How the Florida Dept. of Health Is Violating Vaccine Exemption and Privacy Rights & What To Do About It

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A new presentation by Health Freedom Florida and the National Vaccine Information Center, two grassroots organizations dedicated to protecting your personal health sovereignty and preventing forced governmental mandates, reveals how the Florida Department of Health has been violating your rights, and what you can do about it. 

 

This presentation is all the more timely given that, a bill (SB 64) has been introduced into the Florida legislature which would strip religious exemptions for vaccination and interefere with the doctor/patient relationship when it comes to obtaining medical exemptions.

 

 

Below you will find the full transcript and slide kit. 

Hello everyone, this is Sarah Gibbons of Health Freedom Florida. Welcome and thank you for tuning in.

 

I have on this call with me  Mo Van Hoek, also of Health Freedom Florida.

 

Health Freedom Florida is a grassroots group representing those that wish to retain their own personal sovereignty without governmental forced mandates relating to our personal practice of healthcare.

 

We strongly believe that we have the power and responsibility to shape the future for all Floridians. 

 

Joining us today, we also have our amazing partners from the National Vaccine Information Center, also known as the NVIC. 

Speaking on their behalf today we have Dawn Richardson, Director of Advocacy, Andrea, Director of Professional Relations, and Toni Krehel, Florida State Director. 

 

The National Vaccine Information Center is dedicated to preventing vaccine injuries and deaths through public education and advocating for informed consent protections in medical policies and public health laws. NVIC defends the human right to freedom of thought and conscience and supports the inclusion of flexible medical, religious and conscientious belief exemptions in vaccine policies and laws.  The NVIC collectively has well over 100 years of legislative advocacy and lobbying experience. We are proud to have them by our side!

 

We are going to be talking about vaccine exemptions in Florida today, and the new proposed Senate Bill, and with that, I will hand it over to Toni Krehel. 

This terrible bill was pre-filed on August 2, well ahead of the 2020 legislative session that begins in January 2020. This bill is sponsored by Senator Lauren Book. Senator Lauren Book represents the 32nd district in Broward County. She is a member of the Democratic Party.

 

SB 64 would eliminate the religious exemption to vaccines that are required for K-12 public and private school children.  It would also add a new section of law authorizing and requiring the Board of Medicine and the Board of Osteopathic Medicine to jointly create a medical exemption review panel to review all medical exemptions. And, ultimately, to restrict them even further than they currently are.

 

This means that not only will parents and citizens be denied their religious freedom rights, the DOH will now also scrutinize medical exemptions written and begin the process of taking control over that medical decision-making process. This policy negates medical freedom for both citizens and doctors, it negates the doctor-patient relationship and it makes all health care providers agents of the state. 

 

It is very important that those who support religious and medical freedom and exemptions get out ahead of Senator Book’s effort to pass this bill. We need to get our legislators and like-minded people to get involved now. 

There are 4 action Items that NVIC believes will help SB64 with regards to the current landscape.  As Toni mentioned we are out of session right now as this is being recorded. So how we handle and conduct our actions slightly differs from when we are in session come January 2020.  

 

We believe historically that these next 4 actions items are of great benefit given many variable and current landscape we are in currently.  I like to explain this as during when we are out of session it’s very much like gathering all the ingredients for your favorite meal or baking a cake.  Now is the time to connect, share and inform your local representative and senators about your feelings with regards to SB 64. Rather when we are in session come January 2020 this is the “time your meal is taking form” or “your cake is baking.”  We need to unify and mobilize now and really get ahead of this prior to January 2020 when session resumes.  

 

What we have found at NVIC that works is one of 4 action items:

 

 

  • As soon as possible, schedule an in-person meeting with your state senator and representative to express to them how important it is to your family to have religious and unrestricted medical exemptions available. Share your vaccine reaction, denial of medical care, and harassment or discrimination stories. 

 

  • Email your state senator and representative also using their preferred method of contact (see D.)

 

  • Attend events where your legislators may be speaking or presenting and express your concerns there as well.  Follow your legislators on social media so you can know when and where they will be attending and speaking during the interim so that you can attend and have opportunities to provide more information and ask questions.

 

Legislative contact information: you can login to the NVIC Advocacy Portal, click on the “State Teams” tab and then “My State,” and your elected officials are automatically posted on the right hand side of the page.  


 

The second item would be the contact the sponsor directly- in this case Senator Lauren Book.  We have provided for your convenience Senator Lauren Book’s contact information.

 

Website - Twitter: https://twitter.com/book4senate?lang=en

Website - Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/book4senate/

Website: https://www.flsenate.gov/Senators/s32

Email: [email protected]

 

Be polite and explain how important religious and unrestricted medical exemptions to vaccination are for you and your family.  

