Fw: [PROVE] URGENT ACTION ALERT! Oppose Mandatory Vaccine Tracking S

[Guest guest]

[PROVE] URGENT ACTION ALERT! Oppose Mandatory Vaccine Tracking S

URGENT ACTION NEEDED

Oppose MANDATORY Computerized Vaccine Tracking System Language in SB 1237!

Dear PROVE Texas Members and Texas Parents,

The Texas Department of Health and some doctors want to track your children's

immunization records in a state operated computer registry without your consent!

Thanks to the hard work and dedication of parents, the current law is one of the

most protective of parental and medical privacy rights in the country. It

requires doctors and insurance companies to obtain OPT-IN written informed

consent of the parent before releasing a child's immunization records and it

also requires the Texas Department of Health to obtain OPT-IN written informed

consent of the parent before the child's immunization record is entered into the

registry.

But one senator, some doctors, and the health department who view parental and

medical privacy rights as a burden, want to undue all that with a bill that

would allow doctors and insurance companies to dump your child's private record

to the Texas Department of Health en masse without parental consent for the

purpose of tracking and enforcing an overzealous and inflexible state

immunization schedule. Under SB 1237, a parent would have the right to opt-out

of the registry only by writing to the Health Department which would cause the

child to be entered into another state health department government file of

" non-consenters. " The registry is accessible to all immunization providers, all

schools, and all local and state health officials.

If you are new to this issue and don't fully understand why killing this bill is

so important, please visit http://www.vaccineinfo.net/txregistry/outline.htm and

http://www.vaccineinfo.net/nationalregistry/nationalindex.htm for a complete

history of the abuses and dangers of the Texas Immunization Tracking system and

government immunization tracking systems in general.

We have been given a very good indication that SB 1237 will be scheduled for a

public hearing this Thursday 5/03/01. It is important that you reserve it to

come to Austin if you can, and I will post the details by Monday evening once we

get a confirmation. Not only do we need your opposition for SB 1237, we also

need a lot of our supporters on hand at the hearing to be available to help

counter the efforts by overzealous doctors and health officials to undue other

parental rights issues regarding immunizations.

If you think it is hard to protect your child from a vaccine that is either

dangerous or unnecessary now, if this bill passes, your child's information will

be permanently held in one of two databases at the Texas Department of Health

– either the registry itself or in a file of " non-consenters " and there will

be NOTHING you can legally do to have it deleted.

Originally, this bill was going to contain a conscientious exemption for

vaccination, but the staff of the senate sponsor have confirmed that even this

one positive provision will be stripped out with a committee substitute at the

time of the hearing.

There some urgent ACTION ITEMS we need you to complete. It will not take long,

and it will be a huge help! See expanded details below.

Summary:

1) CALL YOUR OWN STATE SENATOR IMMEDIATELY

2) CALL THE MEMBERS OF THE SENATE HEALTH HUMAN SERVICES COMMITTEE IMMEDIATELY

3) EMAIL AND FAX LETTERS TO THE SENATE HUMAN SERVICES COMMITTEE MEMBERS ASAP (by

5/2)

4) FAX AND EMAIL A COPY OF YOUR LETTER TO YOUR OWN SENATOR AND REPRESENTATIVE

5) EMAIL A COPY OF YOUR LETTER OF OPPOSITION TO SB 1237 TO PROVE

6) MAKE SURE YOU ARE ON OUR EMAIL LIST TO STAY UPDATED

Expanded Details:

1.) CALL YOUR OWN STATE SENATOR IMMEDIATELY

To find out who your state senator and state representative are and what their

Austin office phone numbers are, link to:

http://www.capitol.state.tx.us/fyi/fyi.htm

CALL your Senator's office and introduce yourself, say where you

are calling from, IDENTIFY YOURSELF AS A CONSTITUENT and ask to speak with the

legislative aid who is handling health and immunization bills.

Introduce yourself to the aid identifying yourself as a constituent. Explain in

your own words that you are calling specifically to ask your senator to talk to

all the health committee members that he/she can to relay your opposition to the

proposed changes to the immunization tracking system contained in SB 1237 by

Senator Mike Moncrief. Tell the aid the bill will most likely be heard on 5/3 in

the Health and Human Services Committee. Give some background and pick a few

points to discuss:

* Thanks to the hard work and dedication of parents 4 years ago, the current

immunization registry law is one of the most protective of parental and medical

privacy rights in the country. It requires doctors and insurance companies to

obtain OPT-IN written informed consent of the parent before releasing a child's

immunization records and it also requires the Texas Department of Health to

obtain OPT-IN written informed consent of the parent before the child's

immunization record is entered into the registry. The registry needs to stay

like this!

* SB 1237 attempts to undue these protections by ignoring ethical informed

consent rights of parents by seeking to give the Texas Department of Health the

big brother like authority to collect ALL minor children's immunization records

from the child's doctor and insurance company without parental consent.

* The burden would then be placed on the parent to write to the health

department to keep the child out of the registry which would then place the

child in a TDH government file of " not-consenters " . This is wrong.

* The Senate overwhelmingly passed (30:1) Senator Jane 's medical privacy

bill SB 11 which requires OPT-IN informed consent before medical records can be

released. Children of this state deserve the same protections, not less!

* Current Texas Immunization laws ignore already ignore parental and human

rights – a parent cannot delay or decline a vaccine they think is either

harmful or unnecessary for their child – this registry change would make it so

much worse for parents trying to protect their children because all children

would be tracked in one file or another and the information will be used to deny

insurance or health care. (tell stories of being kicked out of doctors offices,

insurance plans, and schools for not giving all doses of all vaccines.)

