UPDATE!!! [PROVE] ACTION and UPDATE OPPOSE SB1107 and HB1816 Meningitis Vaccine Mandate

March 23, 2011

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Date: Wed, Mar 23, 2011 at 1:46 AMSubject: Re: [PROVE] ACTION and UPDATE OPPOSE SB1107 and HB1816 Meningitis Vaccine MandatePROVE-TX@...

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IMPORTANT UPDATE WE HAVE JUST LEARNED THIS EVENING FROM A COMMITTEE MEMBER IN THE SENATE THAT THE BILL HAS BEEN PULLED DOWN FROM THE HEARING IN THE MORNING. THIS INFORMATION WAS NOT UPDATED ONLINE WHICH STILL SHOWS THE BILL AS PART OF THE HEARING. While we don’t know why, it gives us all a little more time to still contact committee members and educate them while we are waiting for it to be rescheduled. So please still contact members of both committees concentrating on the House Public Health committee since they are likely to vote on HB1816 soon. If you still end up down there at the capitol, please stop by committee members’ offices and talk to an aid. Thank You!

Dawn and Rex_____________________________________________________________________________________________

Dear PROVE Texas Members,ACTION ALERT: OPPOSE SB1107 and HB1846 in Texas

SB 1107 by Senator , which would require ALL students in Texas entering college to be vaccinated for meningitis in order to be allowed to attend school, is set for a public hearing this Wednesday morning in the Senate Higher Education Committee at 8:00 am and we need your calls, emails, faxes and testimony against it.

The house companion to this bill, HB 1816 by Representative Charlie , was heard last week in the House Public Health Committee and has not been voted on yet. PROVE member Virginia Young and her 7th grade daughter who suffered a severe reaction to the meningitis vaccine were among those testifying against the bill. You can watch the hearing at http://www.house.state.tx.us/video-audio/committee-broadcasts/committee-archives/player/?session=82 & committee=410 & ram=11031608410 and scroll in to 15 minutes 40 seconds. The bill has not yet been voted on and needs your calls, emails, and faxes against it as well.

The testimony in support of this mandate was based almost entirely on emotion. In the rare instances when meningitis becomes invasive, it can be terrible for those affected, however a policy backed by the force of law, removing an individual’s right of informed consent to an invasive medical procedure that carries the risk of injury or death, demands a significantly stronger foundation.

We’ve learned some new information from the Texas Department of State Health Services (DSHS) that now frankly not only further discredits these bills, but substantially challenges any current mandatory use of meningitis vaccines in Texas. The table below, provided by DSHS, shows the total Texas cases in ALL age ranges (not just college age). In 2009, there were only 46 confirmed cases in the ENTIRE state. There are over 25 million people in Texas, which means there is roughly 1 meningitis case per one half of a million people of all ages (not just college kids).

The table from DSHS also reveals more troubling information. Serogroup B infections are some of the more prevalent in Texas, 18/63 in 2008 and 11/46 in 2009, and the vaccine is useless here because there are NO Vaccines available in the US that protect against infections from serogroup B. What is equally disturbing is looking at the combined prevalence of infections attributed to the Y and W-135 serogroups in Texas, 21/63 in 2008 and 20/46 in 2009, is the fact that there has been no testing to determine the efficacy of the vaccine against infections from these serogroups. The vaccine package insert published by the vaccine manufacturer states " No studies have been conducted to evaluate the efficacy of meningococcal polysaccharide vaccines against disease due to serogroups Y and W-135. " http://www.fda.gov/BiologicsBloodVaccines/Vaccines/ApprovedProducts/ucm230717.htm#1

This information highlights two very important facts that legislators need to immediately pay attention to and that we need your help to share with them:

1) Invasive meningococcal disease is incredibly rare in Texas affecting only 1 out of a half a million people from every age and these bills target only college age kids

2) The Meningitis vaccine is extremely ineffective preventing this disease in Texas

Texas 2008/2009 Meningococcal Disease cases by Serogroup*

Serogroup

2008

2009

Confirmed

Probable

Confirmed

Probable

B **

18

0

11

0

C

13

0

9

0

W-135 ***

2

0

5

0

Y ***

19

0

15

0

Unknown

11

7

6

7

Total Cases

63

7

46

7* Numbers provided to PROVE by the Department of State Health Services

** Serogroup B not covered by ANY vaccine available in the US*** NO STUDIES have been conducted to evaluate the efficacy of the Meningitis vaccine against Serogroups W135 and Y http://www.fda.gov/BiologicsBloodVaccines/Vaccines/ApprovedProducts/ucm230717.htm#1

We need your help coming to the hearing this Wednesday and immediately contacting the legislators listed below to urge their opposition to SB1107 and HB1816. Specific instructions are below. Thank you.

