(NaturalBlaze) WASHINGTON – Over 1 million petition signatures were delivered today by farming, consumer and environmental groups to the U.S. Department of Justice calling on the department to block the proposed merger of Bayer (BAYN) and Monsanto (MON). The signatures were delivered as two new reports revealed irreversible impacts from the merger on consumers and farmers.
Tuesday, Friends of the Earth, SumOfUs and the Open Markets Institute released an analysis, “Bayer-Monsanto Merger: Big Data, Big Agriculture, Big Problems“, which explores the implications of a combined Big Data, chemical and seed platform owned by Bayer and Monsanto and how it may impact competition and farmer choice. The release of the analysis coincides with a hearing Tuesday on technology in agriculture and data-driven farming in the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, & Transportation.
Consumer Federation of America released a report today, “Mega-Mergers in the U.S. Seed and Agrochemical Sector the Political Economy of Tight Oligopolies on Steroids and the Squeeze on Farmers and Consumers.” The report uses the concept of a “tight oligopoly on steroids” to examine how the unique characteristics of the Bayer-Monsanto merger magnify their market power in the seed/agrochemical sector and squeeze farmers and consumers.
On Tuesday, at the National Press Club, a panel of experts discussed the findings of these reports and explored the latest research indicating irreversible impacts from the merger to consumers, farmers and competition in the face of record-low commodity prices and struggles in rural America.
“The opportunity for every farmer, every business and every entrepreneur to have a fair shot at an open and just market is the core principle that built America and its people’s prosperity,” said Joe Maxwell, executive director of Organization for Competitive Markets. “Our government’s unwillingness to enforce our anti-monopoly laws and allow these mega-mergers to go forward is threatening our very democracy.”
“Bayer and Monsanto’s toxic mega-merger is a danger to our planet and everyone living on it,” said Erich Pica, president with Friends of the Earth. “Over 1 million Americans have called on the Department of Justice to protect our farmers and families from the consolidation of corporate power. Bayer and Monsanto’s merger is a direct threat to the future of people and our environment. The Justice Department must put on the breaks and stop this merger.”
“A merger between Bayer and Monsanto is a five-alarm threat to our food supply and to farmers around the world,” explained Angus Wong, Campaign Manager with SumOfUs. “This new mega corporation would be the world’s biggest seed maker and pesticide company, defying important antitrust protections, giving it unacceptable control over critical aspects of our food supply – undermining consumer choice and the freedom and stability of farmers worldwide.”
(Dr. Mercola) Human fertility is declining, and recent studies suggest conventional food may be a significant contributor to this disturbing trend, seen in both men and women. Pesticides have repeatedly been implicated in worsening fertility, and one of the most recent studies adds further support to this hypothesis.
The study,1,2 published in JAMA Internal Medicine, evaluated the influence of factors known to affect reproduction on the reproductive success of 325 women between the ages of 18 and 45 (mean age 35), who underwent in vitro fertilization (IVF). As reported by Time,3“The women in the study filled out detailed questionnaires about their diet, along with other factors that can affect IVF outcomes, like their age, weight and history of pregnancy and live births.”
High Pesticide Exposure Associated With Reduced IVF Success
Using a U.S. government database listing average pesticide residues on food, the researchers estimated each participant’s pesticide exposure based on their food questionnaires. On average, women with high pesticide exposure ate 2.3 servings per day of fruits, berries or vegetables known to have high amounts of pesticide residue. Those in the lowest quartile ate less than 1 serving of high-pesticide produce per day.
Compared to women with the lowest pesticide exposure, women with the highest amounts of pesticide exposure had an 18 percent lower IVF success rate. They were also 26 percent less likely to have a live birth if they did become pregnant. Using modeling, the researchers estimate that exchanging a single serving of high-pesticide produce per day for one with low pesticide load may increase the odds of pregnancy by 79 percent, and the odds of having a live birth by 88 percent.
Pesticide Regulations Fail to Protect Human Health
Senior investigator Dr. Jorge Chavarro, associate professor of nutrition and epidemiology at Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health told Time:4
“I was always skeptical that pesticide residues in foods would have any impact on health whatsoever. So, when we started doing this work a couple of years ago, I thought we were not going to find anything. I was surprised to see anything as far as health outcomes are concerned.I am now more willing to buy organic apples than I was a few months ago.”
Coauthor Dr. Yu-Han Chiu, research fellow in the department of nutrition at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, added:5
“There have been concerns for some time that exposure to low doses of pesticides through diet, such as those that we observed in this study, may have adverse health effects, especially in susceptible populations such as pregnant women and their fetus, and on children. Our study provides evidence that this concern is not unwarranted.”
As noted by Dr. Philip Landrigan, dean for global health and professor at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, in an accompanying commentary,6 “The observations made in this study send a warning that our current laissez-faire attitude toward the regulation of pesticides is failing us,” adding:
“We can no longer afford to assume that new pesticides are harmless until they are definitively proven to cause injury to human health. We need to overcome the strident objections of the pesticide manufacturing industry, recognize the hidden costs of deregulation, and strengthen requirements for both premarket testing of new pesticides, as well as postmarketing surveillance of exposed populations — exactly as we do for another class of potent, biologically active molecules — drugs.”
Male Fertility Rates Have Also Plunged
Research also shows sperm concentration and quality has dramatically declined in recent decades, and the evidence suggests endocrine disrupting chemicals are largely to blame. While there are many sources, pesticides, including glyphosate,7 are known endocrine disruptors as well. According to the first of two recently published papers,8 a meta-analysis of 185 studies and the largest of its kind, sperm counts around the world declined by more than 50 percent between 1973 and 2013, and continue to dwindle.
The most significant declines were found in samples from men in North America, Europe, Australia and New Zealand. (Men suspected of infertility, such as those attending IVF clinics, were excluded from the study.) Overall, men in these countries had a 52.4 percent decline in sperm concentration and a 59.3 percent decline in total sperm count (sperm concentration multiplied by the total volume of an ejaculate).
As it stands, half of the men in most developed nations are now near or at the point of being infertile. Lead author Dr. Hagai Levine, who called the results “profound” and “shocking,”9 worries that human extinction is a very real possibility, should the trend continue unabated.10
Microwave Exposure — Another Invisible Contributor to Infertility
Exposure to electromagnetic fields (EMFs) is another major contributor to infertility. In fact, I believe this may be the most significant factor for the observed decrease in male sperm count. Women’s reproductive organs are a bit more shielded, but can still be affected, just not as easily as men’s testicles.11 During World War II, it was well-known that radar operators could easily create sterility by exposing the groin to radar waves. Radar is microwave radiation and was the precursor to cellphones that use similar frequencies.
More modern research also suggests microwave radiation may play a significant role in male reproductive health. While evaluating studies showing you can radically reduce biological microwave damage using calcium channel blockers, Martin Pall, Ph.D., discovered a previously unknown mechanism of biological harm from microwaves emitted by cellphones and other wireless technologies.12
Embedded in your cell membranes are voltage gated calcium channels (VGCCs). It turns out these VGCCs are activated by microwaves, and when that happens, about 1 million calcium ions per second are released.
This massive excess of intracellular calcium then stimulates the release of nitric oxide (NO) inside your cell and mitochondria, which combines with superoxide to form peroxynitrite. Not only does peroxynitrites cause oxidative damage, they also create hydroxyl free radicals — the most destructive free radicals known to man.
Hydroxyl free radicals decimate mitochondrial and nuclear DNA, their membranes and proteins, resulting in mitochondrial dysfunction. During a 2013 children’s health expert panel on cellphone and Wi-Fi exposures,13 it was noted, “The testicular barrier, that protects sperm, is the most sensitive of tissues in the body … Besides sperm count and function, the mitochondrial DNA of sperm are damaged three times more if exposed to cellphone radiation.”
