A showdown is fast approaching for California parents. The state is officially ground zero for this generation’s fight to retain health freedom. It matters little at this point whether we arrived here due to willful political ignorance, pharmaceutical lobbying/control or at the hands of a mainstream medical community that has lost its ethics and integrity. Lots of events have transpired since the battle to kill Senate Bill 277 — the pharmaceutical lobbied bill to force vaccines on kids in schools and daycares — was lost. With less than a month until SB277’s official July 1 start date, the Santa Barbara California Public Health Department decided to use color of law to potentially force vaccines upon children whose parents followed the rules and properly filed timely medical exemptions for their children’s 2016-2017 school year.
During public testimony before SB277’s signing, authors Senator Richard “Crazy Legs” Pan and Ben Allen promised the following points:
"The medical exemption is entirely within the medical judgment of a physician." - Richard "Crazy Legs" Pan
"That’s something I’m very interested in [expanding the medical exemption]. One of the things we talked about it that there be a strong and robust medical exemption….they [parents] can go to a doctor, anywhere in the state [CA], and can get an exemption from that doctor." -Ben Allen
Parents in Santa Barbara have now been left wondering why their original and only option for a medical exemption doesn’t fulfill SB277 and its author’s promises — bait and switch at its finest. The medical exemptions issued by California doctors for students attending school in the Santa Barbara Unified School District appear to not have stand alone authority any longer.
According to a letter circulating currently to school superintendents, principals and child care center directors in Santa Barbara, children’s medical exemptions already on file are now being sent to a newly initiated Medical Exemption Pilot Project. The letter — from the Santa Barbara Public Health Department — gives the following directives to its high level recipients:
“fax all medical exemptions (permanent or temporary) submitted for the 2016-2017 school year to the Immunization Program. This will enable a comprehensive review of each exemption by the Health Officer and Immunization Program staff.”
Parents who trusted their senators at their word and filed medical exemptions will now be left wondering if/when their child will be removed from school at the authority of the “newly initiated Medical Exemption Pilot Project.” The doctors who gave the medical exemptions aren’t off the hook either. The Public Health Department’s letter states that their purpose is to “identify any medical exemption not meeting SB277 criteria” and “provide helpful information to physicians issuing such exemptions.” In the real world — where targeting physicians for issuing medical exemptions for vaccination happens routinely — the wording of the Health Department’s letter could potentially mean that these physicians, once identified, can now be targeted. Why didn’t the Santa Barbara Public Health Department “provide helpful information to physicians issuing medical exemptions” and explain to them how to “meet SB277 criteria” over the past year? Surely it would have been easier to have sent a simple form to doctors describing how to "meet SB277 criteria." Since all doctors can issue medical exemptions, shouldn’t the Health Department provide "helpful information" to all doctors instead of just the small number who issued 2016-2017 exemptions?
The Santa Barbara Public Health Department's letter also appears to violate the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA). The act states that parents and legal guardians are secured “the right to have control over the disclosure of personally identifiable information from the educational records.” FERPA defines educational records as those records that contain information directly related to a student and which are maintained by an educational agency or institution or by a party acting for the agency or institution. Are children’s medical exemptions in California considered part of their education record?
According to SEC. 6. Section 120375 of the Health and Safety Code [SB277]:
“120375. (a) The governing authority [governing board of each school district] of each school or institution included in Section 120335 shall require documentary proof of each entrant’s immunization status. The governing authority [governing board of each school district] shall record the immunizations of each new entrant in the entrant’s permanent enrollment and scholarship record on a form provided by the department.”
Furthermore, the California Department of Public Health states the following regarding SB277 reporting and record keeping:
“…schools will still need to record immunizations for all students at entry. Report on the immunization status of all students at the checkpoints of child care, kindergarten, and 7th grade.”
Finally, the stated purpose of the newly initiated Medical Exemption Pilot Project is to “collect and analyze data” — in the form of your child’s personal medical records. Given the fact that this “pilot project” is conducting research by "collecting and analyzing data", the project is violating the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Policy for Protection of Human Research Subjects. The HHS defines a human subject as “a living individual about whom an investigator conducting research obtains identifiable private information.” Research is defined by HHS as “systematic investigation, including research development, testing and evaluation, designed to develop or contribute to generalizable knowledge.”
The Santa Barbara Public Health Department's letter demanding the personally identifiable private information of students was addressed not to parents, but to school superintendents, principals and child care center directors. Since the collected information will be used for research, the letter and request violate the HHS Policy for Protection of Human Research Subjects general requirements for informed consent. Furthermore, the information being demanded by the Santa Barbara Department of Health — obtained without informed consent — will be used to potentially deliver foreseeable risks and discomforts [loss of an education] to the children [subjects] whose data are being used — a further violation.