Sincerely,Dawn and RexParents Requesting Open Vaccine Education (PROVE)http://vaccineinfo.net/

TXDirector@...

1) Call, email, and/or fax the Members of the Senate Higher Education Committee asking them to OPPOSE SB1107 which has it’s hearing in the Senate Higher Education Committee on 3/23/11. Talking points and sample letter format are posted below. Still contact them even if you get this alert after the hearing in case they don’t vote right away.

Member

PHONE

FAX

EMAIL FORM

Sen. Judith Zaffirini ©

512-463-0121

512-475-3738

http://www.senate.state.tx.us/75r/senate/members/dist21/dist21.htm#form

Sen. Birdwell (VC)

512-463-0122

512-475-3729

http://www.senate.state.tx.us/75r/senate/members/dist22/dist22.htm#form (scroll down to bottom)

Sen. Duncan

512-463-0128

512-463-2424

http://www.senate.state.tx.us/75r/senate/members/dist28/dist28.htm#Form

Sen. Joan Huffman

512-463-0117

512-463-0639

http://www.senate.state.tx.us/75r/senate/members/dist17/dist17.htm#form

Sen. Kirk

512-463-0114

512-463-5949

http://www.senate.state.tx.us/75r/senate/members/dist14/dist14.htm#form

Sen. Jeff Wentworth

512-463-0125

512-463-7794

http://www.senate.state.tx.us/75r/senate/members/dist25/dist25.htm#form

Sen. Royce West

512-463-0123

512-463-0299

http://www.senate.state.tx.us/75r/senate/members/dist23/dist23.htm#form

2) Call, email, and/or fax the Members of the House Public Health Committee asking them to OPPOSE HB1816 which had it’s hearing in the House Public Health Committee on 3/16/11 and has not been voted on yet and will be voted on shortly. If you have already contacted them, please do it again with the new information. Talking points and sample letter format are posted below.

Member

PHONE

FAX

EMAIL FORM

Rep. Lois W. Kolkhorst ©

512-463-0600

512-463-5240

http://www.house.state.tx.us/members/member-page/email/?district=13 & session=82

Rep. Elliott Naishtat (VC)

512-463-0668

512-463-8022

http://www.house.state.tx.us/members/member-page/email/?district=49 & session=82

Rep. Carol Alvarado

512-463-0732

512-463-4781

http://www.house.state.tx.us/members/member-page/email/?district=145 & session=82

Rep. Garnet

512-463-0524

512-463-1260

http://www.house.state.tx.us/members/member-page/email/?district=147 & session=82

Rep.

512-463-0389

512-463-1374

http://www.house.state.tx.us/members/member-page/email/?district=134 & session=82

Rep.

512-463-0578

512-463-1482

http://www.house.state.tx.us/members/member-page/email/?district=41 & session=82

Rep. King

512-463-0718

512-463-0994

http://www.house.state.tx.us/members/member-page/email/?district=71 & session=82

Rep. Jodie Laubenberg

512-463-0186

512-463-5896

http://www.house.state.tx.us/members/member-page/email/?district=89 & session=82

Rep. Schwertner

512-463-0309

512-463-0049

http://www.house.state.tx.us/members/member-page/email/?district=20 & session=82

Rep. Vicki Truitt

512-463-0690

512-477-5770

http://www.house.state.tx.us/members/member-page/email/?district=98 & session=82

Rep. Zerwas

512-463-0657

512-236-0713

http://www.house.state.tx.us/members/member-page/email/?district=28 & session=82

3) Plan on attending the public hearing to OPPOSE SB1107 on Wednesday March 23rd at 8:00 am in the Senate Higher Education Committee, Capitol Extension Hearing Room E1.012 in the Capitol Extension Building underground on the 1st floor, in Austin TX. http://www.tspb.state.tx.us/spb/plan/Map.htm

Please RSVP to TXDirector@... and let us know if you can commit to attend so we can get you more information and keep you in the loop. We need people to give 2-3 minutes of concise respectful testimony at the hearing but if you just want to come and don’t want to testify that is ok. We also need some people to show their opposition by just showing up and attending, signing in at the hearing room in opposition to the bill, and supporting those who do get up to testify in opposition to SB1107. If you are preparing oral or written testimony, please come prepared with 20 copies of your written testimony to turn in to the committee clerk when you sign in to be a part of the public record.

