National Vaccine Information Center
Action Alert
July 27, 2011
A select group of non-elected, unaccountable individuals participating in a workgroup hosted by the Colorado Immunization Program (CIP) wants to make it harder for you to exercise your religious and personal rights to exemption from vaccines in the State of Colorado.
This group plans to change the exemption form that Colorado Parents have used, and the Colorado Legislature has supported for years, to exempt their children from one or more of the vaccines required for school. They plan to make three major changes.
First, the new form will require parents get a signature for their personal exemption from a physician, nurse practitioner or a public health official. This in effect changes the personal exemption to a medical one with total disregard to the fact that many Colorado families utilize alternative medicine.
Second, it requires the religious exemption be signed by the “religious leader”. Requiring a “religious leader” to approve a personally held religious belief is a violation of religious freedom protected by the US Constitution.
Third, the new exemption form is two pages long and requires parents to not only sign an exemption for vaccines that are required for school, but also for vaccines that are simply recommend like HPV vaccine and flu vaccine. The form also states you will be asked to review this document again at 4, 6 and 12-15 months of age, then again at 4 years old and 11-12 years old. This is medical harassment.
The draft of the new exemption form is at the end of these BOH minutes.
This small group of vaccine “stakeholders”, all of whom support the idea that everyone should be vaccinated with every vaccine according to the “one size fits all” government schedule, doesn’t even think this is a rule change worthy of the appropriate public hearings and notification. They believe they can significantly change a long standing Colorado State Law without even going through the process required for a rule change, let alone the legislative process.
This group only suggested “this might be a good education piece for the Board just to inform them of a form and process change and what our intent is for making this change”. http://www.cdphe.state.co.us/dc/immunization/BOH_IZ_WGMtgNotes_5-4-2011.pdf point #3
Colorado has a long-standing history of supporting open records, open public meetings and transparency. This is an egregious violation of Colorado’s Sunshine Law http://www.state.co.us/gov_dir/leg_dir/olls/PDF/OPEN%20MEETING%20REQUIREMENTS%20OF%20THE%20COLORADO%20SUNSHINE%20LAW.pdf that goes well beyond the scope of what this workgroup should have the legal authority to do.
This must be stopped, not only in Colorado, but also in other states considering these types of attacks on exemptions. Washington State was the first state to do this with the passage of SB 5005 http://www.washingtonvotes.org/2011-SB-5005
Leave a Reply