Sen. Elizabeth Steiner Hayward, D-Portland, wants to eliminate all non-medical exemptions for school children to be vaccinated, and Wednesday she brought with her to the Oregon Senate Health Committee a drumbeat of support to her cause, including physician legislators from both political parties and a top state official who said his grandparents went deaf from infectious childhood diseases.
“The public health interests of the state far outweigh the interest of parents to leave their children unvaccinated,” said Steiner Hayward, a family physician and the chief proponent of Senate Bill 442, which, with a proposed amendment, would do away with philosophical exemptions for school kids.
The legislation comes amid a measles epidemic that has swept the country in recent months -- 15 years after vaccination eradicated the disease from the United States. The disease inevitably entered back into the country from abroad and was able to spread because too many parents opted their children out of the measles vaccine for non-medical reasons.
But the anti-vaccine community might have new clout that could inoculate the Oregon Legislature against any attempt to require all kids to be vaccinated -- newly appointed Gov. Kate Brown.
If legislators had sent a bill to Gov. John Kitzhaber, a medical doctor who helped lead the Center for Evidence-Based Medicine at the Oregon Health & Science University, there is little doubt he’d sign the public health measure into law.
But now that he’s been bounced from office amid an ethical cloud and under pressure from his own party, Kitzhaber won’t be around to sign it, and the testimony of one vaccine opponent created concerns that Brown might veto SB 442 if it reaches her desk. Brown’s spokeswoman, Melissa Navas, did not respond to a request for comment.
Portland attorney Robert Snee testified that in 2001 he worked with then-Sen. Brown on legislation that would loosen vaccination requirements to provide a philosophical exemption -- the opposite direction as proposed by Steiner Hayward and Sen. Alan Bates, D-Medford, along with Sen. Chuck Thomsen, R-Hood River and Rep. Knute Buehler, R-Bend, an orthopedic surgeon. The 2001 bill never became law.
“If SB 442 becomes law, then the promises of freedom and liberty that this nation were founded upon are nothing but a sham, an illusion,” Snee told the Senate Health Committee. “Welcome to the totalitarian era, for then our bodies, ourselves, our souls, are truly owned by the state.”
Snee was joined in opposition by the Oregon Chiropractic Association and a roomful of livid parents, who brought their unvaccinated children to the Capitol as if to make a point, as one opponent testified, that the measles epidemic has been largely hysteria driven by the media.
“Parents have the right to determine the medical choices for their children,” said Vern Saboe, a past president of the Oregon Chiropractic Association.
In 2014, the Centers for Disease Control non-medical immunization exemption rate for Oregon kindergartners placed Oregon dead last in the nation, with an exemption rate of 7.1 percent. If Oregon passes the amended SB 442, it would become the third state to bar non-medical exemptions, after West Virginia and Mississippi.
Bates testified that it was just a matter of time before someone traveled to Oregon from Africa, South Asia or the Middle East and brought polio back with them, a disease he remembers all too well from his childhood, when public swimming pools and movie theaters served as vectors of disease in the summertime.
“I knew kids who got polio and ended up disabled. I knew one who died,” said Bates.
It was a precarious political stand for the osteopathic physician -- Bates said at one elementary school in Ashland, his political base and the liberal heart of his political swing district -- 100 percent of the parents had refused to vaccinate their children and been granted an exemption.
Thomsen’s support appeared to give proponents of SB 442 what they needed to pass the legislation. After all, Thomsen opposed a less restrictive measure, Senate Bill 132 in the 2013 session, which merely required parents to get informed consent for a non-medical exemption.
But now the mild-mannered pear farmer from Hood River County pledged his support for eliminating all non-medical exemptions: “This is not a partisan issue at all,” Thomsen said.
Pat Allen, the director of the Department of Consumer and Business Services, testified in support of SB 442, telling them that his mother had been afraid for him as a young boy in the 1960s after her parents went deaf from a childhood illness, such as rubella or measles.
SB 132, which Kitzhaber signed, was partially neutered when Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum opined that it only applied to new students, and previous, blanket non-medical exemptions were still valid.
Steiner Hayward spoke with The Lund Report about her legislative agenda before the session, but at the time, she was only supporting the underlying SB 442, which is an end-run around Rosenblum’s opinion, and requires informed consent for 7th grade students who previously got a blanket exemption.
Dr. Jim Lace, a pediatrician representing the Oregon Medical Association, testified that he has volunteered in the East African country of Tanzania at vaccination clinics. Some of the people who came to the clinic lived in unsanitary conditions, but they were all eager to get their children vaccinated -- the opposite of what he sees here, where parents with unvaccinated children opt for them to wait in the car or wear protective masks before coming into his clinic.
“It is ironic if I want to see measles, I stay here in Salem,” where there have been two outbreaks in recent years, he said. “If I go to Tanzania, it’s gone.”
Comments
Conspiracy theories?
Tom Downing: You sound like Jessie Ventura, next do you want to rant about the existence of UFO's in New Mexico? There is no danger to our childen with vaccines, the danger to our children are reckless parents like yourself. It is you, and people like you that I blame for the resurgence of Measles. How dare you put the rest of the public at risk in order to exercise freedom to act like a fool?
Dan Fielding
Senate Hearing on SB 442 with amendment
It figures that the first two speakers to start off the anti vaccination bridgade were chiropractors. They fancy themselves as primary care doctors, which is a farce. They are no more primary care providers than I, as a general dentist, am a primary care provider.