4) Contact your own Texas State Representative and Senator asking them to Oppose HB1816 and companion SB1107. You can register and log on to the Texas State Team Page of the NVIC Advocacy Portal on http://NVICAdvocacy.org to view talking points (also listed below at the bottom) and can be linked directly to your personal state legislators and their contact information or you can link to http://legis.state.tx.us and use the state form on the right side of the screen to enter your address information to have your state legislators displayed.

5) Stay connected through the legislative session. If this alert was forwarded to you by a friend, please make sure we can continue to provide you with more information by signing up for PROVE email alerts at http://vaccineinfo.net and also please sign up for NVIC’s Advocacy Portal at http://NVICAdvocacy.org. This will allow you to view current legislative information for Texas on our Texas state team page, receive important email updates of our efforts to expand and protect vaccine exemptions in your state and be automatically linked to your personal legislators and their contact information when you log into the site.

Phone Calls: · Introduce yourself and identify where you are calling from (if it is your rep or senator identify yourself as a constituent)

· Ask that they please oppose HB1816 and Companion SB1107 and let them know that these bills would require ALL students in Texas entering college – not just those living in a dorm – to be vaccinated for meningitis in order to be allowed to attend school.

· Pick a couple of the talking points below to inform them why. Try to include why this is important to your family personally if you can in one or two sentences.

· Thank them.

Above all, always be polite. If they have an opposing view to yours, don’t look at it as opposition. Instead view it as an opportunity to start a relationship and understand that they have been repeatedly contacted by those who stand to gain financially if this passes and it is up to us to be persistent and provide more information to undo the biased and often inaccurate information they most likely have received to date.

Faxes and Emails:· Address it to: The Honorable (Representative or Senator’s Name)

· Have the first line in your letter either bold, underlined or highlighted asking them to Oppose HB1816 and Companion SB1107.

· Pick a couple of the talking points below to inform them why. You can cut and paste the chart above designating serogroup prevalence in Texas if you like.

· Try to include why this is important to your family personally if you can in a few sentences at the beginning.

· Include your mailing address and contact information in your closing.

· This should be NO LONGER than 1 side of a piece of paper.

Again, please keep your tone polite and informative while expressing your concerns. If this is going to a member of the House Public Health Committee, let them know the HB1816 is/had a public hearing on Wed. March 16th and that we are requesting that they vote no.

Sample Letter with Talking Points to Oppose HB1816 and SB1107:You are welcome to use part or all of this letter or just use it to get ideas or even write your own. Please just make sure you personalize it by letting your legislators know why this is important to you. Here is some recent media coverage of this issue,

http://www.texastribune.org/texas-education/higher-education/battle-brewing-over-mandatory-meningitis-vaccine/

[DATE]The Honorable Firstname Lastname,I urge you to OPPOSE HB1816 and SB1107 which uses the force of law to mandate the meningitis vaccine for all incoming college students because a meningitis vaccine mandate is unnecessary, the current vaccines are not effective, and there are outstanding safety questions surrounding the use of this vaccine.

A Meningitis Vaccine Mandate is UNNECESSARYThe meningitis vaccine and information about it is already available to every college student

The Texas Education Code, in section 51.9191, already requires institutes of higher education to not only provide the following information relating to bacterial meningitis to new students, but it also requires institutes of higher education to make a reasonable attempt to obtain a written confirmation that the student has received it:

(1) the symptoms of the disease, how it may be diagnosed, and its possible consequences if untreated;(2) how the disease is transmitted, how it may be prevented, and the relative risk of contracting the disease for students of institutions of higher education;

(3) the availability and effectiveness of vaccination against and treatment for the disease, including how students of the institution may seek vaccination or treatment and whether a vaccination is available from the student health center, and a brief description of the risks and possible side effects of vaccination; and

(4) sources of additional information regarding the disease and include the telephone numbers of the student health center, if there is a student health center, and the appropriate office of the Texas Department of Health.

http://www.statutes.legis.state.tx.us/Docs/ED/htm/ED.51.htm#51.9191If a student is not interested in the vaccine even after the state has required informed consent in current law, the state needs to leave them alone and not try and force them with a mandate. Proponents of this bill want to instead use the force of law to mandate the vaccine for all students.

