April 17, 2019 (Ashland, OR)—If you’re an educator, doctor, business person, or parent in Oregon and you care about children’s health, you’ve probably heard about HB 3063. This bill seeks to exclude Oregon’s children from public school, private school, daycare, and even Head Start. Unfortunately, it’s being “fast-tracked” through the Oregon House of Representatives right now. A lot of pro-vaccine anti-mandates advocates are concerned that school exclusion is un-Oregonian.
HB 3063 passed out of the House Health Care Committee at the end of March.
It’s currently in the Joint Ways and Means Committee, awaiting assignment to a subcommittee where lawmakers will review its financial impact.
Against Oregon’s bill HB 3063
Representatives and senators on both sides have told us that the vast majority of the communication they’ve received (phone calls, letters, emails) has been from pro-vaccine anti-mandates constituents who are against HB 3063.
Many, perhaps most, of these constituents consider themselves “pro-vaccine.”
But they do not believe medicine should be mandated, that we should do away with religious and philosophical freedom in our state, or that children should be excluded from school based on the religious or philosophical beliefs of their parents.
Yet some Oregon lawmakers continue to insist that we should force vaccination compliance and disallow children from Oregon’s schools if they have not received even just one of the 31 recommended vaccines (31 is the number of doses for vaccines required for kindergarten.)
Business consultant Stephen Sloan: I’m pro-vaccine but anti-mandates
Consultant Stephen Sloan opposes HB 3063. Here’s a version of the letter he wrote to Oregon lawmakers, which he has graciously agreed to let us publish.
Stephen Sloan
Sloan Value Partners, LLC
Humane Leadership Conference
Re: Oppose HB 3063
To the Oregon legislature:
I am a resident of Ashland, a business consultant, college educator and an active board member in the arts community here. I am writing to you to express my opposition to HB 3063, and to urge you to oppose it as well.
I am as wary as any educated person of preventable, infectious diseases. While I am pro-vaccine, we chose to vaccinate our three children on a modified schedule, not the standard, multi-vaccine protocols very early in childhood.
HB 3063 seems aimed at removing the right to make thoughtful, personal choices about immunizations from parents going forward.
In these troubled days in our culture, it is important for legislators like you to be the exemplars of rational pursuit of truth, justice and civil liberties. Unfortunately, HB 3063 ignores the:
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Latest science on the specific efficacy of currently scheduled vaccinations (overall, vaccines = good is not good enough when it comes to HB 3063).
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Rights of parents to choose what medical procedures they and their children undergo.
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Unfair, inefficient profit motives built into our healthcare and pharmaceuticals markets. We need look no further than the opioid crisis to see who our current system serves best.
Why should a woman’s right to choose extend to her reproductive organs but not her (or her children’s) immune systems?
This is a violation of civil liberties we’ve historically treasured in this state.
Will you legislate an end to high school football as well? It’s proven to put children’s lives at risk.
If you support this bill, you will have publicly joined those half-informed, reactionary forces who are doing so much harm in our society already.
We cannot legislate out half-informed, dogmatic crackpots who fear all immunizations either, but HB 3063 seems to be trying to do so in an inelegant, likely ineffectual, way.
Please, give us all time to think, learn, and discuss the nuances of these issues before you “protect us” from the unseen enemy.
I am not a scientist, but I know enough trained medical professionals and scientists who still have questions around the efficacy and safety of particular scheduled vaccines to know that lay people should not be assuming all the science on each of these vaccines is settled forever.
Please, hold off and HB 3063 and help lead a thoughtful, respectful discussion on all the issues surrounding vaccinations, infectious disease threats facing Oregon, and our rights as Americans to learn and to choose a path forward based on our own values.
Isn’t life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness what we’re all trying to protect and serve?
Finally, if you make the mistake of passing this flawed bill as is, you will be putting children at risk as they hurry to catch up on their vaccinations to avoid missing school and penalties.
It just doesn’t seem worth the risks.
Thank you for your service to our state.
Stephen Bárczay Sloan
About the Author: Stephen Bárczay Sloan has over 30 years of strategy, planning, and business transformation experience in a range of industries, including high technology and consumer products. He has deep experience applying technology, business process, and value proposition transformation to improve sales, operations, and financial results. His expertise includes service profit chain and business process analysis. As well as strategy development and cooperative innovation within industry and partner ecosystems. Stephen’s previous roles include leadership in and consulting to startups and turnarounds of businesses in ERP and CRM, software development, and online marketing. He served in leadership and led digital transformation initiatives in operations, customer experience, and B2B sales at Harry & David and consulting with Global 1000 technology firms on marketing and partner strategy. Stephen has a BA from UCLA and and completed core MBA course work at The Paul Merage School of Business at UC Irvine before stepping into entrepreneurship and consulting. In addition to leading Sloan Value Partners, Stephen is the founder of the Humane Leadership Conference and serves on the board of the Ashland Independent Film Festival. He is a thought leader who is pro-vaccine anti-mandates.
If you’re a pro-vaccine anti-mandates Oregonian, or you’re concerned about vaccine safety, safe vaccination, and medical freedom, join us for a RALLY FOR RIGHTS in SALEM, OREGON on Tuesday, April 23, 2019. Noon to 2 p.m. at the Capitol.
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