NVIC Calls For Urgent Action In New Jersey Vaccine Legislation

Dear New Jersey NVIC Advocacy Team Members,

The forced vaccination agenda is spinning out of control in New Jersey.
The fate of forced vaccination of children and adults through 5 bills will be decided Monday afternoon, December 16th, in the full Senate and Assembly sessions. S2173, S1003, A3818, A1576, and A1991 all need to be stopped!

It is critical that you make calls and send emails this weekend and Monday morning to your Senator, Assembly Member and the Governor to oppose these bills. Go to your Senator and Assembly Member’s offices in the Capitol on Monday morning. Talking points are below or download and print in a handout here.

URGENT ACTION NEEDED:
Immediately and before the Monday December 16th Senate Floor session at 1:00 p.m., CALL, EMAIL and VISIT YOUR NEW JERSEY SENATOR.

Tell your Senator to VOTE NO on:

• S2173 eliminates religious exemption to mandatory vaccination and severely restricts medical exemptions to essentially force all children to be vaccinated in order to attend child care or receive an education; and
• S1003 forces health care workers to get the flu shot as a condition of employment with no ability to decline.

Immediately and before the Monday December 16th Assembly Floor session at 1:00 p.m., CALL, EMAIL and VISIT YOUR NEW JERSEY ASSEMBLY MEMBER.

Tell your Assembly Member to VOTE NO on:

• A3818 eliminates religious exemptions to mandatory vaccination for school and childcare; and
• A1576 requires flu vaccines for health care workers with the ability to decline in writing.
• A1991 requires college students to have all Meningococcal vaccines recommended by The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practice (ACIP) of the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) which essentially adds a meningococcal B serogroup vaccine mandate.

Contact Governor Phil Murphy and ask him to VETO S2173 and A3818, S1003 and A1576, and A1991 if any of these bills pass the legislature and make it to his desk. Call 609-292-6000 and fill out the web contact form https://www.state.nj.us/governor/contact/ or send a letter to: Governor Phil Murphy, Office of Governor PO Box 001, Trenton, NJ 08625.

Please forward legislative responses to our NVIC Advocacy NJ state director Sue at NJDirector14@NVICAdvocacy.org.

Login to the NVIC Advocacy Portal OFTEN to check for updates. We review bills and make updates daily. Bills can change many times over the legislative process and your timely visits, calls, and emails directed at the correct legislators are critical to this process.

Please forward this email to family and friends and ask them to register for the NVIC Advocacy Portal at http://NVICAdvocacy.org and share their concerns with their legislators as well. You can also find this alert posted on the National Vaccine Information Center Facebook Page in the “NOTES” section to share.

If you do not know who your state legislators are, register/login to the NVIC Advocacy Portal at http://NVICAdvocacy.org. Click on the STATE TEAMS tab and select your state. Their names are displayed on the right side of the page and you can click on their name for contact information. You can also search here: https://www.njleg.state.nj.us/members/legsearch.asp

TALKING POINTS TO HAND LEGISLATORS (download and print handout here)

Senators: Vote NO on S2173 and S1003
Assembly Members: Vote NO on A3818, A1576 and A1991

STAND UP TO THE FORCED VACCINATION AGENDA IN NEW JERSEY
Forced vaccination is un-American. Adults and children are being attacked with the most aggressive collection of forced vaccination bills New Jersey has ever seen! We are counting on you to protect informed consent and religious freedom.

OPPOSE S2173 which 1) totally eliminates the religious exemption to vaccination for all school children and for those attending licensed childcare centers; 2) severely restricts medical exemptions by limiting the medical exemption to narrow Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) guidelines, subjecting the medical exemption to audit by local and county boards of health and approval by the physician employed by or consulting for the local county board of health, and recording the exemption in the state vaccine tracking system; and 3) codifies that forced vaccination mandates apply to all public and private childcare, elementary and secondary schools, and institutes of higher education.

OPPOSE A3818 which eliminates the religious exemption to vaccine mandates in New Jersey.
Vaccination rates for New Jersey school children are already high and religious exemption numbers are already low. There is no need to remove these rights. Kindergarten vaccination rates in New Jersey for MMR, DTaP, Varicella, Hep B, and Polio are all > 95% according to the Centers for Disease Control. Out of a total of 109,161 kindergarten students, there are only 2,510 religious exemptions.

Exemption rates are being misrepresented. Having an exemption doesn’t mean unvaccinated. An expanded vaccine schedule is not accounted for in claims of rising of exemption numbers. Children today are recommended to receive 69 doses of vaccines for 16 different viral and bacterial illnesses, which more than doubles the 2000 CDC schedule of 34 doses of 11 different vaccines. A vaccine exemption is filed regardless of whether the exemption is filed for one dose or all doses. With 35 doses and 5 more unique vaccines added in the last 19 years, there are more possibilities for an exemption. Don’t be fooled by those who incorrectly assume a student with an exemption is unvaccinated, as most students with exemptions are partially vaccinated.

