When the 2015 legislative session started, House leaders had no interest in poking what they thought was a sleeping giant of an issue — childhood vaccinations.
But the giant refused to remain asleep. So, next week — just as the session is wrapping up for the year — the House will have that difficult debate.
“It was not a priority of the House, but it’s here,” House Speaker Shap Smith said Friday.
The issue is here because the Senate voted relatively late last month to remove the philosophical exemption that allows parents to opt out of vaccinations for their children. Senators attached the measure to a House bill that deals with other health records. From the House’s perspective, it appears more expedient to tackle the issue this year than to delay it until next year.
And while the House defeated a similar measure three years ago, sentiment has shifted. “Some people who were noes then are clearly yeses now,” said Rep. George Till (D-Jericho), the House’s only medical doctor, who strongly supports removing the exemption.
Among those who’ve changed their minds: House Health Care committee chair Bill Lippert (D-Hinesburg). He went from voting to keep the exemption three years ago to being on the fence to now leaning toward removing the exemption.
“We need to find ways to increase the level of vaccinations in Vermont,” Lippert said Friday after his committee took three days of emotional testimony on the matter. Lippert said he’s received a flood of emails and phone calls from people on both sides of the deeply divisive issue.
His committee has called a public hearing for 5:30-7:30 p.m. Monday at the Statehouse. The full House will likely vote on the issue Tuesday or possibly Wednesday, Lippert said.
The outcome is anybody’s guess, said House Majority Leader Sarah Copeland Hanzas (D-Bradford). “There’s a chance it could fail,” she said, noting that Democrats won’t urge members to vote one way or another.
Hanzas is personally wary of removing the exemption, arguing that education is a more effective way to increase vaccinations. She fears removing the exemption would alienate some parents. Smith, on the other hand, supports removing the exemption.
A report released this week indicates that efforts to educate parents, which legislators approved three years ago, aren’t working to persuade more to vaccinate their children.
The percentage of parents opting for exemptions or receiving provisional admittance to school for their children without vaccinations rose from 5.4 percent in 2011-12 to 6.1 percent in 2013-14, according to a report released this week by the Vermont Health Department. Vermont is among 20 states that allow philosophical exemptions. Forty-eight states, including Vermont, also allow religious exemptions.
Lippert’s committee fielded a firestorm of emotional testimony this week, including a celebrity visit from Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who argued that the government can’t be trusted to protect people from greedy pharmaceutical companies. The committee also heard from those who said keeping the philosophical exemption could kill their kids and others who said forcing their kids to get vaccinations could kill them.
Lippert said he expects that if the House votes to remove the exemption, it might delay the effective date for a year.
There may be alternatives. Rep. Anne Donahue (R-Northfield), a member of the House Health Care Committee, is proposing stricter rules for parents who want to choose a philosophical exemption. Under her plan, parents would have to sign a notarized affidavit affirming they have had an in-person consultation with a doctor about vaccinations and are seeking alternative medical treatment. Under a law passed in 2012, parents now have to sign a form saying they have reviewed materials about vaccinations to be eligible for the philosophical exemption.
“I am convinced from the testimony that it’s essential we increase the rate of vaccinations,” Donahue said.
State Health Commissioner Harry Chen said this week that he supports removing the philosophical exemption and would like legislators to act on it this year.
His boss, Gov. Peter Shumlin, is less eager. Shumlin said Friday he’d prefer to let educational efforts continue. But he said he doesn’t buy the notion that vaccinations are dangerous. He met with Kennedy when he visited, but said, “No, I did not tell RFK he’s full of hooey.”
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While the approval process is a corrupt to the core “good will gesture”, essentially, the manufacturers word that they believe it is safe, with no independent and unbiased testing at all on the part of the FDA and even worse, the Clinton era/error fast track approvals designed to increase profitability instead of safety, it will never, ever be used on my children.
While the entirety of the FDA is infested with the CEO’s, CFO’s & major shareholders of the pharmaceutical companies & former heads of Monsanto, that are making profits in the TRILLIONS, it will never be used on my children.
While the giant pharma companies are allowed to simply discard all research studies that showed anything but positive results when applying for approval and have zero liability for any and all damage caused by their products, it will never be used on my children.
Pass what laws you want, I will never comply. But I will certainly remember how you voted.
know your assumptions – you say GMO’s do not cause any issues in the human body, wrong, GMO’s have actually caused celiac disease.