In addition to male testes, the tissues with the highest density of VGCCs are your brain and the pacemaker in your heart. What the research tells us is that excessive microwave exposure can be a direct contributor to conditions such as infertility, Alzheimer’s, anxiety, depression, autism and cardiac arrhythmias.14
Indeed, other studies have linked low-level electromagnetic radiation exposure from cellphones to an 8 percent reduction in sperm motility and a 9 percent reduction in sperm viability.15,16 Wi-Fi equipped laptop computers have also been linked to decreased sperm motility and an increase in sperm DNA fragmentation after just four hours of use.17 So, if you care about your reproductive health, the most important strategies to implement are to:
Avoid carrying your cellphone in your pockets or on your hip
Avoid using portable computers and tablets on your lap
Turn off your cellphones at night, as even if you are not talking they can damage you up to 30 feet away
Turn off your Wi-Fi at night (ideally in the day also)
Most importantly, turn off the electricity to your bedroom at the circuit breaker. This typically works for most bedrooms unless you have a room or rooms adjacent to your bedroom, in which case you might need to shut that off too. This will radically lower electric and magnetic fields while you sleep. If you need a clock you can you a battery operated one and even better a talking clock with no light that can be picked up on Amazon
Study Reveals Shocking Increase in Glyphosate Levels
In related news, researchers from University of California San Diego School of Medicine recently reported there’s been a shocking increase in glyphosate exposure in recent decades and, subsequently, the level found in people’s urine.
For this study,18 the researchers measured excretion levels of glyphosate and its metabolite aminomethylphosphonic acid in 100 participants from the Rancho Bernardo Study of Healthy Aging, which ran for 23 years, starting in 1993, the year before genetically engineered (GE) crops were introduced in the U.S.
As one would expect, the introduction of Roundup Ready GE crops led to a massive increase in the use of Roundup, the active ingredient of which is glyphosate. Glyphosate has also become a popular tool for desiccating non-GE grains, legumes and beans.
Data19,20 reveals that between 1974 (the year glyphosate entered the U.S. market and just over two decades before GE crops were introduced) and 2014, glyphosate use in the U.S. increased more than 250-fold. Globally, glyphosate use rose nearly fifteenfold since 1996, two years after the first GE crops hit the market.
At the start of the study, very few of the participants had detectable levels of glyphosate in their urine, but by 2016, 70 percent of them did.21 Overall, the prevalence of human exposure to glyphosate increased by 500 percent during the study period (1993 to 2016), while actual levels of the chemical in people’s bodies increased by an astounding 1,208 percent.
Rising Glyphosate Levels in Urine Is Cause for Concern
The exact implications of glyphosate exposure to human health is still unclear, but other recent research22 found that daily exposure to ultra-low levels of glyphosate for two years led to nonalcoholic fatty liver disease in rats, and the levels found in people’s urine were a hundredfold greater than those in this rat study.
In response to the findings of rising glyphosate levels in people’s urine, Monsanto was quick to say that the amounts reported “do not raise health concerns,” and that the fact that the chemical is detected in urine is just “one way our bodies get rid of nonessential substances.”23 Speaking to GM Watch, Michael Antoniou of King’s College London had another take on the matter:24
“This is the first study to longitudinally track urine levels of glyphosate over a period before and after the introduction of GM glyphosate-tolerant crops. It is yet another example illustrating that the vast majority of present-day Americans have readily detectable levels of glyphosate in their urine, ranging from 0.3 parts per billion, as in this study, to 10 times higher — 3 or more parts per billion — detected by others.
These results are worrying because there is increasing evidence to show that exposure to glyphosate-based herbicides below regulatory safety limits can be harmful.”
Glyphosate Found in Breast Milk
Three years ago, the first-ever independent testing for glyphosate in the breast milk of American women found high levels in 30 percent of the samples.25 The testing, which was not a formal scientific study, was carried out by Moms Across America and Sustainable Pulse. Still, the findings strongly suggest glyphosate bioaccumulates and builds up in your body over time, despite claims to the contrary.
Breast milk levels were found to be 76 to 166 micrograms per liter (ug/l), which is up to 1,600 times higher than the European Drinking Water Directive allows for individual pesticides, but still well below the 700 ug/l maximum contaminant level (MCL) for glyphosate allowed in the U.S. However, the U.S. level was set by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) based on the now-ridiculous premise that glyphosate will not bioaccumulate.
Importantly, many of the participants in this study were familiar with genetically modified organisms (GMOs) and had been actively trying to avoid them for several months to two years. This makes the findings all the more disheartening, and shows just how difficult it is to avoid this chemical unless you’re consistently eating an organic diet.
Corporate Machinations Kept Glyphosate on the Market
As noted in a recent investigation by In These Times,26 in the wake of Moms Across America’s findings, Monsanto defended its flagship pesticide with a study that found no glyphosate in breast milk. However, this study, which was purported to be “independent,” was actually backed by Monsanto. According to In These Times:
“More and more research suggests that glyphosate exposure can lead to numerous health issues, ranging from non-Hodgkin lymphoma and kidney damage to disruption of gut bacteria and improper hormone functioning. The Moms Across America episode fits a pattern that has emerged since 1974, when the EPA first registered glyphosate for use:
When questions have been raised about the chemical’s safety, Monsanto has ensured that the answers serve its financial interests, rather than scientific accuracy and transparency. Our two-year investigation found incontrovertible evidence that Monsanto has exerted deep influence over EPA decisions since glyphosate first came on the market — via Roundup — more than 40 years ago.”
Manipulation of Science Led to Underestimation of Glyphosate’s Risks
Suspiciously, archived EPA documents from decades ago, when the agency was initially considering glyphosate for approval, have been heavily redacted. Despite much of it being illegible, the documents reveal that EPA scientists were greatly concerned about a 1983 mouse study showing that glyphosate caused cancer. The documentation also shows that their interpretation of the data was “subsequently reversed by EPA upper management and advisory boards, apparently under pressure from Monsanto.”
“In years to come, that pivotal 1983 mouse study would be buried under layers of misleading analysis to obscure its meaning. Today, the EPA and Monsanto continue to cite that study as evidence that glyphosate poses no public health risk, even though the study’s actual evidence indicates otherwise,” In These Times reports.
The EPA has also been accused of overlooking other evidence of harm. I wrote about this in “Unveiling the Glyphosate Conspiracy.” As mentioned earlier, glyphosate was introduced in 1974, and the earliest example of Monsanto’s attempts to downplay evidence of harm dates back to May 1973, the year before its ultimate approval.
At the time, a biologist at the EPA’s Toxicology Branch Registration Division recommended including the word “Danger” on the label, due to the chemical’s ability to cause eye irritation. Monsanto strongly objected, saying the eye irritation observed was merely the result of “a secondary infection in previously irritated eyes.” After three years of deliberations back and forth, the EPA finally agreed to Monsanto’s request to replace the word “Danger” with the less attention-grabbing “Caution.”
As food has become increasingly adulterated, contaminated and genetically engineered, the need for laboratory testing has exponentially grown. In response to this need, the Health Research Institute (HRI Labs) has created two glyphosate tests for the public — a water testing kit, and an environmental exposure test kit.
The latter is a urine test that will tell you how much glyphosate you have in your system, which can give you a good idea of the purity of your diet. If your glyphosate level is high, chances are you’ve been exposed to many other agrochemicals as well.
I had the environmental exposure test done a while back, and had a glyphosate level below the threshold of detection, which is 40 parts per trillion, likely because I eat primarily organic and homegrown foods, and expel toxins I might come in contact with through exercise and regular sauna use.
So far, HRI Labs has analyzed more than 1,200 urine samples. The testing is being done as part of a research project, which will provide valuable information about the presence of glyphosate in the diet. It will also help answer questions about how lifestyle and location affects people’s exposure to agrochemicals. Here are some of their findings to date:
76 percent of people tested have some level of glyphosate in their system
Men typically have higher levels than women
People who eat oats on a regular basis have twice as much glyphosate in their system as people who don’t (likely because oats are desiccated with glyphosate before harvest)
People who eat organic food on a regular basis have an 80 percent lower level of glyphosate than those who rarely eat organic. This indicates organic products are a safer choice
People who eat five or more servings of vegetables per day have glyphosate levels that are 50 percent lower than those who don’t eat fewer vegetables
Which Foods Are the Most Important to Buy Organic?
