NVIC Vaccine News

Parents Testify in Colorado Senate Opposing Vaccine Bill

By Theresa Wrangham
Published April 16, 2014 in Government


Parents and health care professionals filled the Old Supreme Court building in Denver at an Apr. 9, 2014 public hearing of the Colorado Senate Military and Veterans Affairs Committee to testify against a bill (HB1288) to restrict the personal belief exemption to vaccination. The bill is being sponsored by Irene Aguilar (D-District 32) and co-sponsored by Lucia Guzman (D-District 34); Nancy Todd (D-District 28); and Jessie Ulibarri (D-District 21).
 
Testimony for and against the bill went on for nearly five hours. Just like the Mar. 13 House hearing, parents opposing the bill outnumbered those speaking in support of the bill. Unlike the House hearing, however, the Senate hearing was not as extensively covered by the media.
 

Burdening Parents and Judging Personal Beliefs

 
Colorado resident and NVIC Executive Director Theresa Wrangham testified at the hearing that the bill is “discriminatory because it burdens those choosing to take vaccine exemptions with higher education requirements than federal law requires for those choosing to vaccinate. “ She added that “Those harmed by vaccination are as important as those harmed by a disease” and that requiring state sponsored education or a doctor’s signature to obtain a personal belief exemption puts “the state or health care provider in the position of approving another citizen’s religious or conscientiously held beliefs.”  
 

Threatening Medical Privacy and Singling Out Parents for Harassment

 
NVIC Advocacy Director, Dawn Richardson, submitted written testimony on behalf of NVIC and said the bill “threatens the medical privacy of children and sets them up for harassment by requiring their individual school or daycare to publicly release vaccine exemptions rates upon request.” She pointed out that the small number of parents taking exemptions will make it likely the family will be “singled out, harassed and be discriminated against” and said that this is already happening in California where a similar bill restricting personal belief exemption was passed.
 

Parents Testifying About Vaccines Injuries and Health Choices

 
Parents testified that they followed doctors’ orders without questioning and their children suffered vaccine reactions and were left with permanent brain and immune system problems. Ronnie Prine brought his severely vaccine injured adult son to the Capitol in a wheelchair and Kathy Sincere testified that she has four adult vaccine injured children.  Robyn Charron, who has a four year old vaccine injured son and wants to protect her two year old daughter from becoming vaccine injured, expressed the concerns of many parents testifying in opposition to the bill. She said, “This moves us toward vaccinations for everyone and eliminating exemptions altogether.”
 
Health care professionals also testified against the bill, including a doctor of chiropractic with four children. She said, “I Iive in a different paradigm for my family when it comes to their health care.”
 
Watch a report on the hearing by KDVR-TV.
 
Listen to the April 9 hearing in the Senate Military and Veterans Affairs Committee. (Starts at 02:50)
 
 
Colorado residents still have time to contact their elected state representatives and senators and express their concerns about HB1288.  Sign up for the free online NVIC Advocacy Portal and stay informed.
 

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7 Responses to "Parents Testify in Colorado Senate Opposing Vaccine Bill"
Commenter Name
Mr. Francis Sincere
Posted: 4/17/2014 4:38:06 PM
I testified at the Colorado Senate hearing with my wife Kathy, parents of 4 injured children. The main point I made is that according to the APHA Healthiest States rankings, the PBE is an option in 11 of the top 21 healthiest States. Given that there are only 17-18 states now offering the PBE that's a good fact worth noting. While we are not claiming that the PBE leads to a healthier community on average, but for sure you can say that the PBE is a not a negative factor in healthy communities.
Commenter Name
Cynthia Valenzuela
Posted: 4/17/2014 11:28:08 PM
Enough! Children losing their lives, their futures and quality of life. I see what my daughter goes through trying to get help for my granddaughter. She use to say mama now no talking at all. We try every day to get her to joshua school. My daughter has faith in them. My daughter pays more than Tom Cruise for his daughters education in a top school in Manhattan. Can you imagine. I wouldn't want to be responsible for anything that hurts children, families.
Commenter Name
Chelsea
Posted: 4/18/2014 12:30:17 PM
Whatever happened to freedom of rights? This is no different than the government forcing the people to smoke meth, or sniff cocaine. They are all drugs and vaccines are included. All DRUG's have side effects including adverse reactions. Why are we forcing anyone to take anything they don't want to take? Especially when there is associated risks. This isn't something in the dark. They are listed on the vaccine inserts for crying out loud. Why are we ignoring them? That's the problem here.. We keep ignoring, and pressing on but as we do that more and more people become injured. This can't continue on for much longer. The risks will be exposed at a faster rate if we take people's freedom and the right to choose. The more people that are vaccinated the numbers grow higher for people who can't handle them and have a reaction. I'll tell you one thing many of these people will not stand idle and watch their child be injected with ingredients they believe are lethal. Are we going to lock these parents up and put them in jail when they go ballistic? It's within our right to protect our children at all cost, so I hope the government along with Colorado is prepared for that if this bill passes.
Commenter Name
chemfreemom
Posted: 4/18/2014 9:40:03 PM
This is so frightening! If they can force you to inject drugs into your child, what is next? People, whether you are in favor of vaccines or not, don't let the government take this most basic of rights away from you!
Commenter Name
MARY FISHER
Posted: 4/27/2014 7:35:42 AM
Forcing vaccines on children when there is a good chance they will injured is immoral. Creating a law that prevents parents from suing for damages is unethical. Vaccines make drug companies rich and imprison our children with neurological damage
Commenter Name
Jonathan
Posted: 3/7/2015 1:11:00 AM
What evidence was presented that bullying exempted students in California has truly occurred? Are students actually bullied at school for being exempted from vaccines? are there any sources that can verify this?
Commenter Name
Gillermo
Posted: 12/1/2015 7:50:56 PM
I do find the conversation exshuating! I cannot believe some of the things I've read. I mean, I don't believe them, but it's hard to fathom how someone could think that's true. There are networks of websites that give away or sell libraries of anti-vaccine information so people can feel like they're all armed up with research, when in fact they just bought a bunch of PDFs from Dr. Tenpenny (a D.O.) that might as well be printed on pegasus wings for how legit they are. In this way, people feel that they've done the research, but it's a joke. A very unfunny joke.In very broad terms, I think that America in particular, and the western world in general has an expert problem. There are too many experts and it's become difficult to suss out the B.S. experts from the legit ones. The problem is, I really need a doctor to help me make medical decisions because, well, I'm not a doctor. I have to trust someone and if I don't trust my doctor, then there's a trust void that I can fill with Dr. Tenpenny, and that's dangerous. But like you said, there are doctors out there who are anti-vaxers, some of them MD's, some of them fancy boutique doctors to the stars who fill their celebrity patients up with misinformation and unleash them on the world.

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