https://olis.leg.state.or.us/liz/2015R1/Downloads/CommitteeMeetingDocument/47661

PAGE 36-43
TESTIMONY: Senate Committee on Health Care, State of Oregon, SB 442
February 18, 2015, 3pm

Respectfully Submitted: Jonathan B. Handley, Portland, OR

I was born in 1969. My father worked for the U.S. Government and I spent my childhood living in foreign countries, including the third world. Specifically, I was born in Singapore, then lived in Laos, Mexico, Korea, Japan, India, and the Philippines.

By my sixth birthday, I received a grand total of 5 vaccines (Oral Polio, Measles, DPT, Oral Polio, and Typhoid). I still have my shot records and would be happy to share with the committee.

In 1983, attached as Exhibit A, the 1983 immunization schedule for children by the age of 6 recommended 10 vaccines (DTP, Oral Polio, DTP, Oral Polio, DTP, MMR, DTP, Oral Polio, DTP, Oral Polio).

In 2015, attached as Exhibit B, by the age of 6, the CDC now recommends 37 vaccines for children before the age of 6. (Hep B, Hep B, Rotavirus, DTaP, Hib, PCV, IPV, Flu, Rotavirus, DTaP, Hib, PCV, IPV, Rotavirus, DTaP, Hib, PCV, IPV, Flu, MMR, Varicella, Hep A, Hep B, DTaP, Hib, PCV, Flu, Hep A, DTaP, IPV, Flu, Flu, Flu, Flu, Flu, MMR, Varicella). Because this is so confusing, I’ve attached the CDC schedule with my handwritten notes to count the total vaccines.

Interestingly, as opposed to the 37 we have, many other first world countries give far fewer vaccines to children by the age of 6: Iceland (11), Sweden (11), Singapore (13), Japan (11, and pulled the MMR vaccine due to high injury rate), Norway (13), Hong Kong (13), Belgium (18), Austria (19), Israel (11), Denmark (12), Netherlands (20). Please note that every country listed has a lower under-5 mortality rate than the U.S.

Some other facts:

1. The package insert for Merck’s MMR vaccine, the only option for parents trying to protect against measles states very clearly:

“Routine administration of DTP (diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis) and/or OPV (oral poliovirus vaccine) concurrently with measles, mumps and rubella vaccines is not recommended because there are limited data relating to the simultaneous administration of these antigens.”

Note: My children and many others receive these vaccines all at once in the United States.

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4. PhRMA, the lobbying arm of the vaccine industry, brags that more than 300 vaccines are in development.

“Washington, D.C. (April 20, 2012)— America’s biopharmaceutical research companies are developing nearly 300 vaccines for the prevention and treatment of a wide variety of diseases, according to a new report by the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA). The vaccines – all either currently tested in clinical trials or under review by the Food and Drug Administration – include 170 for infectious diseases, 102 for cancers and eight for neurological disorders.”

If you amend SB 442, will parents simply have to comply with every new vaccine added to the schedule? (Companies would not be developing these vaccines if they didn’t feel there was a market for them.)

5. By tying vaccination to public education, it becomes an effective mandate, as most Oregon families have neither the time, finances, nor abilities to homeschool their children.

A mandate of a medical procedure violates the very core of medical ethics code, as clearly stated by the American Medical Association:

“The patient should make his or her own determination about treatment… Informed consent is a basic policy in both ethics and law that physicians must honor, unless the patient is unconscious or otherwise incapable of consenting and harm from failure to treat is imminent.”

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In the free world, parents have the final say as to what is injected in their children’s bodies without losing the right to have their children educated. Canada, the UK, Japan, Ireland, Israel, Germany, Sweden, Norway, etc., etc., etc., the list goes on of countries who leave the final right for medical decisions to the parents. In fact, the only places in the free world where that right isn’t inalienable without a loss of education are the U.S. states of West Virginia and Mississippi. And, if SB 442 is amended to remove exemptions in Oregon, then our great state will become the third. Is that really who we are?

There is no imminent threat in Oregon. We’ve had exactly one reported case of measles. Please do not succumb to the hysteria of 100 measles cases reported nationwide.

If you paid close attention, what you learned from the recent measles hysteria was that the majority of adult Americans are way behind on their vaccines, which means this notion of “herd immunity” is mythical. How can the herd be protected if 80% or more of adults haven’t had their shots?