Everyone can be harmed by pesticides, but if you’re a man or woman of childbearing age or have young children, taking steps to reduce your exposure is especially important. Ideally, all of the food you and your family eat would be organic. That said, not everyone has access to a wide variety of organic produce, and it can sometimes be costlier than buying conventional.
One way to save some money while still lowering your pesticide exposure is to purchase certain organic items, and “settling” for others that are conventionally grown, based on how heavily each given crop is typically treated with pesticides.
Animal products, like meat, butter, milk and eggs are the most important to buy organic, since animal products tend to bioaccumulate toxins from their pesticide-laced feed, concentrating them to far higher concentrations than are typically present in vegetables. Beyond animal foods, the pesticide load of different fruits and vegetables can vary greatly.
In 2015, Consumer Reports analyzed 12 years’ worth of data from the USDA’s Pesticide Data Program to determine the risk categories (from very low to very high) for different types of produce.27 Their results are featured in the video above. Because children are especially vulnerable to the effects of environmental chemicals, including pesticides, they based the risk assessment on a 3.5-year-old child.
They recommend buying organic for any produce that came back in the medium or higher risk categories, which left the following foods as examples of those you should always try to buy organic, due to their elevated pesticide load. Another excellent source, which is updated annually, is the Environmental Working Group’s (EWG) “Dirty Dozen” and “Clean 15” lists of produce with the greatest and least amounts of pesticide contamination. The EWG’s 2017 shopper’s guide28 to pesticides in produce can be downloaded here.
Washing your produce will help remove surface pesticide residues. According to recent research,29 the most effective cleaning method, by far, is to wash your produce using a mixture of tap water and baking soda. Soaking apples in a 1 percent baking soda solution for 12 to 15 minutes was found to remove 80 percent of the fungicide thiabendazole and 96 percent of the insecticide phosmet.
The reason thiabendazole was not as effectively removed is because it penetrated the apple to a depth of 80 micrometers. Importantly, the industry standard for cleaning apples — running under tap water or treating with the bleach solution for two minutes — was ineffective in comparison.
(Independent) Going vegan or vegetarian could help you live longer, according to a new study.
Scientists say a plant-based diet may help to reduce the risk of deadly heart failure. According to a study of five different kinds of diet, people who eat a lot of fruit and vegetables are 42 percent less likely to develop the condition than those who consumed fewer plant-based foods.
Another team of researchers found that increasing coffee consumption by one cup per week reduced the risk of heart failure by seven percent and stroke by eight percent
Heart failure is a potentially fatal condition that occurs when the heart is too weak to pump blood efficiently around the body.
Alcohol/salads – salad dressings, green leafy vegetables, tomatoes, butter, wine.
The researchers found that the participants who followed the plant-based diet had the strongest association with a lower risk of incident heart failure when adjusted for age, sex, and race of the participants and for other risk factors.
There were no associations for the other four dietary patterns found.
Lead researcher Dr Kyla Lara, from Mount Sinai Hospital in New York, said: “Eating a diet mostly of dark green leafy plants, fruits, beans, whole grains and fish, while limiting processed meats, saturated fats, trans fats, refined carbohydrates and foods high in added sugars is a heart-healthy lifestyle and may specifically help prevent heart failure if you don’t already have it.”
The findings about coffee consumption came about after re-analysing data from the Framingham Heart Study, a long-running US investigation of heart disease risk factors involving thousands of participants.
The researchers found that each additional cup of coffee drunk per week was associated with a lower risk of heart failure and stroke compared to those who consumed no coffee.
The study was carried out using an artificially intelligent machine-learning system.
First author Laura Stevens, from the University of Colorado, US, said: “Our findings suggest that machine learning could help us identify additional factors to improve existing risk assessment models.”
Victoria Taylor, senior dietitian at the British Heart Foundation, added: “Previous research has suggested that intakes of three to five cups of coffee a day shouldn’t affect the risk of developing heart and circulatory disease.
But, she says, more research is needed before we can be confident about how coffee affects our heart health.
“Eating plenty of fruit and vegetables, cutting down on salt, and maintaining a healthy weight are all important parts of a balanced diet that helps lower the risk of heart disease and stroke,” Taylor recommends.
“Our advice for people trying to improve their lifestyle is to focus on their whole diet, rather than the amount of individual foods or drinks they consume.”
(The Conversation) Why do they do it? This is a question that friends and families often ask of those who are addicted.
It’s difficult to explain how drug addiction develops over time. To many, it looks like the constant search for pleasure. But the pleasure derived from opioids like heroin or stimulants like cocaine declines with repeated use. What’s more, some addictive drugs, like nicotine, fail to produce any noticeable euphoria in regular users.
So what does explain the persistence of addiction? As an addiction researcher for the past 15 years, I look to the brain to understand how recreational use becomes compulsive, prompting people like you and me to make bad choices.
Myths about addiction
There are two popular explanations for addiction, neither of which holds up to scrutiny.
The first is that compulsive drug taking is a bad habit – one that addicts just need to “kick.”
However, to the brain, a habit is nothing more than our ability to carry out repetitive tasks – like tying our shoelaces or brushing our teeth – more and more efficiently. People don’t typically get caught up in an endless and compulsive cycle of shoelace tying.
Another theory claims that overcoming withdrawal is too tough for many addicts. Withdrawal, the highly unpleasant feeling that occurs when the drug leaves your body, can include sweats, chills, anxiety and heart palpitations. For certain drugs, such as alcohol, withdrawal comes with a risk of death if not properly managed.
The painful symptoms of withdrawal are frequently cited as the reason addiction seems inescapable. However, even for heroin, withdrawal symptoms mostly subside after about two weeks. Plus, many addictive drugs produce varying and sometimes only mild withdrawal symptoms.
This is not to say that pleasure, habits or withdrawal are not involved in addiction. But we must ask whether they are necessary components of addiction – or whether addiction would persist even in their absence.
In the 1980s, researchers made a surprising discovery. Food, sex and drugs all appeared to cause dopamine to be released in certain areas of the brain, such as the nucleus accumbens.
This suggested to many in the scientific community that these areas were the brain’s pleasure centers and that dopamine was our own internal pleasure neurotransmitter. However, this idea has since been debunked. The brain does have pleasure centers, but they are not modulated by dopamine.
So what’s going on? It turns out that, in the brain, “liking” something and “wanting” something are two separate psychological experiences. “Liking” refers to the spontaneous delight one might experience eating a chocolate chip cookie. “Wanting” is our grumbling desire when we eye the plate of cookies in the center of the table during a meeting.
Dopamine is responsible for “wanting” – not for “liking.” For example, in one study, researchers observed rats that could not produce dopamine in their brains. These rats lost the urge to eat but still had pleasurable facial reactions when food was placed in their mouths.
All drugs of abuse trigger a surge of dopamine – a rush of “wanting” – in the brain. This makes us crave more drugs. With repeated drug use, the “wanting” grows, while our “liking” of the drug appears to stagnate or even decrease, a phenomenon known as tolerance.
In my own research, we looked at a small subregion of the amygdala, an almond-shaped brain structure best known for its role in fear and emotion. We found that activating this area makes rats more likely to show addictive-like behaviors: narrowing their focus, rapidly escalating their cocaine intake and even compulsively nibbling at a cocaine port. This subregion may be involved in excessive “wanting,” in humans, too, influencing us to make risky choices.
The recent opioid epidemic has produced what we might call “involuntary” addicts. Opioids – such as oxycodone, percocet, vicodin or fentanyl – are very effective at managing otherwise intractable pain. Yet they also produce surges in dopamine release.
Most individuals begin taking prescription opioids not for pleasure but rather from a need to manage their pain, often on the recommendation of a doctor. Any pleasure they may experience is rooted in the relief from pain.
