We, the citizens of The United States of America, are very much opposed to all proposed bills that would, for the first time, impose Federal (as opposed to State) vaccine mandates.  These bill, such as California’s Senator Barbara Boxer and Representative Anna Eshoo's entitled A Head Start on Vaccinations Act, would require all children enrolled in Head Start to get all of the vaccinations recommended by The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) according to The CDC’s timetable.  There would be no exemptions for religious or personal beliefs.

Parents have the basic right under common law, basic morality, and The Constitution to raise their children and live according to their religious or spiritual beliefs without interference from The Federal Government, as stated in The First Amendment.

Forty-eight (48) states allow vaccine exemptions for religious reasons.  More than half of the people living in The United States live in the nineteen (19) states, including Eshoo and Boxer’s California, where parents have the right to a final say on whether or not their children receive vaccinations and when, according to their own personal and philosophical beliefs.  Internationally, the standard is for parents to have the final say on vaccine choice.  This is the law in The UK, Canada, Japan, Ireland, Germany, Israel, Scandinavia, The Netherlands, Belgium, and Luxembourg, among others.

The vaccine-strain measles and chicken pox viruses are cultured on tissue originally derived from aborted fetal tissue.  Many people have profound moral and religious misgivings about the use of such a product.  The latest emerging scientific research suggests a compelling link between the use of vaccines derived from aborted fetal tissue and the growing number of neurological disorders in children, and parents should be free to object to the use of such vaccines based on their own personal or philosophical beliefs regarding exposing their developing children to such risk of neurological harm.

In addition, The California Department of Public Health has confirmed that at least twenty-two percent (22%) of the people who have contracted measles in the latest outbreak were vaccinated for measles.  How bills forcing vaccines would improve the efficacy of the measles vaccine is a mystery.  No case has been made on how this would improve public health.  The medical and scientific reality is that mandatory vaccination will have no effect in the event of 1. vaccine efficiency failure, and 2. the circulation of a wild or mutated virus-strain which the disease’s vaccine does not offer any protection against (both points of which have been demonstrated by this year’s flu vaccine).

If any of the proposed legislation passes, it will only be a matter of time before the mandate would be extended to children who attend schools that receive federal funding  —such as IDEA funding for special education, student loan guarantees, etc.— and, eventually, all adults.  It would also set a dangerous precedent for the future restriction of free choice in regards to other medical procedures such as prescription medication, surgery, or whether or not to have children; as well as the potential to restrict access to more holistic health care approaches like diet and nutrition, chiropractic, and massage therapy. 

Currently, there are no federal vaccine mandates.  Current proposed legislation would greatly expand the power of the federal government into an arena in which they have not previously claimed any jurisdiction: the body of the individual American.

Below is our Declaration of Medical Freedom Regarding Vaccine Choice, which outlines our concerns.  We ask that you oppose any and all legislation that would require federally mandated vaccines.

DECLARATION OF MEDICAL FREEDOM REGARDING VACCINE CHOICE

EXERCISING RELIGIOUS AND PHILOSOPHICAL BELIEFS AS PROTECTED BY LAW

1. Mandated vaccination is a violation of the freedom of religious, spiritual, and personal beliefs as protected by law.

• The First Amendment of The Constitution of The United States of America states:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.

Any law that denies parents a religious vaccine exemption is a violation of The First Amendment protected right of Americans to freely exercise their religious beliefs as they see fit for themselves and their family.

• Article 7 of the 1966 International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights as put forth by The Geneva Convention states:

No one shall be subjected without his free consent to medical or scientific experimentation. 

Vaccines are not subjected to long-term safety studies, nor are they subjected to proper randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled studies.  Some vaccines, such as the HPV Gardasil vaccine, are “fast-tracked” for immediate use without any kind of clinical trials.  The flu vaccine changes from year to year, and therefore cannot undergo any kind of adequate safety and efficiency trials.  This technically renders all vaccines as medically experimental, thereby making any mandated vaccines a violation of The Geneva Convention.

• The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, put forth by The United Nations, states:
  
  

1. Article 12: No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, [or] home.  …  Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference.

Mandated vaccines are a direct interference with families by forcing medical treatment without consent, and are thereby a violation of Article 12 of The Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

2.   Article 18: Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience, and religion; this right includes freedom…either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship, and observance.

