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Come to Albany! Vote on Thursday on religious exemptions in Assembly Health Committee

Autism Action Network

6-12-19

We have confirmation that A2371a, the bill to eliminate the religious exemption from vaccine mandates to attend school will be on the agenda for the Assembly Health Committee this Thursday, June 13. Your child's religious exemption is on the line. Please plan on being in Albany today and Thursday.

If you value your child's religious exemption please come to Albany today or tomorrow. Call ahead for an appointment with your State Senator and Assemblymember or their staffs. But if you can't get an appointment, stop by their office and ask if they can spare a few minutes to talk about the bill. Always be polite.

You can also ask to see the legisltor "off the floor." That is a meeting in the lobby of the Assembly on the third floor of the Capitol. Give a note with your name, and what you want to talk about, and the name of your Assemblymember, to the doorman and they will give it to the member and sometimes they come out and talk to you and sometimes they don't.

If you have a vaccine-injured child who has a religious exemption because your doctor would not give you a medical exemption due to the difficulty of getting a medical exemption, or fear of investigation please write up your story in a letter and bring multiple copies, and then share your story with your legislators or their staff.

The time and location of the meeting has not been released yet, nor has the agenda. We will report that information as soon as it is available.

Please share this message widely via and email and social media. If we can keep 13 of the 26 votes on the Health committee we may be able to stop this.

Please share with everyone you talk to that according to the NYC Department of Health there have only been 5 new reported cases of measles in NYC during June (in a city of 8.5 million people.) Clearly the outbreak of measles is just about over. There were 172 new cases in April, and 73 new cases in May.

Please call your Assemblymember and ask him or her to oppose A2371a.

Please call your State Senator and ask him or her to oppose S2994a.

Please call each of the members of the health committee below and urge them to vote "No" on A2371a

Democrats:

Kevin A. Cahill: 518-455-4436, (845) 338-9610

Steven Cymbrowitz: 518-455-5214, (718) 743-4078

Nader J. Sayegh: 518 455 3662, (914) 779-8805

Robin Schimminger: 518-455-4767, (716) 873-2540

Ron Kim: 518-455-5411 (718) 939-0195

Rodneyse Bichotte: 518-455-5385, (718) 940-0428

Charles Barron: 518-455-5912, (718) 257-5824

Michaelle C. Solages: 518-455-4465, (516) 599-2972

Aileen M. Gunther: 518-455-5355, (845) 794-5807 and (845) 342-9304

Sandy Galef: 518-455-5348, (914) 941-111

Amy Paulin: 518-455-5585, (914) 723-1115

Linda B. Rosenthal: 518-455-5802, (212) 873-6368

Phil Steck: 518-455-5931, (518) 377-0902

Edward C. Braunstein: 518-455-5425, (718) 357-3588

Andrew Hevesi: 518-455-4926, (718) 263-5595

Ellen Jaffee: 518-455-5118, (845) 624-4601

Jeffrey Dinowitz: 518-455-5965, (718) 796-5345

Republicans:

Kevin Byrne: 518-455-5783, (845) 278-2923

Marjorie Byrnes: 518-455-5662, (585) 218-0038

David McDonough: 518-455-4633, (516) 409-2070

Andrew Garbarino: 518-455-4611, (631) 589-0348

Jake Ashby, 518-455-5777, (518) 272-6149

Ed Ra: 518-455-4627, (516) 535-4095

Andrew Raia: 518-455-5952, (631) 261-4151

Key talking points:

Students with religious exemptions are only one out of 1000 people in the state,

Students with religious exemptions are less than 1% of students statewide,

Students with religious exemptions are less than .5% of students in NYC,

There are eight times as many students without religious exemptions who have not had the MMR vaccine as people with religious exemptions according to the CDC. A2371 nothing about that.

With the Democrats: This bill is established that the State has the power to tell people what to do with their bodies and their children’s bodies? What ever happened to “My body, my choice.”

With the Republicans: This bill is a gross infringement on parental and religious rights and takes away a right we have always had in New York for no rational reason.

We have no data at all showing that students with religious exemption have any role in the outbreak.

Even Mayor de Blasio admitted that. https://www.politico.com/states/new-york/city-hall/story/2019/05/07/de-blasio-measles-reality-has-nothing-to-do-with-religious-vaccine-exemptions-1009681

How are children with IEPs and 504 plans going to get the services that school districts must provide, whether the child is in school or not? And how much is this going to cost?

What is going to happen to the students who have medical problems deserving of a medical exemption who were told by their doctors to go get a religious exemption because getting a medical exemption is so difficult. Senator Gustavo Rivera, Chair of the Senate Health Committee, has a bill right now, S477, to fix this problem.

Please share this message with friends and family, and please share on social media while we still can.

Autism Action Network <jgilmore@autismactionnetwork.org>

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