However, over time, users tend to develop a tolerance. The drug becomes less and less effective, and they need larger doses of the drug to control pain. This exposes people to large surges of dopamine in the brain. As the pain subsides, they find themselves inexplicably hooked on a drug and compelled to take more.
The result of this regular intake of large amounts of drug is a hyperreactive “wanting” system. A sensitized “wanting” system triggers intense bouts of craving whenever in the presence of the drug or exposed to drug cues. These cues can include drug paraphernalia, negative emotions such as stress or even specific people and places. Drug cues are one of an addict’s biggest challenges.
These changes in the brain can be long-lasting, if not permanent. Some individuals seem to be more likely to undergo these changes. Research suggests that genetic factors may predispose certain individuals, which explains why a family history of addiction leads to increased risk. Early life stressors, such as childhood adversity or physical abuse, also seem to put people at more risk.
Many of us regularly indulge in drugs of abuse, such as alcohol or nicotine. We may even occasionally overindulge. But, in most cases, this doesn’t qualify as addiction. This is, in part, because we manage to regain balance and choose alternative rewards like spending time with family or enjoyable drug-free hobbies.
However, for those susceptible to excessive “wanting,” it may be difficult to maintain that balance. Once researchers figure out what makes an individual susceptible to developing a hyperreactive “wanting” system, we can help doctors better manage the risk of exposing a patient to drugs with such potent addictive potential.
In the meantime, many of us should reframe how we think about addiction. Our lack of understanding of what predicts the risk of addiction means that it could just as easily have affected you or me. In many cases, the individual suffering from addiction doesn’t lack the willpower to quit drugs. They know and see the pain and suffering that it creates around them. Addiction simply creates a craving that’s often stronger than any one person could overcome alone.
That’s why people battling addiction deserve our support and compassion, rather than the distrust and exclusion that our society too often provides.
The NVICAP is a free online vaccine choice advocacy network launched by NVIC in 2010 to protect and expand the legal right to exercise informed consent to vaccination in the U.S. NVIC’s mission since 1982 has been to prevent vaccine injuries and deaths through public education and to secure and defend informed consent protections in vaccine policies and laws, including protecting flexible medical, religious and conscientious belief vaccine exemptions.
In 2015, the NVICAP team responded to more vaccine-related bills than were filed in any previous year: 160 bills across 41 states. This record was shattered two years later in 2017 when NVIC tracked and published information on an all-time record of 184 proposed vaccine bills filed in 42 state legislatures.
Mainstream media continues to cite the passage of two 2015 bills, California SB277, which eliminated the personal belief and religious vaccine exemption, and Vermont H98, which removed only the philosophical exemption, as evidence that public support for vaccine exemptions is waning.1 This is a myth easily refuted by looking at the real evidence.
Over the last three years it has been easy to find biased articles and newspaper OpEds in favor of “no exceptions” forced vaccination laws. Articles featuring individuals advocating for the removal of vaccine exemptions and opposing the expansion of exemptions are portrayed in a positive light.2,3 There is also a distinct trend to portray individuals who oppose bills that eliminate vaccine exemptions and support bills expanding exemptions in a negative light.4,5
However, this clear media bias fails to tell the truth about what really occurred in state legislatures around the country since 2015, when only two states removed personal belief vaccine exemptions. The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), which has adopted and actively promoted through their state chapters the extreme position to “eliminate nonmedical exemptions for school entry,” acknowledges the backlash caused by pushing bills that propose to strip public health laws of vaccine exemptions.6
At a debate held at the AAP’s annual conference in September 2017, there was discussion about the fact that the position of outright elimination of personal belief exemptions may “embolden” parents.7 A recent article in the Journal of the American Medical Association admits there is uncertainty about the effectiveness of policies to remove a parent’s ability to obtain a religious or conscientious belief exemption so a child can attend day care or be educated in a public or private school.8
Neither of these medical trade associations accurately depicts the extent to which passage of the two bills eliminating exemptions in California and Vermont have inspired grassroots vaccine informed consent advocates in every state to become even more active and effective.
The medical trade and Pharma lobby, as well as public health officials promoting heavy-handed implementation of the federally recommended childhood vaccine schedule, do not want to acknowledge there is a strong growing backlash against inflexible implementation of vaccine laws.
While it is rare to find registered lobbyists for vaccine manufacturers directly testifying in favor of a bill eliminating vaccine exemptions, Pharma’s fingerprints are all over lobbying efforts to influence the outcome of proposed vaccine bills severely restricting or removing vaccine choices.
There are a number of vocal advocacy organizations promoting forced vaccination which receive financial contributions and support from pharmaceutical corporations that make big profits from mandatory vaccination laws requiring all children to get federally recommended vaccines.
The Centers for Disease Control’s (CDC) childhood vaccine schedule of 69 doses of 16 vaccines alone is worth billions of dollars to drug companies marketing vaccines. Every vaccine that a state mandates guarantees vaccine manufacturers liability-free profits under the 1986 National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act and a U.S. Supreme Court ruling in 2011 that effectively eliminated all product liability for vaccine injuries and deaths caused by government licensed vaccines recommended for children.9,10,11
Every Child By Two (ECBT) identifies multiple vaccine manufacturers among sources of funding, including GlaxoSmithKline, Merck, Pfizer and Sanofi Pasteur.12 A nonprofit organization, ECBT actively lobbies in state legislatures and in Congress to promote mandatory vaccination and the elimination of vaccine exemptions, as well to secure increased funding for the CDC and other government agencies developing, licensing, making policy for and promoting universal use of federally recommended vaccines.13
Who Are Behind the Removal of Personal Belief Exemptions?
An ECBT board member, who is executive director of the California Immunization Action Coalition, was instrumental in lobbying efforts in the California legislature to pass the bill (SB277) that removed California’s personal belief vaccine exemption in 2015.14,15
The California Immunization Coalition is a network member of the nonprofit Immunization Action Coalition (IAC), which is funded by Astra Zeneca, GlaxoSmithKline, Merck, Pfizer, Sanofi Pasteur and the CDC.16,17 Among members of IAC’s Advisory Board are vaccine developers and current or former CDC officials and mandatory vaccination proponents, including developers of Merck’s rubella and rotavirus vaccines, Dr. Stanley Plotkin and Dr. Paul Offit.18,19,20,21
Voices for Vaccines, which has lobbied in Colorado, Virginia and other state legislatures for the removal of vaccine exemptions, is an administrative program of the Atlanta-based nonprofit Task Force for Global Health (TFGH), which was founded in 1984 by a former director of the CDC to raise childhood vaccination rates globally.22
Among TFGH funders are Merck, GlaxoSmithKline, Pfizer and the CDC, the World Health Organization and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.23 Scientific Advisory Board members of Voices for Vaccines include the founder and director of the Immunization Action Coalition (IAC), Plotkin, Offit and a former CDC director of immunization. 24
The Immunization Partnership (TIP) is a Texas-based coalition dedicated to eradicating diseases through the universal use of vaccines facilitated by electronic vaccine tracking registries and implementation of mandatory vaccination laws.
TIP is funded in part by Merck, GlaxoSmithKline and Pfizer and counts as one of its biggest accomplishments that it “screened more than 50,000 immunization records and recalled more than 14,000 patients back into clinics to get up-to-date on their vaccines through the Immunization Champions project.”25
Dr. Peter Hotez, a vaccine developer and well-known forced vaccination proponent, serves as a director for TIP.26,27,28 During the 2017 legislative session in Texas, TIP representatives directly gave testimony and lobbied for bills that would make it harder for families to decline vaccines or choose to vaccinate their children using a schedule that differs from the CDC’s recommended schedule.29,30
Contrary to what the corporate and government dominated media are reporting and would like the public to believe, many enlightened state legislators are listening to concerned constituents. They are supporting parental rights and the ethical principle of informed consent, which are protected in vaccine laws that contain flexible medical and personal belief exemptions.
What has largely been ignored or misrepresented by the media, medical trade and Pharma during the 2015 to 2017 timeframe is a growing public awareness about vaccine risks and failures and the increasing number of well-informed Americans who are advocating for vaccine freedom of choice because they understand the need to protect informed consent rights by securing and protecting vaccine exemptions in public health laws.
