ALERT! HB 5105 Please Keep CALLING the Senate Health Committee!
Posted 2 months ago
Hello WV Nurses,
This is going to be a busy week and we need your help keeping the pressure on every day.
HB 5105 is going to be taken up by the Senate Health Committee soon. The agenda for tomorrow keeps changing - (first it's on and then it's taken off the agenda). The Senate Health Committee meets tomorrow March 5, 2024 at at 1pm. It is essential that we continue to voice our opposition to the bill VERY LOUDLY AND REPEATEDLY from now until the meeting begins tomorrow at 1. It is now all about VOLUME of calls and emails and it is essential that the Senators see and hear the words “Vote NO on House Bill 5105” over and over again.
CALL TO ACTION: Please keep calling and emailing members of the Senate Health Committee and ask them to OPPOSE House Bill 5105. The Senators are tallying of the number of calls supporting or opposing this bill. If you have already called, please keep calling. If you have already emailed, please resend your emails... Better yet, do both.
Contact information for Senate Health is provided below. Please start calling and emailing from now until 1pm tomorrow March 5th.
The following is a sample message that can be used for phone calls:
“My name is ___ and I am calling to ask the Senator to Vote NO on House Bill 5105.”
The following is sample text that can be used in an email:
Subject: Vote NO on HB 5105 (Be sure to state this in your subject line in case they do not open the email.)
“Dear Honorable Senator (insert legislator’s last name),
(If applicable… As a constituent of yours …) I am emailing to ask you to vote NO on House Bill 5105.
If passed, HB 5105 will move West Virginia 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 vote NO on HB 5105.
Sincerely,
Your Name
Additional updates will be sent as they are available. Please let us know if you have any questions in the meantime.
Thank you for your continued support!
Julie
CEO, WVNA
Senate Committee on Health and Human Resources
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Senator |
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Capitol Phone |
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Chairman Mike Maroney |
304-357-7902 |
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Vice-Chair Tom Takubo |
304-357-7990 |
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Mike Azinger |
304-357-7970 |
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Laura Chapman |
304-357-7918 |
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Vince Deeds |
304-357-7959 |
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Amy Grady |
304-357-7855 |
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Bill Hamilton |
304-357-7906 |
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Mark Hunt |
304-357-7841 |
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Glenn Jeffries |
304-357-7866 |
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Robert Plymale |
304-357-7937 |
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Rollan Roberts |
304-357-7831 |
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Patricia Rucker |
304-357-7957 |
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Eric Tarr |
304-357-7901 |
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Ryan Weld |
304-357-7984 |