Similar to The First Amendment of The US Constitution, any law that denies parents a vaccine exemption for religious reasons is a violation of the protected right of Americans to freely exercise their religious beliefs as they see fit for themselves and their family.  Denying a philosophical exemption is also a violation of personal beliefs and philosophy as described by Article 18.  In addition, any law mandating vaccines that calls for the quarantine or banishment of “the unvaccinated” from a public space, such as a school or market, simply for exercising their right to practice their religious or personal beliefs through use of a vaccine exemption is a violation of Article 18.

3.   Article 25: (1). Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing, and medical care.

The health and well-being of a family is determined by the family.  It is not subject to the interference of the government.  This includes decisions about what medical care would be most appropriate for the individuals in question.  In addition, a family cannot interfere with the health wishes of another family; they are only responsible for themselves.  A parent cannot demand the vaccination of a child that is not their own.  To allow so is a violation of Article 25 (1).

2. Mandated vaccination is a violation of medical ethics.

• The Hippocratic Oath states:
  
  

1. Traditional translation: I will keep them [patients] from harm and injustice.
2. Traditional translation: I will neither give a deadly drug to anybody who asked for it, nor will I make a suggestion to this effect.

Vaccines have known risks, including severe permanent injury and death, which have been acknowledged by both the vaccine manufacturers and the federal government.  To force a health care professional to administer a vaccine to a patient who does not want one is a violation of The Hippocratic Oath.

3.   Modern translation: I must not play at God. 

Many people who object to vaccines for religious and spiritual reasons see vaccines as an affront to God, whom they believe to perfect and incapable of making mistakes.  Vaccine theory believes that the human immune system is defective and must be corrected by man, therefore claiming that God “made a mistake” in creating the human race.  Mandating vaccines allows health care professionals to “play God,” thereby violating both The Hippocratic Oath and the above mentioned laws that protect religious freedom.

• The American Medical Association’s Code of Medical Ethics states:

Informed Consent: The patient should make his or her own determination about treatment.  …  Informed consent is a basic policy in both ethics and law that physicians must honor, unless the patient is unconscious or otherwise incapable of consenting, and harm from failure to treat is imminent.

The AMA’s Code of Medical Ethics specifically states that physicians must honor the patient’s wishes regarding their treatment; it is not optional.

Furthermore, Merriam-Webster’s defines imminent as follows:

Ready to take place; … impending

Merriam-Webster’s defines impending as follows:

That is about to occur

There is no imminent, impending, or otherwise immediate threat of bodily harm that would result from declining vaccination.

3. Mandated vaccination is a violation of legal accountability and medical science.

In addition to the above cited protected freedoms, we also object to being denied our right to decline a medical procedure or product in which:

• The manufacturer cannot be held liable for any injury or death occurring from the use of their product (The National Childhood Vaccine Act of 1986)
• The government recognizes that the product and procedure is “unavoidably unsafe” (US Supreme Court ruling, 2011)
• The manufacturer admits in the package inserts that the product:

1.   Has not been tested for carcinogenic or mutagenic potential
2.   Has not been tested for safety in the populations targeted for product use
3.   Can cause serious permanent injury and death
4.   Can cause the very illness and disease the product is designed to prevent

• Product safety and efficiency studies are funded and conducted by the product manufacturer and/or the federal government instead of by an independent and neutral third-party which has no stake in potential profits from product sales.
• The product:

1.   Has been “fast-tracked” for approval without undergoing basic safety and efficiency studies (HPV vaccines)
2.   Has not undergone proper randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled safety and efficiency studies
3.   Has not undergone long-term safety and efficiency studies

• The manufacturer is facing multiple federal charges of scientific fraud in regards to product efficiency (Merck’s MMR vaccine)
• The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is facing allegations of scientific fraud in regards to product safety (Merck’s MMR vaccine)

We, the undersigned registered voters, hereby request our elected officials to reject any and all laws that seek to restrict or prohibit our right to decline the medical procedure of vaccination, and instead call upon them to uphold our basic, fundamental human right to medical freedom as protected by US federal and international law.

"The Constitution of this Republic should make special provision for medical freedom.  To restrict the art of healing to one class will constitute the Bastille of medical science.  All such laws are un-American and despotic.  …  Unless we put medical freedom into the constitution, the time will come when medicine will organize into an undercover dictatorship and force people who wish doctors and treatment of their own choice to submit to only what the dictating outfit offers."
~Benjamin Rush, 1787
Signer of The Declaration of Independence, and “The Father of American Medicine”