The Truth by Numbers
NVICAP TRACKED
2015
2016
2017
TREND
NVICAP OPPOSE
117 (73.0 percent)
71 (67.0 percent)
116 (63.0 percent)
Decreasing
BAD BILLS PASSED
22/117 (18.8 percent)
8/71 (11.2 percent)
7/116 (6.0 percent)
Decreasing
NVICAP SUPPORT
19 (11.8 percent)
18 (17.0 percent)
45 (24.0 percent)
Increasing
NVICAP WATCH
24 (15.0 percent)
17 (16.0 percent)
23 (12.5 percent)
Neutral
TOTAL BILLS
160
106
184
Increasing
STATES AFFECTED
41
33
42
Increasing
In 2014, the NVIC Advocacy Portal tracked 91 bills across 28 states. Over the course of the 2015 to 2017 legislative sessions, the number of vaccine-related bills for which NVIC issued position statements and the number of states affected by bills proposing to restrict or eliminate vaccine freedom of choice dramatically increased.
However, the numbers also clearly show that as the grassroots vaccine safety and informed consent movement grows, a lower percentage of bad bills require opposition because a higher percentage of good bills are being filed by legislators that deserve support.
Most importantly, the numbers and percentages of bills passing that negatively affect vaccine exemptions and threaten informed consent rights are significantly decreasing because more legislators are resisting aggressive lobbying efforts by medical trade and Pharma to make the vaccination system more oppressive than it already is in the U.S.
In a nutshell, slowly but surely as a result of years of hard work, grassroots vaccine education and informed consent advocacy in the U.S. are achieving tangible results.
To keep this trend moving in the right direction, everyone needs to get involved and continue to educate and personally communicate with his or her own legislators. The best way to get real time accurate information about what actions you can take to help protect vaccine informed consent rights in your state is to register as a user of the free online NVIC Advocacy Portal.
The Real Story: Few Bad Vaccine Bills Passed
What happened in 2015:
In 2015, there was a significant increase in state legislative action to add more vaccine mandates and attack the legal right to make voluntary vaccine decisions. Bills were introduced to:
Eliminate or severely restrict vaccine exemptions
Add and expand vaccine mandates for both children and adults in the school or workplace settings
Expand police powers related to vaccination during government-declared public health emergencies
Expand intrusive electronic vaccine tracking and medical records data sharing without consent to more easily enforce use of government recommended vaccines
Publish and publicly post detailed information about vaccine exemptions and vaccination rates in much smaller geographical boundaries like individual schools
In some states, legislation was passed allowing pharmacists to administer more vaccines. Spurred on by reports of a measles outbreak in Disneyland, much of the media attention focused the loss of the personal belief and religious exemptions in California and the loss of the philosophical exemption in Vermont, and there was no acknowledgement of the strong pushback by citizens that thwarted multiple attacks on vaccine exemptions and informed consent rights in many other states.
During the 2015 legislative cycle, the following states derailed legislative attempts to outright eliminate the conscientious/philosophical vaccine exemptions: Maine, Minnesota, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Texas and Washington.
Additionally, the following states came out on top of attacks on freedom of conscience and religion that would have eliminated or severely restricted the religious exemption: Connecticut, Maryland, New Jersey, New Mexico, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Texas and Vermont.
Bills to mandate vaccines for child care employees passed in California in 2015. However, bills to require vaccination of health care workers in Connecticut, Missouri and New Jersey and to require vaccination of school employees in Texas all failed.
Taking a closer look at the bills NVIC opposed that did pass, there was one Illinois bill in 2015 that weakened vaccine freedom of choice. Illinois SB 1410 added the requirement for parents to complete state approved vaccine education and secure a physician’s signature prior to filing a religious exemption for children to attend school.
Oregon passed SB 895A, which required schools to publicly post vaccine exemption rates. New vaccine mandates became law in Illinois for children attending day care, as did new vaccine mandates for school children in Indiana, Louisiana and Montana.
It was clear that 2015 marked a turning point, both for pharmaceutical and medical trade lobbyists pushing for more oppressive vaccine laws and for citizens who support informed consent and the legal right to flexible medical, religious and conscientious belief vaccine exemptions.
What happened in 2016:
There was a sharp decline in 2016 in the total number of vaccine-related bills filed in state legislatures compared to the previous year: from 160 bills filed in 2015 down to 106 bills filed in 2016, but, again, this was still more bills than were filed in 2014. It is very significant that in 2016, NO bills were passed by state legislatures that restricted or eliminated vaccine exemptions.
The NVIC Advocacy team helped families and enlightened health care professionals defeat bills proposing to restrict or eliminate vaccine exemptions that were filed in Colorado, Connecticut, Hawaii, Illinois, New York, Ohio, Rhode Island, South Dakota and Virginia. Bills in three states tried to completely remove the religious exemption, and bills in four states tried to eliminate the personal, philosophical or conscientious belief exemption.
In Virginia, where NVIC has been headquartered since 1982, a bill was proposed to gut the medical exemption by confining it to CDC vaccine contraindications only and to eliminate the religious vaccine exemption for all school aged children, including home schooled children.
This assault on freedom of conscience and religion was met with strong opposition from hundreds of parents, grandparents, health care professionals and allied health freedom groups, who responded to NVIC’s call to action and attended Joint Commission on Health Care public hearings with their children and flooded the legislature with emails, phone calls and personal visits to legislators’ offices.
NVIC prepared a 90-page referenced report defending the religious and medical vaccine exemptions and NVIC’s co-founder and president gave an oral presentation in the legislature defending freedom of religion and conscience, which was defined in the Virginia Constitution and Bill of Rights by authors of the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights.31,32 The bill did not pass out of committee.
This nationwide rejection by state legislatures of lobbying attempts to take away more vaccine exemptions was a strong and definitive response by citizens and legislators to the attack on and loss of personal belief vaccine exemptions in two states in the 2015 legislative session.
In 2016, only eight vaccine bills passed out of the 71 bills that NVIC actively opposed on the NVIC Advocacy Portal. Colorado SB 146 proposed to allow minor children to receive vaccines for sexually transmitted diseases, such as hepatitis B and HPV vaccines, without their parents’ knowledge or consent.
Through well-organized grassroots action using the Advocacy Portal network and NVIC talking points, this offensive provision was stripped from the bill before final passage, pushing it into a “win” category for supporters of parental rights and informed consent. Of the seven remaining bills that NVIC opposed but went on to pass in 2016, three added meningococcal vaccine requirements in Delaware, Iowa and South Dakota.
The remaining four bills were not as threatening: HB 313 in Virginia expanded categories of medical workers who could give vaccines; S 1294 in Idaho lowered the age of children who can be vaccinated by pharmacists; SB 512 in New Hampshire expanded vaccine tracking of flu shots for health care workers, and SB 5143 in Washington state added mandated vaccine education for expectant parents before birth of a child.
In 2016, people around the country contacted NVIC and expressed concern that they did not want to see what happened in California happen in their state too, and committed to actively educating their legislators.
Many became users of the NVIC Advocacy Portal to learn more about becoming an effective vaccine choice advocate and how to network with legislators and community leaders. The excellent numbers coming out of the 2016 legislative session show just how committed and effective they were. NVIC supported 18 bills in 2016 including:
Massachusetts S 317 to add a personal belief vaccine exemption
Michigan HB 5126 to remove restrictions placed on vaccine exemptions by the Department of Health through rule making authority
New Hampshire HB 1463 to offer protection for employees against being forced to get an annual flu shot as a condition of employment
Ohio HB 170 to prohibit an employer from taking punitive action against an employee who chooses not to get an annual flu shot
While these positive bills did not pass, opportunities to educate legislators about vaccines and informed consent rights gained momentum, with some of these bills being carried through to 2017.
