<OpposeSB1177>

HELP STOP FORCED VACCINATION OF HEALTHCARE WORKERS IN TX

Special Session Update 6/8/2011

Dear Texas PROVE Members,

It is Special Session in Texas and forced vaccination of healthcare workers is BACK with a vengeance for a final vote TODAY even though we successfully fought it during regular session! Nobody should have to choose between a vaccine and staying employed, but that is exactly what is about to happen unless this is stopped. All vaccines carry risks of injury and death. Helping our healthcare workers retain the right of informed consent to vaccination for themselves is crucial to families having access to healthcare workers who respect this right for all.

Call your state representative on Wednesday opposing forced vaccination of healthcare workers in Texas. You can find who your State Representative is by logging in to the NVIC Advocacy Portal http://NVICAdvocacy.org and going to the Texas State Team Page. If you click on their name, all their contact information will appear. Or you can go to
http://www.house.state.tx.us/members/find-your-representative/.

Call right away and tell your State Representative to:

Vote against SB 7, which includes in article 8 forced vaccination of healthcare workers, but let them know if they feel they must vote for the bill to at least

amend it to remove the mandatory vaccination provision, Article 8, or
to amend Section 224.002(c) to require that any program include a right-of-conscience and religious provision for opting out of objectionable vaccines. Right now conscientious and religious exemptions are optional, not required, and no hospitals offer them when they are optional.

Governor Rick Perry is making quite a name for himself as the FORCED VACCINATION governor – from HPV for 11 and 12 year old girls in 2007, to required meningitis vaccines for college students, and now teaming up with Senator Jane Nelson (see alert below by AAPS) and authorized in his executive ordered session buried in a Medicaid finance bill is FORCED VACCINATION of health care workers with penalties for non-compliance. (YES this is the same language as SB 1177 that was defeated during regular session). Welcome to Perry Care – vaccines for all whether you want them or not!

Call governor Rick Perry and tell him to stop trying to force vaccination on Texans and ask him to veto SB7 if it passes with forced vaccination for healthcare workers in Article 8 intact.

Citizen's Opinion Hotline [for Texas callers] :
(800) 252-9600
Information and Referral and Opinion Hotline [for Austin, Texas and out-of-state callers] :
(512) 463-1782

Please pass this around and get the calls going today! Thank you!

Dawn Richardson and Rebecca Rex
PROVE (Parents Requesting Open Vaccine Education)
http://vaccineinfo.net (web site)

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Doctors Face Mandatory Vaccination Wednesday in Texas House

Doctors and nurses face being subjected to mandatory vaccination without religious or conscience exceptions IN A VOTE WEDNESDAY IN THE TEXAS HOUSE.

Senator Jane Nelson quietly removed the requirement passed by the House for hospitals to include right-to-conscience exemption language from her mandatory vaccination provision that WILL BE VOTED ON WEDNESDAY JUNE 8th IN THE TEXAS HOUSE. This dreadful provision is being sneaked into the special session in Austin in a mammoth Medicaid revision bill.

If this SB 7 passes Wednesday, doctors and nurses can be denied their right to object to mandatory vaccination by their employer who will now be forced by the state to require vaccination of all health care workers.

Senator Nelson is the same person who prevented passage of real transparency for the medical board. She even ushered through a bill that will protect people who file secret, malicious complaints against doctors with the medical board.

Denying doctors and nurses their legally guaranteed right to conscience is adding insult to injury. Doctors and Nurses in Texas shouldn’t have to be placed in a position to have to choose between their careers and a vaccine.

Call right away and tell your legislator to vote against SB 7, but let them know if they feel they must vote for it to at least amend it to remove the mandatory vaccination provision, Article 8, or to amend Section 224.002(c) to require that any program include a right-to-conscience provision for opting out of objectionable vaccines.

You can find your legislator's contact info here: http://www.house.state.tx.us/members/

If you don't know who your legislator is you can find out here: http://www.house.state.tx.us/members/find-your-representative/

HELP STOP FORCED VACCINATION OF HEALTHCARE WORKERS IN TX – ARE YOU NEXT?

Dear PROVE Texas Members,

One call is needed to your State Representative to ask him/her to VOTE NO on SB1177 to stop the forced vaccination of healthcare workers in Texas. It is on the Calendar to come up for a vote as early as today 5/24. Look below for TAKE ACTION NOW.

Please forward this note to friends, family, and anyone you know working in the health care field in Texas who wants to retain their right to refuse a vaccine they feel may be unsafe or unnecessary.

SB1177 requires health care facilities to enact MANDATORY vaccination policies for ANY worker (nurses, doctors, food service, janitorial, administrative, etc.) who is around patients. The bill also requires the facility to enforce penalties for those who refuse. Medical exemptions are limited to only CDC contraindications, and facilities are NOT required to provide for religious or conscientious exemptions.