On that note, the CDC recommended adult schedule will likely be the next target of compulsory mandates. Right now, between the ages of 19 and 65, the CDC recommends every American adult get 73 vaccines (Exhibit C).

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http://content.govdelivery.com/accounts/ORLEG/bulletins/f605c4

Senator Jeff Kruse - March 6th, 2015 -- A CHANGE OF PACE
Oregon State Legislature sent this bulletin at 03/06/2015 12:20 PM PST

...access to the data...

http://www.statesmanjournal.com/story/news/health/2015/03/09/school-immunization-rates-actually-mean/24684101/

What school immunization rates actually mean

Saerom Yoo, Statesman Journal
10:46 a.m. PDT March 10, 2015

During Oregon's debate on whether all school and daycare children should be required to be fully vaccinated unless they have a medical exemption, I have used Oregon's statewide kindergarten nonmedical exemption rate a lot.

It's the figure the state reports to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and it provides public health officials a snapshot of what parents are choosing to do at that point in time, says Oregon Health Authority's school law coordinator Stacy de Assis Matthews.

In Oregon, the kindergarten nonmedical exemption rate in 7 percent, the highest in the country. I've written that countless times, as you might have noticed.

But what does that 7 percent actually mean?

First of all, it does not mean that 7 percent of Oregon's kindergarteners are not vaccinated. It does mean, however, that they have been opted out from at least one vaccine.

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https://medium.com/@sb442no/no-mas-senator-steiner-hayward-no-mas-c5fc108861bb

Part 5: No mas, Senator Steiner Hayward, no mas
March 12, 2015

https://medium.com/@sb442no/oregon-senator-steiner-hayward-blameshifter-in-chief-4940fda0d0de

Part 6: Oregon Senator Steiner Hayward: Blameshifter in Chief
March 16, 2015

https://medium.com/@sb442no/the-truth-about-california-s-vaccination-rates-3ce3872874f1

The Truth About California’s Vaccination Rates
April 10, 2015

Part 1 (above)

Fact #1: There are 23 vaccines that are required for children to attend school in Oregon. The parent of a child who has received 22 out of 23 vaccines has to sign an exemption for the 23rd shot, and their child is counted by the OHA as “exempt.” A parent whose child receives 0 out of 23 vaccines is also counted as exempt, as is a child who receives 12 out of 23 shots. Because shots are given as a series — for example, Oregon requires six separate DTaP shots — the data runs amok. Children who are mostly vaccinated are then misconstrued as “unvaccinated.”

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As you see on the form (image below), there are 23 “required” shots for children to attend school in Oregon, and another 14 recommended (on the back of the above form), for a total of 37 shots.

Part 4 (above)

IMAGE: Oregon Certificate of Immunization Status
(must cut and paste to view): https://d262ilb51hltx0.cloudfront.net/max/700/1*DEPXWGhPcjz-wdM7t_cMLA.jpeg

NOTE: Oregon is only one of 15 states in the U.S. that mandates Hep A vaccine (2 doses). Oregon requires 6 DTaP shots.

http://www.statesmanjournal.com/story/news/2015/03/11/senator-drops-vaccine-mandate-bill/70152454/

Senator drops Oregon vaccine mandate bill

By Saerom Yoo, Statesman Journal
12:51 p.m. PDT March 11, 2015


Sen. Elizabeth Steiner Hayward, D-Beaverton, speaks during the public hearing for Senate Bill 442,
which would eliminate nonmedical exemptions from school immunizations in Oregon,
at the Oregon State Capitol on Feb. 18. (Photo: ANNA REED / Statesman Journal)

Sen. Elizabeth Steiner Hayward, a family physician who led the charge for strengthening Oregon's school immunization law, will no longer pursue the legislation, a staffer said today.

Senate Bill 442, which has had one public hearing and attracted national attention, would have eliminated religious and philosophical exemptions from school shots. Only medical exemptions would have been allowed.

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Sen. Tim Knopp, R-Bend, who led the opposition at the Legislature against SB 442, said letting the bill die is the "right thing to do."

He said while the debate was focused on Oregon's nonmedical exemption rate, he wanted to distinguish that figure from the vaccination rate. He said because exemptions don't necessarily mean children included in that statistic are completely unvaccinated, there doesn't seem to be an emergency.