What happened in 2017:
2017 was a record-breaking year on many fronts starting with NVIC’s Advocacy Portal team tracking an unprecedented 184 vaccine-related bills across 42 states. The great news coming out of 2017 was that there was very little progress made by forced vaccination lobbyists during this year’s legislative session. Of the 116 bills that NVIC opposed, only 16 bills passed and, out of those 16, only seven had elements that were targeted for strong opposition.
Indiana took the hardest hit with a total of three unwanted vaccine bills passing: HB 1069 mandated meningococcal vaccinations for college students; HB 1540 allowed for quarantine and isolation of children with personal belief vaccine exemptions during a declared public health emergency involving disease outbreaks, and SB 51 added new vaccines that pharmacists can administer under standing orders and expanded medical records data sharing with the state’s electronic vaccine tracking registry.
Arkansas also passed a bill (SB 301) to expand medical records data sharing with the state’s electronic vaccine tracking registry. Tennessee passed the only other bill (SB 393) affecting vaccine mandates, which required college boards and the state Department of Health to adopt rules concerning vaccine requirements that effectively delegated the authority to add new vaccine mandates for college students to the health department.
The only state to pass a bill (HB 308) restricting existing vaccine exemption rights was Utah, which added the requirement that parents either complete a vaccine education module to obtain a vaccine exemption form online or attend an in-office consultation at the local health department if an exemption form for a child to attend school is picked up at a health department office.
The original statute only required the local health department to make the exemption form available to parents on request, but some parents reported that there were local health departments making that process too difficult for parents. Adding any additional codified restrictions to obtaining a vaccine exemption is a position that NVIC has consistently opposed.
In Washington State, a bill (HB 1641) was passed that significantly undermined parental informed consent rights by authorizing school nurses to give consent for vaccines to be administered to children whose families were homeless.
Of the remaining nine bills that NVIC opposed but were passed in 2017, none of them affected vaccine exemptions. In Alabama (HB 381), Georgia (HB 198), Nebraska (HB 1481) and Tennessee (HB 388 and SB 598), laws were passed to require vaccine promotion and marketing by schools or health care providers.
Hawaii (SB 514), Kansas (HB 2030) and Montana (HB 177) authorized pharmacists to give vaccines or expand the types of vaccines and ages of children pharmacists could vaccinate.
On the positive side, New Hampshire scored a huge win with the passage of a bill (HB 362) that prohibits school vaccine requirements for diseases that are not transmitted from person to person in a public setting, basically gutting hepatitis B vaccine requirements and putting a road block in the way of any future rule to mandate HPV vaccine or other vaccines for sexually transmitted diseases.
Parental rights in Texas were affirmed when a bill (HB 7) was passed protecting families from having their children vaccinated by Child Protective Services (CPS) without parents’ informed consent. Of the 184 bills that the NVIC Advocacy Portal team tracked in 2017, 23 were in Texas.
Among the Texas bills NVIC opposed, there were three bills proposing to use tax dollars to promote vaccination; one bill removing parental consent by allowing minor children to consent to HPV vaccination; four bills mandating public vaccine exemption disclosure resulting in shaming of schools with high vaccine exemption rates; two bills removing the right to opt-in informed consent for personal medical information to be entered into the vaccine tracking system; two bills to restrict vaccine exemptions; and one bill to eliminate conscientious and religious exemptions.
All of these bills trampling on parental and informed consent rights FAILED, thanks to the work of NVIC’s volunteer state directors, supporters and allied groups in Texas.
2017 Bill Analysis by Category
Because of the record number of vaccine bills filed in 2017, it is useful to look at trends across the states. The four main areas that NVIC focuses on when tracking proposed bills are: (1) vaccine exemptions and informed consent rights; (2) new vaccine mandates; (3) electronic vaccine tracking and reporting registries and (4) vaccines in general.
The breakout and analysis of bills in these different categories is interesting and can serve as a guide to those who want to become active in educating their legislators and community about protecting vaccine informed consent rights in 2018.
Exemptions and Informed Consent (81 related bills)
The majority of vaccine bills filed in state legislatures in 2017 affected vaccine exemptions and informed consent rights: 81 related bills. NVIC opposed 42 of these bills and supported 39 bills. Some of the position statements NVIC posted on the Advocacy Portal were listed as bills to “WATCH” because our analysis indicated they were unlikely to move forward; however, NVIC stated opposition to all of the bills in the “watch” category that negatively affected vaccine exemptions and informed consent rights.
This year, 2017, was a big year for vaccine choice advocates: ALL lobbying attempts to eliminate vaccine exemptions failed in every state where bills were proposed to do that. Bills were filed in Arkansas (HB 1043), Iowa (H 261), New York (A 1810), Pennsylvania (SB 217) and Rhode Island (H 5681) to eliminate vaccine exemptions.
Texas (HB120) attempted to remove the words “conscientious” and “religious” from vaccine exemption language in state law and refer to exemptions only in medical terms (i.e., “nonmedical”). The Arkansas bill was withdrawn by the sponsor and the rest of the bills failed to move forward. This is very good news.
On the other side, there were 17 bills filed in Hawaii, Iowa, Mississippi (4), New Jersey, New York (3), Rhode Island (3), Tennessee and West Virginia (3) that NVIC supported because they proposed to expand vaccine exemptions. Unfortunately, none of those bills passed but their introduction provided an excellent opportunity for citizens to educate legislators about vaccine science, policy and law and informed consent rights.
Of the 15 bills filed in Connecticut (2), Iowa, Minnesota (2), New Jersey, New York, Ohio (3), Oklahoma, Texas (2) and Utah (2) that attempted to restrict vaccine exemptions, only one bill in Utah passed (HB 308). Utah parents now must obtain a vaccine exemption form after completing an online educational module or having in an “inperson consultation” with a health official or other designated person at a local health department office, where parents can be charged up to $25 to do that.
In Mississippi and Texas, there were proposed bills to expand the types of medical workers who could sign a medical vaccine exemption, but they did not pass.
Many more bills in 2017 were filed that tried to mandate the public disclosure of vaccine exemption rates for individual schools. This type of law serves to publicly shame schools with higher student vaccine exemption rates and creates a climate of fear and stigmatization of children attending school with vaccine exemptions.
There were bills attempting to do this filed in Arizona, Connecticut, Nevada, New York, Oklahoma, Texas (4) and Virginia. NVIC opposed every one of these bills and we are happy to say NONE of them passed.
This was the second session in a row that a legislator in Texas was unsuccessful in passing this type of legislation and users of the NVIC Advocacy Portal fought hard to stop it from passing. There was a lot of media attention generated by pro-forced vaccination groups in advance of the 2017 legislative session in Texas to try to sway public opinion and persuade the legislature to pass coercive vaccine bills, but those efforts failed.
There were six bills filed in the states of Minnesota (4), New York and Texas that attempted to remove vaccine informed consent rights from parents and delegate them to the minor children themselves. Fortunately, NONE of these bills passed. However, Washington State did pass a bill (HB 1641) that allows school nurses to give consent to vaccinating children whose families are homeless.
Being “homeless” does not mean children don’t have parents who care for them and are legally responsible for their welfare. School nurses should not be given the power to vaccinate children for whom they are not legal guardians. NVIC is urging families in Washington State to contact legislators to repeal this law, which sets a bad precedent and threatens parental informed consent rights.
A new category of legislation that emerged in 2017: Six bills were filed in Colorado, Idaho, Michigan, Oregon and Washington that highlighted the urgent need to rein in overzealous government agencies where officials are appropriating authority they do not have by ignoring current statutes and adding erroneous restrictions and forms to vaccine exemptions.
Although none of the six bills passed that would have expressly limited state agency actions where government officials are overstepping their authority, the efforts still yielded wins in two states: Colorado and Oregon. In Colorado, a bill (SB 250) proposed to clarify that parents can submit a signed letter requesting a religious or philosophical exemption to vaccination for children to attend school and parents are not required to fill out a state health department form.
This bill was filed because the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment (CDPHE), the Colorado Department of Education (CDE) and schools were telling parents they must use the CDPHE forms, even though Colorado State Law 25-4-903(2)(b) has been in force since 1978 allowing parents or legal guardians to submit to schools a signed statement requesting a vaccine exemption on behalf of a minor child.
