Last spring the New York Assembly Health Committee passed Assembly Bill A276b. Health Committee Chair Amy Paulin’s bill that would allow drugs and vaccines marketed to prevent sexually transmitted diseases to be given to minors of any age without parental knowledge or consent. In the bigger picture, this bill eliminates the existing right of parents to know and have choice over the vaccines our children get.
A276b still must get through the Assembly Rules Committee, possibly other committees, and pass a floor vote in the Assembly. No action has been taken yet on Senate Bill S762a, the identical companion bill to A276b. And then the Governor must sign the bill. This fight is far from over.
GET ACTIVE TODAY CALL, TWEET, EMAIL, SPREAD THE WORD.
Use the panel to the right to send an opposition message to your State Senator and Assemblymember on S762a/A276b.
Call your State Senator and Assemblymember to oppose these bills. Talking points are below the addresses.
You can look them up here:
https://nyassembly.gov/mem/search/
https://www.nysenate.gov/registration/nojs/form/start/find-my-senator
Call the leadership of the legislature the Senate Health Committee TODAY. Leave messages if no one answers.
Andrea Stewart-Cousins, Senate Majority Leader
Legislative Office Building, Room 907
Albany, NY 12247
Phone: (518) 455-2585
Fax: (518) 426-6811
scousins@nysenate.gov
Twitter/X:
Carl Heastie, Speaker of the Assembly
LOB 932, Albany, NY 12248
(518) 455-3791, (718) 654-6539
Twitter: @carlheastie
https://www.facebook.com/carl.heastie
Liz Krueger, author S762a
Capitol Building, Room 416 CAP
Albany, NY 12247
Phone:(518) 455-2297
Fax: (518) 426-6874
Gustavo Rivera, Senate Health Committee, Chair, co-sponsor S762a
Capitol Building, Room 502C
Albany, NY 12247
Phone: 518-455-3395
Fax: 518-426-6858
grivera@nysenate.gov
Oppose S762a/A276b Talking Points
The bill does not have any age limits, which means that the only age limit will be the youngest age permitted to use a product set by the Food and Drug Administration. Hepatitis B vaccines are given at birth so there is no age limit, HPV vaccine can be given at 9, and Truvada can be given to people who are at least 77 lbs., the weight of an average fifth grader.
S762a/A276b Would violate federal law. The infamous law passed in 1986, the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act, which removed legal liability from vaccine manufacturers and people who administer vaccines, also requires that a healthcare professional provide a copy of the current vaccine information sheet to an adult patient or to a child’s parent/legal representative before vaccinating a child. 42 U.S.C. §300aa-26. Last year a federal court voided a Washington DC that allowed children 11 years and older to get vaccines without parental consent. See the judge’s decision here.
S762a/276b protects pedophiles by gutting mandated reporter laws. Paulin’s bill protects pedophiles by subverting New York’s “Mandated Reporter” law that requires licensed professionals to report suspected sexual abuse of children to law enforcement. What rational person would not suspect something was very wrong if a nine-year old requested an injection purported to prevent a sexually transmitted disease and the child did not want his or her parents to know about it? What should a mandated reporter do if an 11-year-old requests a drug to prevent HIV? Under New York law sex with children under the age of 17 is always illegal.
S762a A/276b takes away the current legal right to refuse vaccines for a child. This law goes much further than the repeal of the religious exemption from vaccine mandates to attend school. At least parents have the option to refuse a vaccine and homeschool a child. This law removes parents completely from their child’s healthcare decisions.
HPV shots have a terrible safety record According to the federal Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System as of 4/28/2023 in New York there have been 3,273 reported adverse incidents with HPV vaccines, including 9 deaths, 814 emergency room visits, 119 hospitalizations, and 88 permanent disabilities. Almost all of these injuries are among girls under 20. And according to Dr. David Kessler, who was the head of the FDA under Presidents George H. W. Bush and Bill Clinton, these injuries are probably less than 10% of the actual number. The safety record of HPV vaccines is so troubling that Japan ended their recommendation of HPV vaccination for Japanese girls in 2014.
Truvada (PrEP) has significant safety issues, can cost more than $20,000 per year and is associated with greater rates of STIs. Prep can cost more than $20,000 per year with an additional $15,000 in lab and testing costs PrEP has significant, and at times deadly, side effects including kidney failure, bone loss, liver failure, and dozens of other adverse outcomes. The use of PrEP has been shown in many studies to correlate directly with increased rates of STIs such as syphilis and gonorrhea.
Children do not know enough about their own medical history to consent. It is absurd to assume that a child of any age knows enough about their own medical history, and the medical history of their family, to provide informed consent. They must know if they had earlier adverse reactions to vaccines given to them as infants, whether they have allergies or sensitivities to vaccine ingredients, or if there is a family medical history that would contra-indicate a shot. A nine-year old child will know this?
Merck, the sole manufacturer of HPV vaccines, is charged with submitting fraudulent documents in the licensing process. A lawsuit is underway in California, Robi v. Merck, which alleges Merck, the manufacturer of Gardasil, submitted fraudulent safety and efficacy data to the federal government during the licensing process.
Who decides who can decide? A person giving the shot, who may have a financial incentive to do so, is allowed to use whatever reasons they want to determine if a minor is capable of giving consent.
There is no protection for minors with developmental disabilities Nor is there any specific language to prevent shots from being given to minors with intellectual or developmental disabilities.
There is no language that prevents minors from being enrolled in medical experiments.
How can a parent make informed healthcare choices for their child? In the event of an adverse reaction, especially if a child is unconscious, how is a parent, first responder, or other healthcare professionals supposed to provide appropriate medical care to the child?
The official description of the bill is inaccurate and dishonest. It claims the bill, “Provides treatment for sexually transmitted diseases to minors without a parent’s or guardian’s consent.” That is not accurate. New York law has allowed minors to seek treatment for STDs since the 1970s. New York law does not allow minors to consent to treatment purported to be “preventive.”
A current illegal regulation allows giving drugs and vaccines to minors without parental consent The goal of this bill is to make legal an illegal regulation pushed through in 2017 by former governor Andrew Cuomo that allowed giving drugs and vaccines to minors without parental consent. Bill author Amy Paulin acknowledges in the Memo for the A276b that the bill is needed to make the State’s current practice legal! Cuomo had no legal authority to push through what amounts to an entirely new law.
For more than a decade, New York legislators have been steadily raising the minimum age for minors to do everything from using tanning salons to buying tobacco to getting married. Yet, in the world view expressed in A6761, a 12-year-old is not mature enough to go to a tanning salon but he or she is old enough to decide to remove healthy organs.
These are just some of the ways New York law has raised minimum ages for minors:
- 2012, Age for using a tanning salon raised to 16.
- 2012, Minimum age for piercings and tattoos without parental consent set at 18
- 2016, Age for tanning raised to 18
- 2017, Age of marriage raised from 14 to 17 with parental and judicial consent
- 2019, Minimum age a person can be prosecuted as an adult raised to 18
- 2019, Minimum age to buy tobacco and e-cigarettes raised from 18 to 21
- 2020, Legal age of marriage raised to 18
- 2021, Age to buy a semi-automatic rifle raised from 18 to 21
- 2022, Age to buy nitrous oxide cylinders raised to 21
- 2023, Juvenile delinquency prosecution of any child under 12 banned
- 2023, Minimum age for operating an All Terrain Vehicle initiated at 14
Yet somehow a child of any age should be allowed to make medical decisions?
Oppose A276b/S762a.