"Ultimately, we probably need to review whether or not Oregon needs a constitutional amendment to make sure parents are in control of their kids' health care," Knopp said.

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http://abcnews.go.com/Health/wireStory/oregon-lawmaker-drops-bill-ban-vaccine-exemptions-29564095

Bills Banning Most Vaccine Exemptions Fail in Northwest

SALEM, Ore. — Mar 11, 2015, 9:32 PM ET
By SHEILA V KUMAR and RACHEL LA CORTE Associated Press

Legislative efforts to increase pressure on parents to get their kids vaccinated failed in Oregon and Washington state Wednesday amid stiff opposition as a handful of other statehouses consider similar bills prompted by a measles outbreak at Disneyland.

Oregon's measure, which had the support of Democratic Gov. Kate Brown, would have made the state the third in the country allowing exemptions from immunizations only for medical reasons, and no longer for religious, philosophical or personal reasons. Mississippi and West Virginia are the only other states that have comparable laws in place.

In Washington state, a similar effort to remove personal or philosophical opposition to vaccines as an authorized exemption from childhood school immunizations died in the state House after failing to come up for a vote before a key deadline. Religious and medical exemptions would have remained under that bill.

Washington state Rep. June Robinson, who had sponsored the bill, said she didn't have the votes she needed. The Democrat from Everett said the pushback from parents and others opposed to the change had an effect on some lawmakers.

"There was a very loud outcry, much of which was filled with false information," she said.

The Oregon bill's sponsor, Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Steiner Hayward, of Portland, said opposition largely revolved around who was right or wrong about the benefits of vaccines and she has decided not to pursue the legislation.

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FROM THE COMMENTS:
44 minutes ago
Hoping Ms. Robinson will be more specific about the "false information"?

http://pulse.ncpolicywatch.org/2015/04/02/vaccine-bill-doesnt-stand-a-shot-this-year/

Vaccine bill doesn’t stand a shot this year
Posted by : Clayton Henkel
Thursday, April 2, 2015

Senate Bill 346 – legislation that would require any child in this State to be immunized in order to attend school – is officially dead for this session.

Sen. Jeff Tarte (R-Mecklenburg), Sen. Tamara Barringer (R-Wake), and Sen. Terry Van Duyn (D-Buncombe), the primary sponsors of Senate Bill 346, issued the following joint statement Wednesday:

“After hearing serious concerns about stricter vaccine and immunization requirements from our constituents and from citizens across the state, we have decided we will not move forward,” the three senators said yesterday in a statement.

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http://www.dallasnews.com/news/local-news/20150220-texas-legislator-faces-prickly-crowd-on-vaccination-exemptions.ece

MAP: Exemptions by state (see bottom of article)
SOURCE: NATIONAL CONFERENCE OF STATE LEGISLATURES
(Tyler Davis / Tribune News Service)
Link: http://cdn.thinglink.me/api/image/625543675463598080/1024/10/scaletowidth#tl-625543675463598080;1043138249'

Texas legislator faces prickly crowd on vaccination exemptions

By SHERRY JACOBSON

Published: 20 February 2015 11:16 PM
Updated: 20 February 2015 11:28 PM

The parents were noticeably upset as they lined up in chairs at the Town North Family YMCA in northwest Dallas. Some brought medical studies. Some were preparing arguments.

State Rep. Jason Villalba had called the town hall meeting to update his constituents on the legislative session in Austin.

But the Republican, who represents North Dallas, knew he was walking into the lion’s den Thursday night.

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Since 2003, Texas law has allowed parents to file a “conscientious exemption” affidavit with their school districts, allowing a child to forgo vaccination. It applied to any child attending public or private schools.

As of the 2013-2014 school year, such exemptions covered 38,197 students. They represented 0.75 percent of the state’s total enrollment.

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http://union-bulletin.com/news/2015/feb/19/washington-state-panel-oks-bill-trim-vaccine-exemp/

Washington state panel OKs bill to trim vaccine exemptions

The Associated Press as of Thursday, February 19, 2015

OLYMPIA — A House committee has approved a bill that would remove personal or philosophical opposition to vaccines as an authorized exemption from childhood school immunizations.

The House Health Care & Wellness Committee passed the measure on a 10-5 vote Wednesday, and it could be considered for a vote by the full House in the coming weeks.