The third of the 4 methods that would be of benefit given where we are today would be: 

 

Login to the NVIC Advocacy Portal (NVICadvocacy.org) OFTEN to check for updates.  We review bills and make updates daily. Where we are currently in the legislative landscape as this is being recorded is things are “cooking” things are “beginning to take shape”.  This is a time and space where a lot of change can occur. NVIC updates action steps often and as needed. We review bill and make updates sometime daily. We are constantly providing updated details, meeting times, locations, talking points.  It is recommended that you register for the NVIC Advocacy Portal if you have not already done so and check the portal activity 2-3 time per week to stay informed about legislative issue that matter to you.  

 

And lastly the fourth action item would be: TO SHARE.

 

It’s vital that like any grassroot movement you must share.  Sharing NVIC Advocacy.Org with like-minded individuals to activate meetings, communications, phone calls and emails would be beneficial.  

 

Please SHARE with family and friends and ask them to register for the NVIC Advocacy Portal at NVICAdvocacy.org and share their concerns with their legislators as well.  

A very troubling trend is the way in which notifications from the DOH, from schools and doctor’s offices and media reporting about vaccine requirements are being conveyed. The forms and notifications that are going out and that you are receiving are omitting exemption information. 

For example, notices that all kindergarten and 7th grade students are required by law to have certain vaccines – these notices refer to the law that requires them but omit the part of the law that provides for religious exemption and information how to obtain one. Without this exemption information, the notifications are misleading, manipulative, discriminatory and thus unlawful. 

 

Another example, a new form vaccination refusal form issued by the DOH, is being presented to be filled out prior to providing you with the exemption form DH681. It also includes notating your refusal to sign if you do. This form includes language that is defined as “compelled speech” and it states that by signing this form you are saying and you agree that declining or deferring vaccines may endanger your child’s health and life and that of the community.” 

 

This form and other vaccination notifications create another layer to the already burdensome process of obtaining religious exemptions. The legal interpretation of the statute a FL court of law states that religious freedom laws, including exemptions, cannot be burdensome. Thus, the Department of Health is purposefully making this right difficult and burdensome. 

 

Threatening school notices and signs that say “No Shots, No School, No Kidding” are other examples of misleading and manipulative tactics.

Florida law 1003.22 explicitly provides for religious exemption. It is important to understand that since a religious exemption is already provided for by law, a parent or individual does not need to ask permission for or be approved to have a religious exemption.

 

 

While the statute states that a parent need only present to the school a statement of religious conflict, the Rules and Immunization Guidelines issued by the DOH for complying with the statute states that a request for a religious exemption from vaccination requirements must be presented to the school on the department’s Religious Exemption Immunization form (DH 681). 

 

DH 681 Form is issued ONLY by county health departments and ONLY for a child who is not vaccinated because of his/her family’s religious tenets or practices. If a parent requests such an exemption, then the county health department staff must use the current DH 681 Form available electronically in the Florida SHOTS, which the parent affirms a religious conflict exists. This form must be issued upon request. No other information should be solicited from the parent or guardian. 

 

It is not necessary for you to go to the county health department in the county where you reside. Since it is a state requirement, any county health department can issue this form. 

 

 

 

These are the ONLY two forms that are required for religious & medical exemptions. Only the child’s name and date of birth. Your child’s Social security number is optional (not required). No other information about the child or your religious beliefs should be collected, and if other information is requested, you can say “NO” 

 

Currently we are entitled to religious and medical exemptions, and they cannot be denied. SB64 eliminates these exemptions. This dangerous bill must be defeated and a message sent to the federal government that Florida is not going take away our rights and medical freedom. 

 

It was reported in July, that individuals visiting Florida Health Departments around the state, to pick up their Religious Exemption forms, were being asked to have a discussion with a health department resource prior to receiving their religious exemption form.  This is a NEW behavior by the Department of Health! We also learned That Health Department resources are withholding the Religious exemption form and forcing individuals to listen to them discuss the dangers of not vaccinating and are also seeking acknowledgement verbally from the individual at the conclusion of their speech.  Then the resource STILL withholds the Religious exemption form, and instead, provides a Form known as the “Vaccine Education Form”. The Health department is asking individuals who request an exemption form to SIGN this document beforehand. Refusal to sign the document, which is what you should do, is also being documented in Health departments system.  

 

This is alarming on multiple fronts. 

 

First, please know the Constitution of the State of Florida expressly recognizes a right to privacy under Article I, Section 12–named Florida’s Constitutional Right to Privacy: and states “Every natural person has the right to be let alone and free from governmental intrusion into the person’s private life” – Be armed with this!

 

I want to take a minute to discuss the new form itself 

 

Lets be VERY clear - THE VACCINE EDUCATION FORM is NOT required FOR you to obtain any EXEMPTION FORM! 

