Contact your own Illinois District Representative and tell them to vote no on SB1410 .
Vaccine choice leads to safer vaccines for all of Illinois children.
Update 5/11/15
SB1410 passes the Senate with an amendment. SB1410 moves on to the Illinois House of Representatives.
Illinois Vaccine Awareness Coalition members remain concerned re SB1410 for the following reasons:
1) No identification of local school authority
2) No available Illinois Department of Public Health objection form and definition of “detailing grounds”
3) No answer to question:: Is child in compliance for school-state funding if child has a personal religious belief objection?
4) No answer to: Why are you changing the 1995 legal opinion of Illinois Director cf Public Health, John Lumpkin, M.D.P.?
5) No response to two letters for Sen. Mulroe
SB1410 makes it more cumbersome for parents to file a religious exemption. 19 other states have philosophical exemptions to childhood school vaccines and Illinois should be moving towards more exemptions instead of trying to limit the religious exemption. Vaccine manufacturers have no product liability and the Supreme Court has ruled vaccines “unavoidably unsafe” in 2011. Illinois parents need to have the right to make informed vaccine choices for their children. Vaccine choice leads to safer vaccines for all of Illinois children.
Update 4/15/2015
Illinois Senate Bill 1410 Passes in Public Health Committee
On April 14th the Senate Public Health Committee adopted Amendment 1 (see below) and passed SB1410 as amended. Senator Mulroe’s SB 1410 will require an annual letter from physicians stating that they warned parents about rejecting vaccinations for their children. Right now, doctor visits are required before kindergarten, 5th and 9th grades. With SB 1410, parents will need to visit their children’s doctors every year if they want their children exempted from vaccine requirements.
Senate Committee Amendment No. 1
Replaces everything after the enacting clause. Amends the School Code. With respect to the Section requiring health examinations and immunizations, removes a provision concerning parents or legal guardians who object to the health, dental, or eye examinations or to immunizations on religious grounds. Provides instead that children of parents or legal guardians who object to health, dental, or eye examinations, or any part thereof, to immunizations, or to vision and hearing screening tests on religious grounds shall not be required to undergo the examinations, tests, or immunizations to which they so object if such parents or legal guardians present to the appropriate local school authority a signed Certificate of Religious Exemption, created by the Department of Public Health, detailing the grounds for objection and the specific immunizations, tests, or examinations to which they object. Provides that the grounds for objection must set forth the specific religious belief that conflicts with the examination, test, immunization, or other medical intervention. Specifies other requirements for the signed certificate, and requires parents or legal guardians to submit the certificate to their local school authority annually for each child for which they are requesting an exemption. Contains provisions concerning the religious objection. Requires the local school authority to inform the parent or legal guardian of exclusion procedures, in accordance with the Department’s rules, at the time the objection is presented. Effective immediately
On February 20th, Illinois Senator John Mulroe, introduced legislation (SB1410) that would limit Illinois’ personal, religious exemptions to vaccines. (217) 782-1035-Springfield Office; (773) 763-3810 District Office.
Mulroe told the State Journal Register that been “a groundswell” of parents in recent years who see vaccines “as a harbinger of other diseases despite evidence to the contrary.”
“What we don’t want is someone’s personal beliefs putting other people at risk, which is often the case with vaccination exemptions,”
SB 1410 Synopsis As Introduced Amends the School Code. Requires the State Board of Education to publish on its Internet website the exemption from immunization data it receives from schools. Provide that parents or legal guardians who object to health, dental, or eye examinations or immunizations on religious grounds must present to the appropriate local school authority a Department of Public Health objection form, detailing the grounds for the objection and signed by the parent or legal guardian, as well as a religious official attesting to a bona fide religious objection whose signature must be notarized (instead of presenting a signed statement of objection detailing the grounds for the objection). Requires the Department of Public Health to develop and publish a uniform objection form for this particular use. Provides that if the physical condition of a child is such that any one or more of the immunizing agents should not be administered, the child’s parent or legal guardian must present to the appropriate local school authority a statement signed by the child’s regular examining physician, advanced practice nurse, or physician assistant attesting to that fact. Effective immediately.