Mr. Downing speaks that none of the anti vaxxers who spoke are anti-vaccine. My response to that is "rubbish'. Their collective attitude was, "Don't confuse me with the facts". What they do is have their preformed biases, and go out and find some rubbish on the internet to confirm their false beliefs.
My wife is a pediatrician, and when I went home and told her that there was a pediatrician who spoke against the bill and the amendment, she asked, "Was it Paul Thomas?" Yes, it was. Dr. Thomas is a relative lone wolf, and as another pediatrician friend told me, pediatricians who are against the AAP schedule of vaccinations and speak against particular vaccines have made a "business decision" to peddle fear. I'm sure that Dr. Thomas' practice is filled with unvaccinated children.
Kudos to Dr/Senator Elizabeth Steiner Hayward for bringing forward this amendment. Hopefully, the rest of the Senate and, then, House vote this into law and demonstrate that evidence-based science wins over science fiction.
Let's make Oregon less weird.
Kurt Ferre
Vaccinations and SB 442
One other comment: If this bill and amendment passes parents who continue to keep their children unvaccinated still have freedom of choice: they can change their minds (which is unlikely), have their children vaccinated, and keep their children in public school or day care, or they can home school them and find private day cares where all the kids are unvaccinated.
Governor Kate Brown speaks out in favor of vaccinations
I am happy to report that at her first news conference today, Governor Kate Brown stated that she favors mandatory vaccinations except for medical exemptions.
Kurt Ferre
SB-442, vaccines are safe and effective just ask Merck, Co. Inc.
The Oregon Chiropractic Association and the 1,500 chiropractic physcians in the state support safe and effective vaccines and are not "anti-vaccine" this issue is about the need for "informed consent." The fundamental right to say "yes" or "no" to any medical procedure especially when that procedure comes with an inherent risk of harm. The PARQ conference is central to medical practice ethics (P) the healthcare professional fully explains the procedure to the patient, (A) discusses any viable alternatives to that procedure. (R) discusses any risks associated with that medical procedure and then (Q) asks the patient/parent if they have any quesions and to answer fully those questions. We must remember that vaccines represent a unique category of drugs, primarily given to healthy infants, children and adults. Contemporary medical ethics demands that vaccinations must be carried out with a parent or patient's full and informed consent. This necessitates an objective and full disclosure of the known or forseeable benefits and risks of the vaccine(s). However, the way in which childhood vaccines are often promoted and discussed in the medical pediatric setting indicates that such disclosure is not always given. The "risks" of vaccination are often only discussed in the context of the known risks associated with infectious disease if the parent elects not to have their child vaccinated with a particular vaccine or vaccines. Vaccines are known to have side effects including rare but serious adverse reactions causing serious injury and even deaths. According to the national "Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System" (VAERS), 30,000 adverse events are reported annually but since it is a voluntary reporting system this number is known to be greater. According to the VAERS 13% or 3,900 of these events are classified as serious e.g., associated with disability, hospitalization, life-threatening illness or death and again these are events are significantly under reported.
Corporate malfeasance and back to Merck and even more so the absolute need for informed consent. In 2012 two former Merck employees two virologists, a group of physicians and a direct payer filed two whistleblower law suits in Pennsylvania federal court. The suit accuses Merck which produces the MMR measles, mumps and rubella vaccine as well as others, lied about the effacacy of their mumps vaccine so they would continue to secure governmental contracts worth millions. The case has just been cleared for trial -- something the Merck attorneys attempted to prevent. Around 2004, Merck paid a $950 million fine for illegal promotion of its block buster pain drug Vioxx. There were also allegations that Merck made false or misleading statements about the drug's heart saftey to increase sales. It is estimated that some 60,000 individuals lost their lives directly due to the adverse cardiovasicular events (heart attacks) caused by Vioxx before being pulled off the shelf.
So these are the folks parents are to trust when they state their vaccine(s) are "safe and effective?" What we as a profession are supporting is parents and adults fundamental right to determine which medical procedures will be performed on their perfectly healthy infants, children and themselves.
Vern Saboe
Oregon Chiropractic Association
overpaid massuers
Vern Saboe: How dare you claim that a chiropractor is qualified to give expert advice regarding vaccines. Give me a break.
Dan Fielding
Get Your Facts Straight Mr. Gray
If you listened to my testimony, Mr. Gray, you would have clearly heard me say that I am no anti-vax, but pro informed voluntary consent. If you choose to vaccinate your child, I have no problem with you wanting to do so. I just don't believe it is the government's place to force any medical procedure upon anyone without their consent.
Calling me an anti-vax activist is what I would expect as an attempt to marginalize and minimze my message of medical freedom which stands upon the foundation blocks that this country was founded upon. In that regard, I do appreciate you quoting the final paragraph of my message, that freedom and liberty have become nothing but a sham and an illusion.
If you listened carefully to my testimony, you also would have noted that your headline is false as I made no such claim that Governor Brown supported either SB 450 in 2001 or my position on the current proposes legislation, SB 132. I merely stated that she introduced the bill at my request, an action that she confirmed in her press conference Friday. You really should try to pin false claims on those fighting for freedom in an attempt to discredit them. Just remember, the National Adult Immunization Plan is there on the Federal Register and open for public comment through March 9th. In a few short years, it isn't going to be somebody else's children that mandatory vaccinations effect, but it will effect you and every single adult in this country.
Bob Snee
Tim Downing: Vaccines are safe, and non-medical exemptions are completely ridiculous. Senate bill 442 needs to pass, if for nothing else to protect people like yourself from your own ignorance.
Dan Fielding