Sad in today’s society how the majority of people believe everything they hear and read in the main stream media. Go outside main stream media and truly find out what is going on in today’s world. Take the blinders off people.
The Gates Foundation is being sued by 3 countries for forcing vaccinations on young children. Where in the main stream media do you see this information?
Many people, including many medical professionals, may not recognize an adverse health effect caused by a vaccine. Thus, current data on adverse health effects significantly underestimates actual vaccine injuries. Moreover, vaccine-injured people may not correctly attribute the cause of their illnesses to vaccination and may not seek appropriate medical care or receive compensation for vaccine-induced injury. Doctors should be trained to better recognize such adverse health effects. They should also know how to discern which people are more likely to suffer vaccine injury and thus prevent injuries. Legislators should recognize that medical professionals are not authorities in all aspects of medical science and should look to human exposure scientists for a more scientific view of children’s health profiles.
For example, doctors once promoted cigarette smoking for pregnant women might prefer to have low-birth weight babies, though we now have clear scientific consensus of many adverse health effects from “smoking for two.” Mass vaccination is worse than the thalidomide tragedy.
As you can hear from Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.’s many public testimonies (widely available), money and politics have played a role in vaccine research, and they influence research and decision-making about the adverse health effects of human exposures to many common pollutants. The Union of Concerned Scientists has recently shared this concern. Legislators should use the precautionary principle to prevent harm to the public from toxins and be wary of the industries that seek to dominate environmental health regulation.
It can be difficult to conduct or publish objective research, or pursue a career in human exposure science if your results show harm from vaccines and other profitable health products. See the movie “The Insider” for the Hollywood version of a researcher whose life was destroyed by industry actions after his work showed possible adverse health effects from chemical exposures.
“Vaccination adds to the heavy burden that today’s children bear from everyday toxic exposures (i.e. water that contains pesticides), through all routes of exposures (i.e. inhalation and injection), and to all types of pollutants, such as chemicals, nanoparticles, radiation, and genetically modified ingredients.”
You’ve made a medico-scientific assertion. What are your qualifications? Please cite any reputable, peer-reviewed studies you’ve read that support the proposition that “vaccination adds to the heavy burden that today’s children bear . . .” Please cite any such studies that demonstrate that vaccinations adversely add to or adversely interact with things in the environment and specifically cause harm to children. Please cite any such studies that children are in any way harmed by “genetically modified ingredients.”
Thank you.
I am concerned about the adverse health effects of toxic ingredients contained in vaccines: safer alternatives and real reform would better promote public health and protect vulnerable populations.
Legislation should reduce human exposures to pollutants, particularly to fetuses, babies, children, and immunocompromised individuals of all ages, who have unique vulnerabilities to the toxic ingredients in vaccines and other medical and consumer products. Most people in the United States have about 200 toxic exposures per day from consumer products, food, water and air, and building materials, among others. Vaccination adds to the heavy burden that today’s children bear from everyday toxic exposures (i.e. water that contains pesticides), through all routes of exposures (i.e. inhalation and injection), and to all types of pollutants, such as chemicals, nanoparticles, radiation, and genetically modified ingredients.
Yeah, nice try. Just as I suspected. Non-answer, evasion, and ad hominem nonsense. Why don’t you address the issue by supporting your accusation that Rep. Lippert or anyone else on the House Healthcare Committee has had his “pockets lined by Big Pharma.”
knowyourassumptions
Your feeble minded excuse for an argument is -case in point- as to the erasure of intellectual capacity by injecting neuro-toxic mercury & aluminum into the bloodstream. You really should lay off the stuff.
Mr. “Freedom”:
Show me which legislators on the House Healthcare Committee have had, per your accusation, their “pockets lined by Big Pharma.”
And, to quote you, “Don’t give me a bunch of imaginary what if scenarios & scare tactics about what might happen, I want facts and historical data” to back up your accusation.
Why don’t you exercise your “freedom to think” and consider the possibility that Mr. Lippert and many others in the legislature are proposing this bill because they believe it’s the right thing to do.
Mr. Lippert, why do we need to increase the vaccination rate? Show me where the need for this bill stems from. How many have suffered from the illness that can be directly tied to a lack of vaccination? Don’t give me a bunch of imaginary what if scenarios & scare tactics about what might happen, I want facts, historical data showing a need for this change, other than the lining of certain politicians pockets by big pharma.