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Victory in New York, All new vaccine mandates squashed

 From John Gilmore

It's official, New York Assembly Bill A 10942, the "worst vaccine
bill ever" and the mandatory meningococcal vaccine bill it morphed
into late in the session are dead. And they were killed by parents
who just aren't going to let pharma kick them around anymore.

Another vaccine bill that would have allowed minors to get vaccines
for sexually-transmitted diseases without parents permission or
knowledge went down to an ignominious defeat when the Assembly Health
committee refused to even consider it.

This represents the fourth defeat in a row, with no wins, for the
vaccine industry in New York, last year an mandatory HPV bill was killed.

As usual with most vaccine bills in New York, they were submitted
late in the session which limits the time that the opposition has to
make arguments against a proposal. The original A 10942 was submitted
at the request of the Health Department and would have caused a
sweeping restructuring of NY vaccine policy; all CDC recommended
vaccines would have become mandatory for all children, including
those too young to enter school, and all new CDC recommended vaccines
would automatically become mandatory.

A 10942 was greeted by a rally of hundreds of parents from all around
the state, many were parent of vaccine-injured children, others
though have healthy children and would like to see them stay healthy.
A broad cross section of organizations were involved, autism
organization, holistic health groups, libertarians, and many others
came together for the first time in joint political action.
Legisltive aides report a flood of phone calls, faxes, letters and
emails in opposition.

The legislature responded with scaling the bill back to require the
menigoccocal shot for seventh graders. This new version was
introduced last Friday and on Monday there were new demonstrations by
parents both in Albany and in front of the Long Island office of
State Senator Kemp Hannon who introduced the meningitis legislation.
The bill died today with the adjournment of the legislature.

Organizers of the successful campaign will be holding meetings and
conferences to make sure that in the next session of the legislature
that the philosophical exemption bills sponsored by State Senator
Frank Padavan and Assemblymember Mark Alessi are passed. And in a new
twist on vaccines rights, New Yorkers will be working to introduce
legislation that will drop vaccines from the mandatory list. The
first target will be hepatitis b, a shot given to newborns ostensibly
to prevent a sexually transmitted disease.