Currently, Washington allows parents to claim school-vaccination exemptions for children at public or private schools or licensed day care centers based on medical, religious and personal or philosophical beliefs. House Bill 2009 removes the personal or philosophical belief allowance for an exemption. The measure has the support of the Washington State Medical Association and Gov. Jay Inslee.

According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, Washington is among 20 states that allow for personal-belief exemptions and 48 that allow for religious exemptions.

http://thesouthern.com/ap/state/bill-would-tighten-rules-for-vaccine-exemptions-in-illinois/article_65e031ae-8b94-506e-8ed7-7da4fcc51432.html

Bill would tighten rules for vaccine exemptions in Illinois
5 hours ago • The Associated Press

SPRINGFIELD — An Illinois lawmaker wants to tighten the rules for parents seeking to exempt their children from vaccination requirements because of religious beliefs.

State Sen. John Mulroe's legislation would require parents to submit a Department of Public Health objection form detailing their reason for seeking the exemption. The form would have to include a notarized "religious exemption statement" from a religious official.

Under current state law, parents must only submit a statement detailing their religious objection. Those objections may be personal, and don't have to be affiliated with any organized religion.

Mulroe said the bill, filed Friday, was prompted by a recent measles outbreak in suburban Chicago. Health officials say there have been 14 confirmed cases in Illinois, all of them in Cook County. Thirteen of the 14 have bene associated with a Palatine child-care center.

Mulroe said there's been "a groundswell" of parents in recent years who see vaccines "as a harbinger of other diseases despite evidence to the contrary."

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http://www.phillytrib.com/gop-cynical-political-map-with-anti-vaccine-rhetoric/article_395df72f-56d0-56a7-8789-a5afae94c750.html

...A YouGov poll on Jan. 26-28 showed that while 57 percent support vaccine requirements, 32 percent believe it should be a parental choice. That’s not a majority – but, it’s still a large enough segment of the population.

Within those numbers could be solid political openings emboldening Christie: in that same poll, 35 percent of Republicans and 39 percent of Independents agreed that vaccinations should be a parental choice rather than a government mandate. These numbers compared to only 19 percent of Democrats.

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The YouGov poll in late January showed a majority of voters between the ages of 18-29, at 43 percent, agreeing that parents should have a choice about vaccines. In the 30-44 age bracket, 37 percent concurred with that notion.

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http://www.webmd.com/news/20150213/vaccine-opt-out-laws

Survey Finds Support for Vaccine Opt-Out Laws
Other Interesting Results

By Brenda Goodman, MA
WebMD Health News Reviewed by Michael W. Smith, MD

Feb. 13, 2015

...The survey findings suggest that the California bill and similar efforts could meet significant resistance.

http://www.webmd.com/news/20150213/vaccine-opt-out-laws?page=2

"According to the CDC, 1 in 12, or about 8% of children in the U.S. don’t get the first dose of the MMR vaccine on time."

http://blogs.kqed.org/stateofhealth/2015/02/24/beyond-abolishing-the-personal-belief-exemption-to-raise-vaccination-rates/

Beyond Abolishing the ‘Personal Belief Exemption’ To Raise Vaccination Rates
February 24, 2015 | 5:07 PM | By Lisa Aliferis

On Wednesday in Sacramento, a MoveOn.org member is expected to deliver a petition with 21,000 signatures calling on the state’s government to abolish the personal belief exemption.

She will be holding a press conference with Sen. Richard Pan (D-Sacramento), who announced a bill earlier this month to do just that. When he made the announcement, Pan repeatedly spoke of wanting to increase vaccination rates.

It sounds so good: Just wipe out the option to refuse vaccines, and vaccination rates will improve.

But is abolishing the personal belief exemption — a choice that permits parents to lawfully send their children to school unvaccinated — the best way to accomplish that goal?

“I think focusing on the parental-choice issue risks provoking a counterproductive backlash,” Professor Brendan Nyhan told me in an interview. He’s a political scientist at Dartmouth whose research focuses on misperceptions in politics and health care.

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Nyhan also worries that the media focus on people who refuse vaccines may create a false impression that those views are mainstream. Even in California, measles outbreak and all, only 2.5 percent of kindergartners this year had a non-medical exemption. Put a different way, more than 97 percent of California parents vaccinate their kids.

http://www.abqjournal.com/557820/news/los-alamos-top-in-nm-for-vaccine-exemptions.html



Los Alamos schools top NM in vaccine exemptions

By Mark Oswald / El Norte
PUBLISHED: Friday, March 20, 2015 at 12:02 am

The tally is in, and the major New Mexico school district with the largest percentage of students opting out of vaccinations against contagious diseases is not in one of the state’s known hotbeds for crystal gazing, cradle therapy or psychic readings.