* Children in Texas get as many as 39 doses of 12 different vaccines by school

entry [ breakout for your knowledge: 5-DPT, 4-Polio, 3-Hep B, 4- Hib, 2-Hep A,

1-Chicken Pox (varicella), 2-MMR, 4-pnuemococcal]. Over 200 new vaccines are in

development and candidates for mandates. These records should remain private

between you and your family doctor !

* Some of these vaccines are not safe or necessary for all children (give your

own examples)

* MOST IMPORTANT - If your child has had a vaccine reaction, tell them about

what this has done to your child and family and that you've already trusted the

system once and look where it got you. You are strongly opposed to having your

records released by your doctor or insurance company without your consent,

especially to the state health department for government monitoring. If you

trusted the Texas Department of Health, you would have opted into their registry

system already, but you haven't because you don't.

2) CALL THE MEMBERS OF THE SENATE HEALTH HUMAN SERVICES COMMITTEE IMMEDIATELY

Use the same points from above that you chose to tell your own senator.

Senator Bernsen (512) 463-0104

Senator Carona (512) 463-0116

Senator Gallegos (512) 463-0106

Senator (512) 463-0110

Senator Madla (512) 463-0119

* Senator Mike Moncrief (512) 463-0112

Senator Jane (512) 463-0109

Senator Eliot Shapleigh (512) 463-0129

Senator Sibley (512) 463-0122

*Senator Moncrief is the bill sponsor, so don't expect his staff to have much of

a listening for this – but he still needs to hear from everyone.

3) FAX AND EMAIL LETTERS TO THE SENATE HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES COMMITTEE

MEMBERS ASAP (before end of day 5/2)

Please really try to fax AND email letters. Hand sign faxed copies if possible.

If you can't get through on the senator's direct fax line, the Senate general

fax is (512) 463-0695.

Senator Bernsen Fax (512) 463-6373

Senator Carona Fax (512) 463-3135

Senator Gallegos Fax (512) 463-0346

Senator Fax (512) 463-7003

Senator Madla Fax (512) 463-1017

Senator Mike Moncrief Fax (512) 475-3745

Senator Jane Fax (512) 463-0923

Senator Eliot Shapleigh Fax (512) 463-0218

Senator Sibley Fax (512) 475-3729

Send electronic copies of your letters to:

david.bernsen@...; john.carona@...;

mario,gallegos@...; chris.harris@...;

frank.madla@...; mike.moncrief@...;

jane.nelson@...; eliot.shapleigh@...;

david.sibley@...

SAMPLE LETTER

------------------------

[YOUR NAME AND ADDRESS]

[DATE]

The Honorable [sENATOR'S NAME]

P.O. Box 12068

Austin, TX 78711-2068

Dear Senator [sENATOR'S NAME],

Please oppose SB 1237 by Senator Mike Moncrief.

[PERSONALIZED BODY -

THE MOST IMPORTANT THING YOU CAN DO IS KEEP THE TOTAL LETTER LENGTH TO ONE PAGE

OR LESS TO MAKE SURE IT IS READ.

CUSTOMIZE SOME OF THE POINTS INCLUDED ABOVE IN THE PHONE SCRIPT INTO YOUR OWN

WORDS TO EMPHASISE WHAT IS MOST IMPORTANT TO YOU.

BE RESPECTFUL AND POSITIVE IN YOUR CHOICES OF WORDS]

Sincerely,

[YOUR NAME – FOLLOWED BY A HAND SIGNATURE]

4) MAIL AND EMAIL A COPY OF YOUR LETTER TO YOUR OWN SENATOR AND REPRESENTATIVE

MAIL a hand-signed copy of your letter to you own personal senator at the

general senate address on the sample letter. Because time is short for mail,

also email your letter to your senator directly by using the form for the email

address as your senator's firstname.lastname@...

For safe measure since time left this session is short and in case the bill gets

to the house, also mail and email a copy to your state representative. The

mailing address for all representatives is P.O. Box 2910, Austin, TX 78768-2910.

The email address takes the same form where you can just insert the first and

last name of you representative firstname.lastname@...

5) EMAIL A COPY OF YOUR LETTER OF OPPOSITION FOR SB 1237 TO PROVE.

So that we can keep a record of opposition, please email a copy of your letter

that you've sent to your senator to PROVE at testimony@.... Place

the words " OPPOSE SB 1237 " in the subject line.

6) MAKE SURE YOU ARE ON OUR EMAIL LIST TO STAY UPDATED

If you are not currently on our email list because you've gotten this alert from

a friend, please subscribe so you can stay updated how you can help if the bill

gets out of committee. You can subscribe at

http://www.vaccineinfo.net/subscribe.htm. You will also receive news about

vaccine safety and vaccine informed consent issues.

If you are planning on coming to Austin, we need everyone to be prepared to give

testimony, even if it is as simple as standing up and saying you are opposed to

the bill and then sitting down. Oral testimony will be limited to 3 minutes and

our goal will be to make sure that we show respect to the committee and nobody

gets called for exceeding the time limit.

Thank you for everything.

Please get busy – we need everybody to pull together to stop SB 1237!

Sincerely,

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Dawn

PROVE(Parents Requesting Open Vaccine Education)

prove@... (email)

http://vaccineinfo.net/ (web site)

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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.

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

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