NY Take Action: Oppose A1811/S1945, No Flu Shots to Attend School
Please take action to stop Senator Brad Hoylman and Assemblymember Jeffrey Dinowitz's bills (Senate Bill S1945 and Assembly Bill A1811) to make flu shots mandatory to attend school in New York. The lack of efficacy and the many safety issues with flu shots are well known, which is probably why the vast majority of Americans refuse to get flu shots for themselves and their children, despite enormous advertising campaigns and pressure from some medical professionals and employers. There is certainly no demonstrable compelling evidence that this assault on parents' rights is necessary for public health reasons.
Please use the panel to the right to send messages of opposition to your State Senator and Assemblymember.
Please call your State Senator and Assemblymember and let them know you oppose this bill. Their names and contact information should appear below.
Or look them up here:
https://www.nysenate.gov/find-my-senator
https://www.nyassembly.gov/mem/search/
The official language describing the bill is inaccurate and misleading. The official description of the bill states, "Relates to mandatory influenza vaccine for persons attending daycare." The memo written by the bill authors only mentions preschool settings, but throughout the text of the bill influenza is included among the diseases that must be vaccinated against for K-12 students.
No state requires flu shots to attend K-12. Only two states, New Jersey and Connecticut, require flu shots for pre-schoolers. New York City’s Board of Health imposed a regulation requiring flu shots for attendance at daycare and pre-school programs regulated by New York City, but they have published no data showing any improvement in child health as a result.
Flu shots are not routinely recommended for children in the vast majority of developed democracies including Germany, France, Italy, Spain and the Scandinavian countries.
The New York flu shot market for children is worth about $54 million per year, not including the administration fees charge by pediatricians and other flu shot retailers. Only four companies Glaxo, Sanofi, CSL and Astra Zeneca make all the flu shots sold in the US, with approximately 4,000,000 children in New York between 6 months and 18 years, and the federal Vaccines for Children program selling flu vaccines at around $13.50 per dose,
Flu shots are unpredictable and frequently completely ineffective. According to multi-decade studies of flu shot efficacy by the Cochrane Collaboration, inactivated flu shots in children age 3-16 reduce the risk of influenza in children from 18% to 4% on average. In some years, like 2017, flu shots have no measurable efficacy at all, even in the best-case scenarios devised by the flu shot manufacturers. In some years, children receiving flu shots are more likely to get the flu. There is insufficient data according to the Cochrane Collaboration to even say what affect flu shots have on children under 2, yet they would be required to get the shots by this law.
Some flu shots in the US (approximately 20%) are still made using thimerosal, an obsolete preservative based on toxic mercury, that is banned in most of the world, but not the US. New York banned the use of thimerosal in 2008 in shots given to pregnant women and children under three.
An internal CDC study showed 760% more autism among children who received thimerosal-containing vaccines in infancy. And studies have shown 20% higher autism among children whose mothers received pre-natal flu shots in the first trimester.
Flu shots are readily available for any parent who want to give them to themselves or their children, there is no reason to make them mandatory.
Please share this message with friends and families.