the VICP along with the 2011 Supreme Court Decision BRUESEWITZ ET AL. v. WYETH LLC, FKA WYETH, INC., ET AL shield vaccines manufacturers and the doctors who administer vaccines from liability for vaccine injuries and deaths. As of July 1, 2019, there have been 1,274 claims filed in the federal Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (VICP) for injuries and deaths following just measles vaccination, for 82 deaths and 1,192 serious injuries.

State health and education agencies already have broad unrestricted statutory powers (Education Code 1003.22) to adopt rules concerning vaccination including adding more vaccine mandates, enforcing a schedule, and excluding students from attendance in a time of declared emergency.

Sincerely,

NVIC Advocacy Team
National Vaccine Information Center
https://NVIC.org and https://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 https://NVICAdvocacy.org, a website dedicated to this sole purpose and provided as a free public service by NVIC.