Personal religious beliefs are included in rights granted by the U.S. Constitution. There have been unsubstantiated claims that parents in New Jersey are misusing religious exemptions. Those who are asserting this think that one has to belong to a recognized or organized religion to have constitutionally protected religious beliefs. This is not true. Personally held sincere religious beliefs are protected as well. Severe vaccine reactions and death are traumatic, which causes many families to turn closer to religion.

Vaccine exemptions need to be expanded and preserved for many vaccines in the future. America’s biopharmaceutical research companies are developing more than 260 vaccines. Passage of these bills could lead to forced vaccination with dozens of more vaccines made by even more controversial technologies in the near future. The U.S. Vaccine Market alone was $36.45 billion in 2018, and is expected to reach $50.42 billion by 2023. This is a very powerful industry with lots of resources to lobby and influence policy to remove parental rights to be able to delay or decline a vaccine. The industry benefits financially from forced use. Pharmaceutical companies have paid billions of dollars in criminal and civil FRAUD penalties. Skepticism of the integrity of the pharmaceutical industry is well deserved.

Vaccines cause injuries and deaths for some, and manufactures and doctors have no liability. As of December 1st, 2019, The United States Government has paid out more than $4.24 billion dollars to vaccine victims through the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (VICP) for vaccine injuries and death. The law passed by Congress in 1986 establishing the VICP along with the 2011 Supreme Court Decision BRUESEWITZ ET AL. v. WYETH LLC, FKA WYETH, INC., ET AL shield vaccine manufacturers and the doctors who administer vaccines from liability for vaccine injuries and deaths.

Public health emergency provisions to suspend religious exemptions already exist where unvaccinated students can be excluded from school in the case of an emergency declared by the commissioner, so it is completely unnecessary and cruel to restrict or remove religious exemptions or severely restrict medical exemptions. (N.J. Stat. § 26:1A-9.1.)

OPPOSE S1003 which forces health care workers to get the flu shot as a condition of employment with no ability to decline.

OPPOSE A1576 which requires flu vaccines for health care workers with the ability to decline.
Flu vaccines are a pharmaceutical product that can cause injury and death and should never be mandated. The informed consent ethic has been the cornerstone in the ethical practice of medicine since World War II and requires voluntary consent to research, treatments, products and procedures without sanction.

CDC data on influenza vaccine effectiveness demonstrates that the vaccine has a poor track record with ratings that rarely exceeds 50% since 2004/2005. The average for the 2018-2019 season was only 29% and was only 9% effective for the second half of the 2018-2019 season.
Influenza vaccine is the leading vaccine injury claim compensated by the federal vaccine injury compensation program and many health care workers have safety concerns relating to risks and injuries associated with these vaccines.

A systematic review in 2016 by the Cochrane Collaboration found there was “little evidence to justify medical care and public health practitioners mandating influenza vaccination for healthcare workers who care for the elderly in long‐term care institutions (LTCIs).”

One-size-fits-all requirements for health care workers fail to recognize increased individual susceptibility to influenza vaccine adverse events for genetic and other biological reasons. Increased susceptibilities were acknowledged in the 2011 Institute of Medicine (IOM) report Adverse Effects of Vaccines: Evidence and Causality.

Health care workers who have been denied a religious exemption and fired from their jobs have successfully sued their employers through the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Center (EEOC), as have unions. The absence of clear exemption language is a potential liability to employers.
OPPOSE A1991 which requires college students to have all Meningococcal vaccines recommended by The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practice (ACIP) of the Centers for Disease Control (CDC). This essentially adds a meningococcal B serogroup vaccine mandate.

The number of cases of meningitis in New Jersey are too low to justify the expense and safety risks to require all college students to be vaccinated. Total cases in New Jersey for all serogroups across all ages: 2018 – 6 cases, 2017 – 9 cases, 2016 – 8 cases. The New Jersey Department pf Health does not break down what fraction of the cases are confined to B serogroup alone or in college age students, but they would be a fraction of already extremely low numbers.

Meningococcal B vaccines are very expensive. According to the CDC, the private sector costs per dose as of December 1, 2019 range from approximately $140 – $171.

A new mandate if the exemption removal passes closes the door to a college education in New Jersey to those who don’t believe the risk of the vaccine is worth it. If vaccine exemption removal bills pass, a college education in New Jersey would be impossible for most without meningococcal vaccines. This would also deter students from out of state who don’t want the vaccine from seeking higher education in New Jersey.

Meningococcal vaccines list many documented side effects including death, anaphylaxis/anaphylactic reaction, difficulty breathing, upper airway swelling, Guillain-Barré syndrome, dizziness, convulsion, acute disseminated encephalomyelitis, irritability, abnormal crying, fever, drowsiness, fatigue, injection site pain and swelling, sudden loss of consciousness (syncope), diarrhea, headache, joint pain, brain inflammation, and facial palsy. Bexsero, Menveo, Menomune, Menactra.