While the bill did not pass, the parents’ right to submit a vaccine exemption statement to the school was publicly affirmed in a joint letter signed by the departments of health and education.33
Oregon SB 687 proposed to clarify that the definition of parental child abuse does not include delaying or declining vaccination for a child. While the bill did not pass, the Oregon Department of Human Services issued a memo, which states that not vaccinating a child by itself does not constitute medical neglect. It is likely there will be more clarification bills filed in the future as more families and legislators grow frustrated with state agencies that don’t follow the law.34
Texas made strides in 2017 in creating legislation to protect parents, whose children have not received all federally recommended and state mandated vaccines, from overreach by Child Protective Services (CPS) and the courts. Already armed with protective language passed in a 2003 bill, which amended the government code with “Prohibition on Punitive Action for Failure to Immunize,” the passage of Texas HB 7 in 2017 took this protection to an even higher level.
HB 7 provided for a sweeping revamping of the CPS system and was amended to include protective language for parents filing a conscientious/religious vaccine exemption for their children. Sections 10 and 11 of the bill prohibit a court from ordering the termination of parental rights, and sections 17 and 18 prohibit the Department of Family and Protective Services (DFPS) from taking possession of a child based on a parent “declining immunization for a child for reasons of conscience including a religious belief.”
Threatening language also was removed from Texas HB 1549 that targeted innocent parents, who CPS officials believe are “at risk” of committing child abuse or neglect at some point in the future.
The original bill contained no qualification that families would have to already be under investigation for child abuse or neglect to be labeled “at risk” of becoming child abusers. Rather, the bill would have allowed CPS officials to visit the home of any family they believed displayed “risk factors” and CPS could schedule monthly visits to that family’s home.
Under the bill’s original language, a “risk factor” could be anything that CPS believed would make a child susceptible to abuse or neglect. NVIC sent an action alert to oppose the bill. We are grateful to all the organizations that worked together in Texas to remove offensive language from the bill that could have led to labeling parents who do not vaccinate their children as potential child abusers.
Seventeen bills in Hawaii, Iowa, Mississippi (4), New Jersey, New York (3), Rhode Island (3), Tennessee, and West Virginia (3) were filed to expand vaccine exemptions and bills filed in Minnesota, Oklahoma (4), Oregon (3), Texas (2) and Washington State proposed to expand vaccine informed consent rights. Two bills in Mississippi and Texas were filed to expand which type of medical workers can sign medical exemptions, plus Texas had a bill to prohibit doctors from refusing to provide medical care to patients for declining vaccinations.
While none of these proactive bills passed, they advanced education efforts in the legislature about vaccine exemption and informed consent issues affecting families, which ultimately helped stop some of the bad vaccine-related bills from passing.
Vaccine Mandates (35 bills)
Twenty-five bills were filed across 11 states to add new vaccine mandates, including in Connecticut (2), Illinois, Indiana (3), Kansas, Kentucky, Maine (2), Missouri, New Jersey (5), New York (5), Tennessee (2) and Virginia (2). The majority of these bills attempted to require influenza, meningococcal or HPV vaccines for either health care workers or children attending school.
NVIC opposed all of these bills and the only two that passed were Indiana HB 1069, which mandated meningococcal vaccinations for college students, and Tennessee SB 393, which required college boards and the Department of Health to adopt vaccine requirement rules.
No elementary or secondary school mandates were passed by any state legislature. However, there has been an increasing trend for legislatures to allow public health officials in state health departments to add school vaccine mandates by using the administrative rule making process that bypasses the legislative process, which effectively reduces active public participation and scrutiny of these policies.
NVIC tracked four bills that proposed to protect employees from vaccine mandates as a condition of employment: one in Mississippi, one in Ohio and two in Oregon. While the bills in Mississippi and Oregon died, in Ohio a bill (HB 193), which provides protections for employees who refuse an annual flu shot, is still moving. The bill passed out of the Economic Development, Commerce and Labor Committee and, as long as it is alive, Ohio residents should continue to monitor and urge legislators to support this bill.
There were five proactive bills filed in Mississippi, New Hampshire (2), New Jersey and Rhode Island to restrict vaccine mandates. Four of the five bills restricted hepatitis B vaccine mandates. The only one of these bills to pass was in New Hampshire (HB 362), where there is now a prohibition on school vaccine mandates for diseases that are not transferred from person to person in a public setting.
This bill went into effect on August 15, 2017. That victory came after dedicated education efforts in the legislature by NVIC’s volunteer New Hampshire state advocacy director and Advocacy Portal users in the state.
Vaccine Tracking and Reporting (28 bills)
The largest group of bills under the category of vaccine tracking and reporting were 17 bills in 12 states that proposed to expand electronic vaccine tracking systems: Arkansas, California, Connecticut (3), Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Nebraska, New York (2), Ohio and Utah. The only two bills that passed were Arkansas SB 301 and Indiana SB 51.
The next largest category was vaccine tracking bills that were filed in Montana, Oregon, Texas (2) and Utah to remove opt-in informed consent to vaccine records tracking so the vaccination status of individuals can be tracked without their knowledge or consent by state health officials. Fortunately, none of these bills passed.
Maryland HB 1481 proposed to not only require all primary health care providers to push federally recommended vaccines for adolescents, such as hepatitis B and HPV vaccines, it would have required the documentation of parental refusal of vaccinations in the child’s permanent medical record. Fortunately, this bill stalled and failed to move out of committee.
A good bill in Massachusetts (H 1179) proposed to give individuals a way to avoid automatic inclusion in the state’s electronic vaccine tracking system without consent, but the bill did not pass. A bill in Vermont (H 247), which requires the state health department file vaccine adverse reaction reports to the General Assembly, is still active for the upcoming 2018 session. If you live in Vermont, you can encourage your legislators to support H 247.
Vaccine Promotion (47 bills)
Vaccine advertising, promotion and marketing should not be funded by taxpayers and, yet, there were bills filed in 10 states, including Alabama, Florida (3), Georgia, Illinois (2), Louisiana (2), Maryland, Nebraska, Oregon, Tennessee (2) and Texas (3) to require the promotion of vaccine use by schools, medical facilities and places of employment.
Schools should not be legally compelled to promote vaccinations. Yet, bills in Alabama (HB 381), Georgia (HB 198) and Tennessee (HB 388 and SB 598) all passed and require schools to provide information on influenza and flu shots to children and their parents. A bill in Nebraska (LB 267), which also passed, requires nursing facilities to offer employees and residents influenza vaccines.
There were bills filed in 11 states proposing to authorize pharmacists to administer more vaccines, including in California, Hawaii, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Maryland (2), Maine (2), Montana, New York (3) South Dakota and Texas. Four of these bills passed and some of the bills broaden the ages of individuals who can be given vaccines, while others broaden the types of vaccines that can be given.
Hawaii (SB 514) passed a bill allowing pharmacists to administer HPV and other vaccines to children that became effective July 3, 2017. Indiana (SB 51) added new vaccines that pharmacists can administer under standing orders, effective July 1, 2017. Kansas (HB 2030) now allows pharmacists to administer a vaccine to children as young as 12 years old and this went into effect on July 1, 2017.
Finally, Montana passed HB 177, which allows pharmacists to give pneumococcal vaccines to everyone and this law went into effect March 1, 2017. California passed a bill (AB 443) that allows optometrists to give vaccines, effective Oct. 7, 2017.
There were nine bills in six states proposing to expand vaccine and public health programs, including in Florida (3), Georgia, Oklahoma, Oregon, Texas and Washington (2), and two of these bills passed. While two bills in Florida to promote vaccination of pregnant women died, there is a new bill (HB 41) that has already been pre-filed for the 2018 legislative session. This bill makes influenza and tetanus vaccines (most tetanus containing shots also contain diphtheria and pertussis vaccines) part of pregnancy wellness programs.
