Sticking It To Children in New Jersey

by Barbara Loe Fisher

It wasn't like any of the parents, who showed up in Trenton on Dec. 10, 2007 to witness members of the New Jersey Public Health Council vote on a new vaccine mandates proposed by state health department officials, were surprised by the thumbs-up 7-2-2 vote by political appointee members of the Council. For the past two decades every time state health department officials have pushed to require children to get another new vaccine to attend school, the new vaccine has been automatically added to state vaccine mandates under rule making authority held by state health officials and without a vote by the people. Hoping to set precedent for other states to follow suit, this time New Jersey officials are ramming through mandates that will ban babies and toddlers from daycare or pre-school without two doses of influenza vaccine and three doses of pneumococcal vaccine while sixth graders will have to show proof by Sept. 1, 2008 that they have gotten a dose of TdaP and meningococcal vaccine.

New Jersey is about to become the first state to make children get flu shots despite a lack of scientific evidence that influenza vaccine is very effective in preventing Type A or Type B influenza in children.
http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/333/7574/912
If NJ Health Commissioner Fred Jacobs and NJ Governor Joe Corzine approve the new requirements written by health department officials, then New Jersey will lead the nation in vaccine mandates by forcing children to get 35 doses of 13 vaccines.

Federal and state health officials refuse to publish credible scientific evidence that demonstrates it is necessary or healthy to force children to get so many vaccinations by sixth grade. They also continue to deny that the doubling of the numbers of vaccines mandated for child use over the past quarter century has contributed to the dramatic increase in chronic disease and disability among American children during that same time period. Today, 1 American child in 6 is learning disabled; 1 in 9 has asthma; 1 in 94- 150 develops autism; 1 in 450 is diabetic. New Jersey is reported to have the highest autism rate in the nation: 1 child in 94 living in New Jersey develops autism.
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Sue Collins, co-founder of the New Jersey Alliance for Informed Choice in Vaccination (NJAICV at www.NJAICV.com) and longtime leader of a grassroots effort to institute conscientious belief exemption to vaccination in New Jersey, said that many parents oppose the new vaccine mandates: "We deserve a choice, not a mandate. It's our right to decide what toxic substances we inject into our children," she said. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/1 1/nyregion/11vaccine.html?_r=1&oref=slogin New Jersey Assemblywoman Charlotte Vandervalk (R- Westwood), who is the sponsor of a bill to insert conscientious belief exemption into New Jersey vaccine laws, told the Council "Children of this state are assaulted with shot after shot before they go to school," she said. "Don't force it on those who have these objections. This is America. What's happened to our freedom?"
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The National Vaccine Information Center joins with NJAICV and other organizations representing parents and children opposing the new vaccine mandates and supporting the addition of conscientious belief exemption to vaccine laws in New Jersey, including Advocates for Children's Health Affected by Mercury Poisoning (A-CHAMP), Association of American Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS), Autism One, Autism Research Institute, Children Having Everybody Upset About Shots (C.H.E.R.U.B.S), Generation Rescue, Holistic Moms Network, National Autism Association (NAA), Network Organization for Vaccine Awareness and Choice (NOVAC), Talk About Curing Autism (TACA), Taper Safely, Unlocking Autism (UA), and US Autism and Aspergers Association (USAAA). Coalition for Mercury-free Drugs (CoMeD, Inc.) supports replacing all state vaccine mandates with "opt-in" laws and SafeMinds opposes continued use of mercury in vaccines.

The fate of the new vaccine mandates proposed by the NJ state health department now rests with the retiring Commissioner of Health, Fred Jacobs, appointed by Governor Joe Corzine and the Governor himself. Fred Jacobs is expected to rule on the new mandates by Dec. 18 and can be contacted at http://www.state.nj.us/health/commiss/contact.shtml. Governor Corzine can be contacted at http://www.state.nj.us/governor/govmail.html

In addition, New Jersey residents who are interested in contacting their state Assemblyperson or Senator about the need to secure a conscientious belief exemption to vaccination, can find out how to do that at
http://www.njleg.state.nj.us/members/legsearch.asp . To help other parents work in New Jersey on this issue, contact NJAICV's Sue Collins at www.NJAICV.com (See copy of NJ Conscientious Belief Exemption bill below). To find out more about how to educate members of your community about vaccination and the right to informed consent to vaccination, go to NVIC's website at www.nvic.org or contact NVIC at NVICinfo@gmail.com