Nope, the highest percentage of vaccine exemptions is in New Mexico’s, and one of the world’s, science centers: Los Alamos.

According to a recent report by the state Department of Health, 2.3 percent of students in the Los Alamos Public Schools have exemptions from having to get vaccinations.

That’s a higher percentage than in the public schools of our New Age-friendly and alternative thought capitals of Santa Fe and Taos. The statewide average is less than 1 percent.

The rating for Los Alamos seems demographically in line with the findings of a 2014 survey by the Health Department of 794 vaccine-exemptor parents – 74 percent were Anglo and 67 percent had at least four years of college.

But one would think Los Alamos would be different. It’s a town founded on science, and the scientific evidence is overwhelming that vaccines don’t cause autism or other developmental disabilities. Many people in Los Alamos don’t just have college degrees – they’re scientists, with lots of degrees. Los Alamos National Laboratory in fact has done some heavy research on infectious disease and development of an HIV vaccine.

“That’s a curiosity to me, as well,” said Los Alamos schools superintendent Gene Schmidt of his district’s relatively high rate of vaccination exemptions among what he called “a pretty scientific and literate community.”

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Exemption Rates

Highest vaccine exemption rates among school New Mexico public school districts with at least 600 students:

* Los Alamos 2.3%
* Taos 2.0%
* Santa Fe 2.1%

Highest vaccine exemption rates among New Mexico counties for children 4 to 18 years old (state average is 0.8 percent):

* Taos 3.2%
* Los Alamos 3.1%
* De Baca 3.1%
* Santa Fe 2.6%

http://www.mercurynews.com/health/ci_27854922/california-vaccine-exemption-bill-faces-crucial-first-test

California vaccine exemption bill faces crucial first test on Wednesday
By Tracy Seipel

POSTED: 04/05/2015 04:25:26 PM PDT 288 COMMENTS| UPDATED: A DAY AGO

SACRAMENTO -- Democratic-led efforts to ban vaccine exemptions in Oregon and Washington state toppled one after the other last month amid fervent opposition from parents and anti-vaccine groups who say the bills would have trampled their fundamental rights to decide how to care for their own children.

Now it's California's turn to try.

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But on this issue, that's no guarantee the bill will pass, said Bill Whalen, a top aide to former Republican Gov. Pete Wilson and now a fellow at Stanford's Hoover Institution.

"People think this is about people who are anti-science and not trusting of the government when in fact if you look at a map of California as to where the vaccine rates are the lowest, they're not in the Central Valley or Orange County, they're in places like Marin County and Santa Monica," both Democratic strongholds.

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http://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/capitol-alert/article18604656.html

California vaccine bill stalls

BY JEREMY B. WHITE
04/15/2015 12:57 PM 04/15/2015 1:23 PM

Bowing to concerns from parents and lawmakers that children would be denied a public education, a state Senate committee Tuesday held off voting on a bill requiring most parents to vaccinate their children as a condition of enrolling them in school.

“If I were you, I would not take a vote today,” Sen. Carol Liu, D-Canada Flintridge, who leads the Senate’s education panel, told Sen. Richard Pan, D-Sacramento, the bill’s author. “Otherwise I don’t think your bill proceeds out of this committee.”

With multiple legislators expressing doubts, Pan agreed to postpone a vote until next Wednesday. Between now and then, Pan and his allies will try to negotiate changes to the bill to win over Liu and other lawmakers on the panel.

California is one of 19 states permitting parents to cite a personal belief exemption if they wish to enroll children in school without being fully vaccinated. Bursts of illnesses like whooping cough and measles have led legislators to propose closing off the personal belief avenue via Senate Bill 277. They have won the support of public health officials, medical professionals and educators. The measure cleared the Senate Health Committee last week.

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http://www.calchannel.com/recent-archive/

CA Senate Education Committee on SB277 April 15, 2014 3h41m LINK
CA Senate Health Committee on SB277 April 8, 2015 5h53m LINK

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#67 SB-277 Public health: vaccinations. Pan Senate - Third Reading