Call to action - AGAIN! Keep calling and emailing!

 

ALERT!
CALL TO ACTION: Please keep calling and emailing ALL members of the Senate and ask them to OPPOSE House Bill 5105. If you live in the legislator’s district, please let them know that you are a constituent of theirs when you contact them. If you have a child in school or in a childcare facility, it is especially important that you share that information with the legislators as well. Please continue to call and email all week as the Senators are keeping tally of the number of calls supporting and opposing this bill. We need to be extremely loud!

 

Contact information for the members of the Senate can be found here: https://www.wvlegislature.gov/Senate1/roster.cfm.

 

The following is a sample message that can be used for phone calls:

 

“My name is ___ and I (insert relevant information as applicable… am a constituent of yours, and/or have a child in ____ school, etc). I am calling to register my opposition to House Bill 5105.”

 

The following is sample text that can be used in an email:

 

                              Subject: OPPOSE HB 5105

             
“Dear Honorable Senator (insert legislator’s last name),

(If applicable… As a constituent of yours …) I am emailing to register my opposition to House Bill 5105.

If passed, HB 5105 will position West Virginia to move from having one of the most effective school and childcare immunization requirements in the nation to having one of the weakest. By removing immunization requirements for private and parochial schools and allowing a religious exemption to immunization requirements for schools and licensed childcare facilities, it will become easier and more convenient for parents/guardians to opt their children out of immunizations than to vaccinate them. This will lead to reductions in immunization rates in West Virginia and put our children and communities at risk for the return of vaccine-preventable diseases.

This is particularly concerning for young children in childcare settings. Young children are at high risk for complications of vaccine-preventable diseases and children under a year of age are not yet eligible for MMR (measles, mumps, and rubella) vaccination. They rely on high immunization rates of the people around them to protect them from measles. Allowing a reduction in immunization rates around them will put them at risk for dangerous, but preventable diseases.

Vaccine-preventable diseases are just a car or plane ride away. HB 5105 will open the door to the return these diseases to our communities, putting children, particularly those who are most vulnerable, at risk. We ask that you do not jeopardize the health and safety of our children and communities by weakening West Virginia’s childcare and school immunization requirements.

 

We ask that you oppose HB 5105.

Sincerely, 

Your Name

 

WVNA is working with the West Virginia Immunization Network (WIN), as well as over 20 healthcare groups in West Virginia - but we truly need to be louder. If you have any questions or need any additional information in the meantime, please contact us. In the meantime call and email again today. 

Thank you, 

Julie

Julie Huron, CEO, WVNA