The Oregon Legislature is considering a bill that would further restrict philosophical and religious exemptions to vaccination for your child.
Current vaccine exemption law in Oregon allows for philosophical and religious exemptions with either:
- A signature from a health care practitioner verifying that the health care practitioner has reviewed with the parent information about the risks and benefits of immunization that is consistent with information published by the CDC and the contents of the vaccine educational module approved by the Oregon Health Authority, or
- A certificate verifying that the parent has completed a vaccine educational module approved by the Oregon Health Authority.
HB 2783 would change the law to require both a signature from a health care practitioner AND completion of the module.
Restricting philosophical and religious vaccine exemptions lays the groundwork for removing them completely. Recently, State Rep. Mitch Greenlick, D-Portland confirmed that he has ordered up a bill to eliminate both philosophical and religious exemptions completely. https://www.opb.org/news/article/measles-vaccination-exemption-law-oregon-greenlick/
Please help us STOP HB 2783 by calling your state legislators today! People should have the right to philosophical and religious vaccine exemptions without having to go through duplicative and burdensome steps.
Talking points, which explain more about the problems with HB 2783, are below the Take Action section.
TAKE ACTION
Contact your Oregon State Representatives and urge them to oppose HB 2783.
You can look up who represents you here: https://www.oregonlegislature.gov/FindYourLegislator/leg-districts.html
Calls are more effective than emails, and only take a few minutes.
Sample script:
“Hi, my name is ____ and I am a constituent. I am calling to ask Representative____ to oppose HB 2783, which would further burden people who assert a philosophical or religious objection to vaccination.
Oregon law already requires either a signature from a health care practitioner or completion of an educational module. HB 2783 would require both, which burdens parents with unnecessary and duplicative requirements. If the parents have taken the educational module approved by the Health Authority, why should they also have to go through those same materials all over again and ask for a health practitioner’s signature?
The duplicative requirements are clearly designed simply to make it harder for the parents, at the expense of their religious and individual freedom.
Under the current law the Oregon vaccination rate is currently at approximately 94%. There is no need to make it harder for people to assert philosophical or religious exemptions to vaccination.
I urge Representative _____ to oppose HB 2783.”
If you send an email, be sure to personalize it. You may wish to use a couple of the talking points below. Don’t copy all of them – just use them as ideas to help structure your own message.
TALKING POINTS for calls and emails:
- You oppose any legislation that would make it more difficult to obtain philosophical or religious exemptions to vaccination in Oregon. Oregon already has a stringent process for claiming exemptions, by requiring either a health practitioner’s signature or completion of an education module – there’s no justification to make it even harder.
- The Oregon vaccination rate is currently at approximately 94% for the 7 vaccines surveyed by the CDC. The existing philosophical and religious exemption does not threaten overall vaccination rates.
https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/66/wr/mm6640a3.htm
- This legislation requires parents to essentially seek permission from a medical professional for exercising their religious and philosophical beliefs, which is inappropriate. The educational module already ensures that parents have information on the risks and benefits of vaccines to consider in light of their religious and philosophical beliefs.
- The US Supreme Court recognizes vaccines to be “unavoidably unsafe” and to cause injury and death in some recipients. The US Government has paid out approximately $4 billion to the victims of vaccine injury. Hundreds of thousands have reported an adverse reaction to vaccination to VAERS. http://www.cdc.gov/vaccinesafety/ensuringsafety/monitoring/vaers/
- Vaccine makers and the healthcare providers who administer them bear zero liability for vaccine injuries and deaths. Vaccine makers have no incentive to make vaccines safe.
- 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. Thirty-five doses and 5 more unique vaccines have been added to the schedule in the last 15 years. Those supporting forced vaccination are being dishonest by not acknowledging the exploding vaccine schedule while sounding alarms over small increases in overall non-medical exemptions.
- The idea that unvaccinated individuals pose a health risk to others is unsupported in the medical literature. In fact, vaccinated individuals can pose greater risk to public health due to a process known as shedding. Scientific evidence demonstrates that individuals vaccinated with live virus vaccines such as MMR (measles, mumps and rubella), rotavirus, chicken pox, shingles and influenza can shed the virus for many weeks or months afterwards. https://www.westonaprice.org/studies-show-that-vaccinated-individuals-spread-disease/
MORE INFORMATION
View BH 2783 here: https://olis.leg.state.or.us/liz/2019R1/Measures/Overview/HB2783
There are several other bills that currently need either your support or opposition in Oregon.
Please visit the The National Vaccine Information Center (NVIC) to learn more. https://nvicadvocacy.org/members/Home.aspx
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