If SB1177 is passed in its current form where medical exemptions are limited and facilities are not required to grant religious and conscientious exemptions, good healthcare workers will be forced to chose between keeping their job and being forcibly vaccinated with multiple federally recommended vaccines. If a facility does not enforce these mandates under this bill, they would be subject to administrative and civil penalties. This would be the beginning of state endorsed vaccine mandates for adults in the workforce.

Thank you for your help!

Sincerely,
Dawn Richardson and Rebecca Rex (PROVE)

TAKE ACTION NOW

1) Forward this note to family, friends, and health care workers who you think won’t want to be forcibly vaccinated by their employers

2) Determine who is your state representative and lookup their phone number

a) Either Log into the NVIC Advocacy Portal at http://NVICAdvocacy.org and go to the Texas State Team Page under the State Teams tab to see your personal legislators, and click on your representative’s name to display all their contact information

b) Or go to http://www.legis.state.tx.us/Home.aspx and enter in your address information in the “Who Represents Me” section, and scroll down to the Texas State Representative

3) Call your state representative and ask them to VOTE NO on SB1177

a) Sample Script Simplest Level (if you are short on time):
Hello, my name is ____________ and I am a constituent of Representative ____________. I am calling to ask my representative to VOTE NO on SB1177 on the General Calendar because it requires health care employers to force employees to be vaccinated in order to keep their jobs. Vaccines carry risk of injury and death and nobody should have to be forced to choose between their job and taking a vaccine.

b) Additional helpful information if you have the time to educate staff:

i) If the staff member tries to tell you there are vaccine exemptions in the bill, or you are feeling up to elaborating and educating the staff on why the bill is inadequate to protect employees, you can explain

Medical Exemptions in the bill are limited to Centers for Disease Control contraindications only which are extremely limited and wouldn’t prevent the majority of reactions reported to the FDA/CDS’s Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System. Individual doctors opinions on what vaccines are safe and not safe for an individual health care worker are not accepted.

The Religious/Conscientious Exemption in the bill is only optional for employers. While the bill requires employers to mandated vaccines, employers are NOT REQUIRED to allow for exemptions. The problem is in Section 2 224.02 (c) which states: “The policy may include procedures for a health care facility employee to be exempt from the required vaccines based on reasons of conscience, including a religious belief.” This section would have to say “SHALL include” for the exemption to protect the rights of employees.

ii) SB1177 will cost the state a lot of money paying for unemployment claims for health care workers who are fired because they are not willing to be forcibly vaccinated by their employer as a condition of employment and for workman’s compensation claims by employees who are injured by a job required vaccine.

iii) SB1177 violates an Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) position statement which ruled that employers may not retaliate against employees who have “a reasonable belief” that they could have a serious reaction to the vaccine because it actually requires employers to develop penalties against the employee who refuses vaccination.

4) If you really want to help, also cut and paste the following note and send it by FAX to your state representative ASAP. (it is too late in the session to bother with email – please send a fax – fax numbers are listed through the lookup methods shown above)

Dear Representative [YOUR REPRESENTATIVE’S NAME]

I am a constituent and I am writing to you today to ask you to VOTE NO on SB1177 on the General State Calendar because it requires health care employers to force employees to be vaccinated in order to keep their jobs. Vaccines carry risk of injury and death and nobody should have to be forced to choose between their job and taking a vaccine.

Don’t be fooled by proponents who say the bill protects employees with vaccines exemptions. The exemptions are ineffective and inadequate.

Medical Exemptions in the bill are limited to Centers for Disease Control contraindications only which are extremely limited and wouldn’t prevent the majority of reactions reported to the FDA/CDS’s Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System. Individual doctors opinions on what vaccines are safe and not safe for an individual health care worker are not accepted.

The Religious/Conscientious Exemption in the bill is optional for employers and some employers are already firing workers for refusing a required vaccine. While the bill requires employers to mandated vaccines, employers are NOT REQUIRED to allow for exemptions.

The problem is in Section 2 224.02 (c) which states: “The policy may include procedures for a health care facility employee to be exempt from the required vaccines based on reasons of conscience, including a religious belief.” This section would have to say “SHALL include” for the exemption to protect the rights of employees.

SB1177 will cost the state a lot of money paying for unemployment claims for health care workers who are fired because they are not willing to be forcibly vaccinated by their employer as a condition of employment and for workman’s compensation claims by employees who are injured by a job required vaccine.

SB1177 violates an Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) position statement which ruled that employers may not retaliate against employees who have “a reasonable belief” that they could have a serious reaction to the vaccine because it actually requires employers to develop penalties against the employee who refuses vaccination. http://www.osha.gov/pls/oshaweb/owadisp.show_document?p_table=INTERPRETATIONS&p_id=27284

Vaccine preventable diseases are not a problem in hospitals. The real problem is hospital acquired infections with antibiotic resistant bacteria like MRSA accounting for almost 100,000 deaths and a cost of $1.7 billion dollars annually.

Vote no on SB1177 because it is state sponsored forced drugging of employees as a condition of employment.

Sincerely,

[YOUR NAME AND ADDRESS]