NYC Mandatory Measles Vaccination Violates NY State Law, CHD Challenges Legality
Children's Health Defense
Apr 10, 2019

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Yesterday, 60 New York vaccine safety advocates and religious leaders visited the office of Assembly member Jeffrey Dinowitz, author of A2371, a bill that would eliminate religious vaccine exemptions state wide.

CHD PRESS RELEASE, NEW YORK, April 10, 2019 /PRNewswire/ — The New York City Commissioner of Health declared a public health emergency yesterday, ordering all people who live, work or reside in four Brooklyn zip codes to be vaccinated with the Measles-Mumps-Rubella vaccine declared to be “effective and safe.” Non-compliance with the order is a misdemeanor subject to criminal and civil fines, including imprisonment. Mayor Bill de Blasio warned that residents have 48 hours to get the vaccine or face a $1,000 fine. Only those with documented immunity, medical contraindications or infants under six months are exempt from the vaccine mandate...

...Children’s Health Defense (CHD) is supporting a legal challenge to this dangerous, unprecedented overreach. While the City has unquestionable authority to control disease outbreaks, it may not violate the bedrock principle of prior, free and informed consent to all medical interventions, including vaccines. This is a fundamental human right. The City may quarantine, isolate, trace contacts and strongly urge vaccination, but it may not impose such a draconian mandate without demonstrating necessity, reasonableness, proportionality, harm avoidance, non-discrimination, due process and equal protection. The Commissioner has failed to do this; the City’s actions violate New York State law.

“I am shocked that Mayor De Blasio would resort to such police state techniques to control an outbreak of measles. I don’t believe the City’s actions will withstand legal scrutiny,” said CHD Board Member Mary Holland, JD. The City is requiring that people receive Merck’s MMR vaccine, even though the outbreak is only for measles. The MMR II product insert acknowledges that death is a potential side effect from the vaccine, along with a long raft of other potential permanent injuries.

A review of claims submitted to the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program of identified 48 cases of encephalopathy following MMR vaccine. Of those, eight children died, and the remainder had mental regression and retardation, chronic seizures, motor and sensory deficits, and movement disorders. The authors, all associated with the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program concluded that a causal relationship between measles vaccine and encephalopathy may exist as a rare complication of measles immunization.