NVIC will continue to oppose this bill and encourage Florida residents to contact their legislators and share with them the results of a new study signaling an association between influenza vaccine and miscarriage.35 There were also three bills, all filed in Missouri, which proposed to limit certain ingredients in vaccines, but none of them passed.
Government Agencies Abusing the Rule Making Process to Circumvent Legislators
As citizens in many states have become more effective informed consent advocates and are successfully blocking coercive vaccine legislation, officials in government agencies are increasingly attempting to use and stretch the administrative rule making process, which avoids legislation, to try to get away with putting restrictions on or adding more requirements to the vaccine exemption process.
Citizens have little recourse when administrative rules are adopted by government agencies that increase restrictions or add extra requirements not set forth in law because, unlike elected legislators, voters cannot hold unelected government employees accountable at the polls. In the 2015 to 2017 time frame, NVIC issued action alerts to oppose proposed administrative rules in Illinois, Pennsylvania and Vermont that affect vaccine exemptions and, in New Hampshire, we urged opposition to a vaccine tracking system proposed rule.
A local health department in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, tried to mandate HPV vaccines for school children, which is yet another example of government overreach that was fortunately stopped. These administrative rules issued by government officials all had one thing in common: They went beyond the authority given to government employees in the state laws they were supposed to responsibly implement.
For example, the Illinois Department of Public Health adopted administrative rules that went into effect on February 27, 2017 related to the passage of SB 1410 by the legislature in 2015. SB 1410 required the signature of a medical professional that verified the parent was given vaccine education, as well as required new religious vaccine exemption forms to be filled out by parents of children entering kindergarten, sixth and ninth grades.
The final rule that was adopted by the health department went beyond the scope of what was authorized in the bill, requiring ALL children in day care, nursery schools, pre-K, special education and entering other grades to file new religious exemption forms. The health department rule also failed to implement a section of the bill clarifying that state designated medical workers giving vaccines may write a medical exemption for a child without restrictions.
In 2017, NVIC issued an alert in Kentucky opposing a proposed rule by the Cabinet for Health and Family Services to restrict vaccine exemptions by requiring the use of a state issued form that would require additional parent education and a notary signature.
An increasing number of public health officials working in state health departments are growing bolder by taking action outside the scope of the laws for which they write rules. It is very important to hold public health officials accountable with legislators who control their funding, and call them out for going beyond their authority when it comes to promoting and enforcing vaccination.
Parents should be very cautious about signing government forms that contain statements about diseases and vaccines that they do not agree with, especially if coercion is involved, which is called “compelled speech” and is unconstitutional. Make sure that the forms you sign are legally required and do not include additional information requests or attestations that are not required in state or federal law.
Informed consent advocates in every state, who want to expand or protect vaccine exemptions, should actively monitor proposed rulemaking notices published in their state by health agencies and respond with written or oral public comment, as allowed, as well as contact legislators and express concerns.
Taking action will help stop government officials from abusing rule making authority for the purpose of coercing individuals into using all federally recommended and state-mandated vaccines rather than respecting informed consent rights. Links are posted to state proposed rulemaking on each state vaccine law page at NVIC.org to assist the public in providing oversight on and holding government agencies accountable for legally administrating the rule making process.
What Can You Do?
NVIC expects many more vaccine-related bills to be filed in the states in 2018, so please become a registered user of the NVIC Advocacy Portal and check in often to learn about ways to educate legislators when vaccine bills moving in your state, and encourage all of your friends and family to do the same.
Clearly your efforts are making a much more significant difference than the media and those pushing “no exceptions” forced vaccination policies and laws are willing to admit, and your participation is vital to protecting informed consent and vaccine choices in America.
Also, if you see inaccurate information in the media, take the time to respond by a making a comment online. You can also email the journalist or media outlet and provide accurate, well referenced vaccine information, which you can find on the “Ask 8 Vaccine Information Kiosk” on NVIC.org.
NVIC’s updated 2017 illustrated and fully referenced Guide to Reforming Vaccine Policy and Law is a good vaccine education tool for legislators and friends and family, too. NOTE: Every bill discussed in this report is linked on the NVIC Advocacy Portal.
Protect Your Right to Informed Consent and Defend Vaccine Exemptions
With all the uncertainty surrounding the safety and efficacy of vaccines, it’s critical to protect your right to make independent health choices and exercise voluntary informed consent to vaccination. It is urgent that everyone in America stand up and fight to protect and expand vaccine informed consent protections in state public health and employment laws. The best way to do this is to get personally involved with your state legislators and educating the leaders in your community.
THINK GLOBALLY, ACT LOCALLY.
National vaccine policy recommendations are made at the federal level but vaccine laws are made at the state level. It is at the state level where your action to protect your vaccine choice rights can have the greatest impact.
It is critical for EVERYONE to get involved now in standing up for the legal right to make voluntary vaccine choices in America because those choices are being threatened by lobbyists representing drug companies, medical trade associations, and public health officials, who are trying to persuade legislators to strip all vaccine exemptions from public health laws.
Signing up for NVIC’s free Advocacy Portal at www.NVICAdvocacy.org gives you immediate, easy access to your own state legislators on your smart phone or computer so you can make your voice heard. You will be kept up-to-date on the latest state bills threatening your vaccine choice rights and get practical, useful information to help you become an effective vaccine choice advocate in your own community.
Also, when national vaccine issues come up, you will have the up-to-date information and call to action items you need at your fingertips. So please, as your first step, sign up for the NVIC Advocacy Portal.
Share Your Story With the Media and People You Know
If you or a family member has suffered a serious vaccine reaction, injury, or death, please talk about it. If we don’t share information and experiences with one another, everybody feels alone and afraid to speak up. Write a letter to the editor if you have a different perspective on a vaccine story that appears in your local newspaper. Make a call in to a radio talk show that is only presenting one side of the vaccine story.
I must be frank with you; you have to be brave because you might be strongly criticized for daring to talk about the “other side” of the vaccine story. Be prepared for it and have the courage to not back down. Only by sharing our perspective and what we know to be true about vaccination, will the public conversation about vaccination open up so people are not afraid to talk about it.
We cannot allow the drug companies and medical trade associations funded by drug companies or public health officials promoting forced use of a growing list of vaccines to dominate the conversation about vaccination.
The vaccine injured cannot be swept under the carpet and treated like nothing more than “statistically acceptable collateral damage” of national one-size-fits-all mandatory vaccination policies that put way too many people at risk for injury and death. We shouldn’t be treating people like guinea pigs instead of human beings.
Internet Resources Where You Can Learn More
I encourage you to visit the website of the non-profit charity, the National Vaccine Information Center (NVIC), at www.NVIC.org:
NVIC Memorial for Vaccine Victims: View descriptions and photos of children and adults, who have suffered vaccine reactions, injuries, and deaths. If you or your child experiences an adverse vaccine event, please consider posting and sharing your story here.
Vaccine Freedom Wall: View or post descriptions of harassment and sanctions by doctors, employers, and school and health officials for making independent vaccine choices.
Vaccine Failure Wall: View or post descriptions about vaccines that have failed to work and protect the vaccinated from disease.
Connect With Your Doctor or Find a New One That Will Listen and Care
If your pediatrician or doctor refuses to provide medical care to you or your child unless you agree to get vaccines you don’t want, I strongly encourage you to have the courage to find another doctor. Harassment, intimidation, and refusal of medical care is becoming the modus operandi of the medical establishment in an effort to stop the change in attitude of many parents about vaccinations after they become truly educated about health and vaccination. However, there is hope.
At least 15 percent of young doctors recently polled admit that they’re starting to adopt a more individualized approach to vaccinations in direct response to the vaccine safety concerns of parents.
It is good news that there is a growing number of smart young doctors, who prefer to work as partners with parents in making personalized vaccine decisions for children, including delaying vaccinations or giving children fewer vaccines on the same day or continuing to provide medical care for those families, who decline use of one or more vaccines.
So take the time to locate a doctor, who treats you with compassion and respect, and is willing to work with you to do what is right for your child.