With a simple letter, the Santa Barbara Public Health Department has distastefully insulted the expert judgement of the California medical community. Politicians, health departments, government agencies and school boards complying with the push to remove fundamental rights and freedoms at the behest of SB277 have rapidly lost trust and integrity. With less than a month remaining before the bill officially goes into effect, it will be up to individual families and communities to educate and fight for their health freedom and informed consent at every turn.
During public testimony before SB277’s signing, authors Senator Richard “Crazy Legs” Pan and Ben Allen promised the following points:
"The medical exemption is entirely within the medical judgment of a physician." - Richard "Crazy Legs" Pan
"That’s something I’m very interested in [expanding the medical exemption]. One of the things we talked about it that there be a strong and robust medical exemption….they [parents] can go to a doctor, anywhere in the state [CA], and can get an exemption from that doctor." -Ben Allen
Parents in Santa Barbara have now been left wondering why their original and only option for a medical exemption doesn’t fulfill SB277 and its author’s promises — bait and switch at its finest. The medical exemptions issued by California doctors for students attending school in the Santa Barbara Unified School District appear to not have stand alone authority any longer.
According to a letter circulating currently to school superintendents, principals and child care center directors in Santa Barbara, children’s medical exemptions already on file are now being sent to a newly initiated Medical Exemption Pilot Project. The letter — from the Santa Barbara Public Health Department — gives the following directives to its high level recipients:
“fax all medical exemptions (permanent or temporary) submitted for the 2016-2017 school year to the Immunization Program. This will enable a comprehensive review of each exemption by the Health Officer and Immunization Program staff.”
Parents who trusted their senators at their word and filed medical exemptions will now be left wondering if/when their child will be removed from school at the authority of the “newly initiated Medical Exemption Pilot Project.” The doctors who gave the medical exemptions aren’t off the hook either. The Public Health Department’s letter states that their purpose is to “identify any medical exemption not meeting SB277 criteria” and “provide helpful information to physicians issuing such exemptions.” In the real world — where targeting physicians for issuing medical exemptions for vaccination happens routinely — the wording of the Health Department’s letter could potentially mean that these physicians, once identified, can now be targeted. Why didn’t the Santa Barbara Public Health Department “provide helpful information to physicians issuing medical exemptions” and explain to them how to “meet SB277 criteria” over the past year? Surely it would have been easier to have sent a simple form to doctors describing how to "meet SB277 criteria." Since all doctors can issue medical exemptions, shouldn’t the Health Department provide "helpful information" to all doctors instead of just the small number who issued 2016-2017 exemptions?
The Santa Barbara Public Health Department's letter also appears to violate the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA). The act states that parents and legal guardians are secured “the right to have control over the disclosure of personally identifiable information from the educational records.” FERPA defines educational records as those records that contain information directly related to a student and which are maintained by an educational agency or institution or by a party acting for the agency or institution. Are children’s medical exemptions in California considered part of their education record?
According to SEC. 6. Section 120375 of the Health and Safety Code [SB277]:
“120375. (a) The governing authority [governing board of each school district] of each school or institution included in Section 120335 shall require documentary proof of each entrant’s immunization status. The governing authority [governing board of each school district] shall record the immunizations of each new entrant in the entrant’s permanent enrollment and scholarship record on a form provided by the department.”
Furthermore, the California Department of Public Health states the following regarding SB277 reporting and record keeping:
“…schools will still need to record immunizations for all students at entry. Report on the immunization status of all students at the checkpoints of child care, kindergarten, and 7th grade.”
Finally, the stated purpose of the newly initiated Medical Exemption Pilot Project is to “collect and analyze data” — in the form of your child’s personal medical records. Given the fact that this “pilot project” is conducting research by "collecting and analyzing data", the project is violating the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Policy for Protection of Human Research Subjects. The HHS defines a human subject as “a living individual about whom an investigator conducting research obtains identifiable private information.” Research is defined by HHS as “systematic investigation, including research development, testing and evaluation, designed to develop or contribute to generalizable knowledge.”
The Santa Barbara Public Health Department's letter demanding the personally identifiable private information of students was addressed not to parents, but to school superintendents, principals and child care center directors. Since the collected information will be used for research, the letter and request violate the HHS Policy for Protection of Human Research Subjects general requirements for informed consent. Furthermore, the information being demanded by the Santa Barbara Department of Health — obtained without informed consent — will be used to potentially deliver foreseeable risks and discomforts [loss of an education] to the children [subjects] whose data are being used — a further violation.
With a simple letter, the Santa Barbara Public Health Department has distastefully insulted the expert judgement of the California medical community. Politicians, health departments, government agencies and school boards complying with the push to remove fundamental rights and freedoms at the behest of SB277 have rapidly lost trust and integrity. With less than a month remaining before the bill officially goes into effect, it will be up to individual families and communities to educate and fight for their health freedom and informed consent at every turn.
RSS Feed