What’s Next, and Stay On-Message at the Cali. Assembly Health Committee SB 276 Hearing Next Week

What’s Next, and Stay On-Message at the Cali. Assembly Health Committee SB 276 Hearing Next Week

Yesterday, it was announced that the Assembly Health Committee would hold its hearing on SB 276 on June 20th.

I have two pieces of advice, the first of which is in part self-serving.

I once asked a very busy and successful Hollywood personality/author/entrepreneur how she managed to juggle so many different ventures and activities. She told me that she had a simple rule: She just focuses on “what’s next”, and once the current thing is done, she moves on again to what’s next. Easy for her since she has multiple assistants who lined-up the series of what’s next tasks. Still, I think it applies to the movement to defeat SB 276.

What’s next in the battle is Friday’s action against the San Francisco City Attorney’s effort to subpoena Ken Stoller’s medical records of his vaccine exempt patients. Here is the link to the event page. https://www.facebook.com/events/1580569842074414/

The physical event starts at the San Francisco Chronicle’s Office. The message is that the media does not give fair or adequate coverage to the vaccine debate, and particularly the serious and permanent injuries caused by vaccines, a fact which is accepted by the federal judiciary and the Congress that granted the vaccine manufacturers absolute immunity from suit.

The event then moves by-foot to the San Francisco City Attorney’s Office with the message that the City Attorney withdraw the subpoena, and that physicians have (and should continue to have) the discretion to issue medical vaccine exemptions based on factors broader than CDC contraindications, which is exactly what Ken Stoller is doing, and he is following the law (SB 277) exactly.

We are trying to make this an international event, with people from around the world contacting the City Attorney, by fax, email and phone, expressing their opinions, and sharing stories to help the City Attorney understand that he was given bad information.

It’s hard to predict how large this international communications effort will be, but my feeling is that if it’s big enough, the message will be heard all the way to the Assembly in Sacramento next week, sort of like a stone’s throw rippling in the water. After Friday’s event, ride the wave to Sacramento, for what’s next, after Friday.

And, Stay On-Message

The hearing next week concerns a bill which will remove a physician’s ability to make an important medical decision, and place it in the hands of government employees who have never met or spoken to the patient for whom they are making the decision, and whose records these officials have not reviewed. That should be an affront to all physicians, but especially to the state administrative agency that protects the public, in part by making sure that only physicians with a doctor/patient relationship make such decisions. Sadly, it isn’t, not yet anyway.

Your job is to convince the members of the Health Committee that physicians with a doctor/patient relationship not government employees with no contact with the patients should make these decisions. Short, succinct stories showing the limitations and harm caused by an overly narrow focus on contraindications would be an excellent way to show that for non-health care people who testify.

I’ll repeat what I’ve said before the Senate Health Committee hearing: it’s not about your constitutional right to make personal decisions for your children and exercise those rights to decline all vaccines because of your personal, philosophical or religious beliefs. There used to be a statutory right to do so, but then came SB 277, and that statutory right was eliminated. Efforts to establish a constitutional or other statutory right have all failed. It’s over! If you try to relitigate that rescinded and currently non-existent right, you are undercutting your efforts to defeat SB 276.

Specifically, if this is perceived to be just about your attempt to protect the power of physicians to indirectly effectuate parents’ personal belief exemptions, then your efforts will fail, as they should. So, my advice is to focus on what this is actually about rather than relitigate a prior battle.

That’s the way I see it anyway.

Call and fax the City Attorney on Friday! And if you’re in the neighborhood, stop by and show your support.

Rick Jaffe, Esq.
rickjaffeesquire@gmail.com

2 thoughts on “What’s Next, and Stay On-Message at the Cali. Assembly Health Committee SB 276 Hearing Next Week

  1. Curious to know how the rally went Friday? I sent a message to the City Attny but couldn’t make it in person.

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