BACKGROUND INFORMATION ON HOW WE GOT HERE

The Senate Health, Human Services and Senior Citizens Committee voted 6:4 to pass S2173 on Thursday December 12th after amending the bill to eliminate all religious exemptions and severely restrict the medical exemption. (committee statement).

S2173 is on the agenda to be heard by the full Senate on Monday December 16th, 2019. The floor session of the full Senate will begin at 1:00 PM. (see calendar for 12/16/2019 to see S2173 scheduled) It is critical that you contact your Senator before the Monday floor session and request a no vote on S2173!

S2173 was amended to 1) totally eliminate the religious exemption to vaccination for all school children and for those attending licensed childcare centers; 2) severely restrict medical exemptions by limiting the medical exemption to narrow Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) guidelines, subjecting the medical exemption to audit by local and county boards of health and approval by the physician employed by or consulting for the local county board of health, and recording the exemption in the state vaccine tracking system; and 3) codify that vaccine mandates apply to all public and private childcare, elementary and secondary schools, and institutes of higher education.

The bill would go into effect 180 days from passage and approval by the Governor.
You can listen to the audio of the hearing on S2173. It starts at the 28:20 timestamp here, and the description of the amendments begins at the 2:13:47 timestamp.

Out of 10 members on the committee, there were 5 substitutions of legislators before the hearing. Three of the substitutions were predetermined YES votes on the bill where two of the substituted member YES votes were committed before the hearing even took place. This raised serious questions about certain legislators manipulating the votes to ram this bill through on straight party lines in spite of significant objections.

The 6 “YES” votes were Senators Joseph F. Vitale (D), Fred Madden (D), Richard J. Codey (D), Joseph P. Cryan (D), Bob Smith (D), and Stephen M. Sweeney (D).
The 4 “NO” votes were Senators: Gerard Cardinale (R), Kristin M. Corrado (R), Robert W. Singer (R), and Michael Testa (R).

In order for a bill to pass the legislature in New Jersey, it has to pass both the Assembly and the Senate before it is sent to the governor. The Assembly companion bill to S2173, A3818, still has to have a full vote by the Assembly, and late in the day on Friday December 13th, A3818 was added to the Assembly floor calendar for a vote Monday December 16th at 1:00 p.m.. A3818 removes the religious exemption but does not change the medical exemption. The two bills are different and one will most likely be amended on the floor to match the other since both bills have to match in order to move on to the Governor for final passage. Calls and emails to your Assembly Member to oppose companion A3818 are needed as well.

In another surprise and yet ironic move towards forced vaccination, health care workers’ rights were also stripped during this same hearing right under their noses as some of them advocated for children’s vaccine exemption rights to be gutted. S1003, a bill to mandate annual flu vaccines for employees who work at a health care facility, was amended to remove language in the bill that would have allowed employees to decline the flu shot. S1003 as amended forces every employee working in a health care facility to get a flu shot every year as a condition of employment unless they can qualify for a medical exemption based on the very limited contraindications spelled out by ACIP. Medical exemptions would be subject to the approval of the facility, and no religious or conscientious belief declinations would be allowed. This bill was added to the Senate Floor calendar for Monday December 16th at 1:00 p.m. and your Senator should be asked to oppose S1003.

The Assembly companion A1576 has also been placed on the Assembly Floor calendar for Monday December 16th at 1:00 p.m. While it is a flu shot mandate and it should still be opposed, it still retains the declination option. Tell your Assembly Member to oppose A1576 requiring a flu shot and reject any amendments that would strip out the declination option. One way to kill this bill is for the Assembly and Senate to pass different versions. Both versions have to be the same for the bill to move on to the Governor for final passage.

Finally, the Meningococcal vaccine mandate expansion for college students which essentially adds a college vaccine mandate for serogroup B meningococcal bacteria, A1991, is scheduled on the Assembly Floor calendar for Monday, December 16th at 1:00 p.m. As we reported at the beginning of this year on our action alert for this bill, there are such small numbers for bacterial meningococcal disease of which B serogroup is an even smaller subset, vaccines with known risks should not be mandated. They are already available to all who want them.

Even if you don’t work in health care or have children attending school, day care or college, you should be concerned about the forced vaccination agenda in New Jersey rearing its ugly head at the end of session and voice your strong opposition. If the legislature can get away with passing these bills, it is only a matter of time before they force more vaccines on adults as a condition of employment and children as a condition to attend school or daycare.

There is a radical group of New Jersey legislators that is fast-tracking a comprehensive forced vaccination plan.

Please go to Trenton on Monday and stop by your Senator’s and Assembly Member’s offices in the morning. Ask them to vote NO on all these bills forcing vaccination. You won’t want to go to bed on Monday night regretting you didn’t do enough to stop this insanity.
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Sincerely,
NVIC Advocacy Team
National Vaccine Information Center
http://NVIC.org and http://NVICAdvocacy.org
https://nvicadvocacy.org/members/Members/ContactUs.aspx