When California disagrees with your doctor, who gets to decide? NO to state-legislated practice of medicine.
Dear Governor Newsom,
If SB276 hits your desk, I stand with huge numbers of deeply concerned Californians who urge you to veto SB276. The outcome of this bill will directly impact how I raise and educate my children, my trust in doctors and the health care system, where I choose to live, and how I plan to vote in November. Passage of SB276 will weaken the fabric of our society.
There are three fundamental principles at stake which affect us all:
- integrity of the doctor-patient relationship, which is the lynchpin in the ethical and trusted practice of medicine (already suffering under the weight of pharmaceutical conflicts of interest);
- personal and medical privacy and confidentiality; and
- explicit disregard for and a willingness to subordinate the urgent and sensitive needs of vulnerable populations of children through state-sanctioned coercion of one-size-fits-all medicine.
Parents already struggle mightily to balance financial, health, and educational needs for our families. California's children are vaccinated at record high levels, 96% in 2017. Why take such heavy-handed action affecting all Californians when just 0.7% of our kindergarteners require a medical exemption?
It is human nature to undervalue the rights that SB276 seeks to remove until you and/or loved ones are suddenly confronted with grave health risks and challenges that consensus medicine has not addressed. Should state epidemiologists be allowed to override the advice and guidance of your personal physicians? I am standing up for your and everyone's health freedom, too.
SB276 will change the practice of medicine. It legislates one-size-fits-all medicine. Fearing acrimonious state-initiated audits, some of which have been highly publicized, doctors are unable to offer the medical guidance they would otherwise be providing to some of our most vulnerable children, including but not limited to the immunocompromised. They are legitimately unwilling to risk the loss of license and livelihood.
The granting of a medical exemption is a medical decision, part of the practice of medicine. Recent amendments address doctor-patient relationship concerns but SB276 still gives final authority to anonymous state administrators who never meet the patient and will never be financially or ethically accountable for the health outcomes of their medical decisions. Allow the Medical and Osteopathic Boards of California, who already have oversight and investigatory powers for any questionable practices, to do their jobs.
Veto SB276 because it is not possible to legislate the practice of medicine, including the careful evaluation of individual risk factors such as family history, prior vaccine injury, lab tests, genetics, interactions with other medications and new vaccines/doses that are added to the schedule, and the ongoing assessment of current and emerging peer-reviewed research. The state of California is not equipped to do this. It is not your job and you won't do it well. Blanket CDC and AAP contraindications -- the criteria that identifies those who must not be vaccinated -- cannot and must not substitute for the medical examination and judgment of doctors who know their patients.
These are legitimate parental concerns. The federal government acknowledges that a subset of those that receive vaccines will be catastrophically harmed or die and the medical research is inadequate to identify who these patients are in advance. This is the reason that vaccine manufacturers sought and obtained liability protection in 1986. Congress removed the single most important consumer protection: our ability to sue for injuries and death. Now you stand prepared to remove the next most important consumer protection: our ability to work with our doctors to obtain a medical exemption. Will you push parents out of the way, too? If you want to achieve a better outcome, work with Pharma to make better products. Industry hasn't invested in making safer products because it doesn't have to. Governments mandate them. Corporations can't be sued. It's a multi billion dollar growth industry. No one cares more about public health than parents. We are trying to raise and educate healthy children. We are taking them to doctors. We want to send them to school. Don't forget that a healthy society is comprised of healthy people.
Veto SB276 to protect our medical records and who has access to them. CAIR needs extensive updates to accommodate medical exemptions (currently 3 different databases). CAIR has numerous end users (state/local assistance programs, physicians, pharmacists and insurance companies). CAIR has an opt out option for sharing of information to third party users but SB276 does not clarify what information can be shared with whom. SB276 gives a blanket release of all medical records relating to vaccine medical exemptions to anyone at CDH, CMB and COMB. This is highly intrusive and unnecessary as simple limitations on access to information are not even outlined (i.e., only accessible if exemption is under review or only with those necessary to complete an investigation).
Who is asking for the state to assert such extraordinary and unprecedented medical authority in our private lives? SB276 is government overreach, unnecessary, and not the least restrictive measure. It seeks to solve a problem that does not exist. Voters have shown up in Sacramento by the thousands. We are calling, writing, and meeting with our legislators across the state. We are doing our job and it's time for you to do yours. Veto SB276.
CALL TO ACTION - Please visit the following link and help us oppose SB276: https://standforhealthfreedom.
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