Invasive meningococcal disease is very rare, deaths exceedingly rareAccording to the Texas Department of State Health Services, the number of confirmed cases of Neisseria meningitis in all of Texas were 55 in 2005, 37 in 2006, 52 in 2007, 63 in 2008, and 46 in 2009.

http://www.dshs.state.tx.us/idcu/disease/meningococcal_invasive/ According to the Texas Medical Association, in the entire United States, at most 15 college students have died from it. http://www.texmed.org/Template.aspx?id=16418 & terms=meningitis

Most college age students are already are naturally protected without vaccinationAccording to " Prevention of Meningococcal Disease " by Pierce Gardner, MD published in the New England Journal of Medicine: " Colonization induces an immunologic response to N. Meningitides (as do certain organisms in the enteric flora that have cross-reacting antigens), so that by young adulthood, the majority of people in the United States have measurable antibody to the pathogenic serogroups of N. Meningitides (A, B, C, Y, and W-135). "

https://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/full/355/14/1466Meningitis is Not Casually Contagious

According to the CDC: " Fortunately, none of the bacteria that cause meningitis are as contagious as things like the common cold or the flu. Also, the bacteria are not spread by casual contact or by simply breathing the air where a person with meningitis has been. " http://www.cdc.gov/meningitis/about/transmission.html

Current Meningitis Vaccines are NOT PROVEN EFFECTIVEVaccines Missing Prevalent B Serogroup

According to " Prevention of Meningococcal Disease " by Pierce Gardner, MD published in the New England Journal of Medicine: " A major limitation of these vaccines is that neither provides immunity against serogroup B, which is responsible for approximately one third of cases of meningococcal disease. " https://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/full/355/14/1466

Vaccine efficacy not tested for prevalent Y or W-135 SerogroupsAccording to the vaccine package insert published by the vaccine manufacturer: " No studies have been conducted to evaluate the efficacy of meningococcal polysaccharide vaccines against disease due to serogroups Y and W-135. "

http://www.fda.gov/BiologicsBloodVaccines/Vaccines/ApprovedProducts/ucm230717.htm#1

Questionable Duration of ProtectionAccording to the vaccine package insert published by the vaccine manufacturer: " The duration of protection following immunization is not known. "

http://www.fda.gov/downloads/BiologicsBloodVaccines/Vaccines/ApprovedProducts/UCM201349.pdf

Safety Questions Raised by Current Meningitis VaccinesAcknowledged Serious Side Effects

All 3 current meningitis vaccines carry warnings for Guillain-Barré syndrome, a serious and devastating neurological disease.Menactra: http://www.fda.gov/downloads/BiologicsBloodVaccines/Vaccines/ApprovedProducts/UCM131170.pdf

Menomune: http://www.fda.gov/BiologicsBloodVaccines/Vaccines/ApprovedProducts/ucm230717.htm#1

Manveo: http://www.fda.gov/downloads/BiologicsBloodVaccines/Vaccines/ApprovedProducts/UCM201349.pdf

Incomplete Safety TestingAll 3 current meningitis vaccines have not been evaluated in animals for their carcinogenic or mutagenic potentials or for impairment of fertility.

Menactra: http://www.fda.gov/downloads/BiologicsBloodVaccines/Vaccines/ApprovedProducts/UCM131170.pdf

Menomune: http://www.fda.gov/BiologicsBloodVaccines/Vaccines/ApprovedProducts/ucm230717.htm#1

Manveo: http://www.fda.gov/downloads/BiologicsBloodVaccines/Vaccines/ApprovedProducts/UCM201349.pdf

No Liability or Accountability for Vaccine ManufacturersOn February 22, 2011, the US Supreme Court shielded vaccine manufacturers from all liability for vaccine injuries and deaths even if the manufacturer could have made a vaccine safer.

http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/10pdf/09-152.pdf In conclusion, I believe strongly that not only should legislators strongly reject HB1816 and SB1107, I would like to request that you consider supporting repealing all mandates currently forcing meningococcal vaccine use in Texas through law and by rule. The availability of vaccine exemptions in Texas is no excuse for bad policy. Please vote no on HB1816 and SB1107.

Sincerely,[Your NameYour AddressYour phone and/or email]

PROVE provides information on vaccines, and immunization policies and practices that affect the children and adults of Texas. Our mission is to prevent vaccine injury and death and to promote and protect the right of every person to make informed independent vaccination decisions for themselves and their family.

This information is not to be construed as medical OR legal advice.

March 23, 2011