 

Additionally, the VACCINE EDUCATION FORM contains what is known as, COMPELLED SPEECH, and also includes, Self-incriminating language.  This form is disturbing and embedded with misinformation, and it lacks informed consent about the medical procedure of vaccination, or rather, inoculation.  If it was true informed consent it would also discuss the danger of vaccination. One section of this document in particular, is most chilling, and of grave concern! As you can see the bottom portion of this form states: and I quote “I know the failure to follow the recommendations about vaccination may endanger the health or life of my child and others.”   Wow, this form is an absolute overreach and we should not be fooled! Its fear-based propaganda driven language and appears to attempt to scare people away from requesting or following through on getting a vaccine exemption form.

 

If you previously filled out this form because you were lead to believe it was required net step is to contact the Health Department and ask for the form to be redacted and given back to you and any information recorded from it anywhere should also be deleted.  I recommend you put it also in writing.

 

Take A Screenshot or Save This Image Above When You Get Your Exemption.

 

So, be armed;  under the First Amendment it states “Congress shall make NO law…abridging the freedom of speech” which means Florida Shots, nor the Health Department can compel or coerce any persons to engage in speech they do not wish to make, as it is unconstitutional.”


 

Once NVIC & Health Freedom Florida learned this was taking place – we took action – we engaged Florida Shots & Florida Department of Health and began communications with their Legal Counsel.  As you can see here - We were provided this response Amanda Bush, Chief Legal Counsel of Florida Department of Health, which clearly states that this document is NOT required to receive any Vaccine exemption forms.  

 

Amanda was not able to provide any Statute to support this activity.  Therefore, Florida Department of Health has NO legislative authority or regulatory authority rule that mandates this information be collected by the Health Departments in the state of Florida.  

 

So, DO NOT allow the county health departments to overstep their bounds with you or even allow them to put this information into a registry when it is not authorized by current law!

 

Be armed and empowered and let the Health Department understand that what they are doing is not authorized, nor is their Education Encounter process! Feel free to share this document that clearly shows that Department of Health’s Chief Legal Counsel has stated that the Education Encounter Document is NOT required for you to receive an Exemption form.  If you are hassled or not provided an exemption form at request, please notify NVIC or HFF immediately. Make sure to document the individuals name from the Health department, provide the date of your encounter and any other relative information and we want to know and will act!  

 

As a side note, these discussions with Amanda Busch, Chief Legal Counsel, We also are pursuing requesting that the Florida Department of Health provide the legislative authority being used to:

 

1)      require individuals to pick up their religious exemption form in person; as there is NO requirement for this in the statute

2)      permit the Health Department and Florida shots to collect this data in the public registry; and

3)      permit the health department to release this information to the public on their website in a map form

 

IF they cannot provide the Statute, we have requested they immediately delete/destroy all this information, inclusive of removing this from current Health Department & Florida Shots publications highlighting locations of exemptions.  Please watch for updates by joining NVIC and liking the Health Freedom Florida page in Facebook.

 

To summarize, you do not need to acknowledge verbally or in written form anything.  You request the Vaccine Exemption form and nothing more is required of you. So, our goal here is We want you to feel empowered, steadfast in your conviction, so when you enter the Health Department, know you are there to protect your family, and no one can bully, mislead or otherwise compromise your ability to receive a the vaccine exemption.

 

Dawn I am going to hand the session back to you for the next segment.


 

Hi this is Dawn Richardson I’m the director of advocacy from the National Vaccine Information Center and I would like to talk to you about the Florida shots immunization tracking system. This registering is mining your child’s and your data without consent or legislative authority.

In the 2019 legislative session House Bill 213 was passed and signed by the governor. This bill took an already dangerous and intrusive tracking system and expanded it.

 

The truth is you cannot say no to vaccine surveillance in Florida Even though the health department claims it is an opt out system.

 

NVIC and health freedom Florida and numerous other groups opposed HB 213. What ended up passing in the final form still required someone opting out to submit an opt out form to the department. So the very same people who are saying they don’t want to be tracked are still being tracked by the department for saying no. Language was also passed to allow for the upload of data from existing automated systems. What that means is the health department can go into your doctors like Tronic records and take your data.  

 

Because this new law requires  healthcare practitioners to report to the registry, your favorite doctors’ performance vaccinating Every patient will also be subjected to tracking and evaluation.  The environment of finding a doctor willing to treat an Unvaccinated or partially vaccinated child will become a lot more hostile . 

 

The law still requires the health department to pilfer birth certificate records to start a registry file on every child born.

 

The concept of government surveillance and tracking a vaccine records was sold to the legislature originally as a child hood registry only. However House Bill 213 has now expanded the registry into adult tracking for college students. 

 

Healthcare practitioners should be required to obtain written informed consent to enter any record into the Florida shots database and The health department should not be allowed to just go into private physician patient records and take data. The definition of stealing is taking something that doesn’t belong to you without permission. This law goes into effect on January 1, 2021. We hope we can count on your support to get this law change to next session to turn the system and to a true opt in informed consent system where people who don’t want to participate don’t have to do anything to protect their records.


 

The Florida health department has already proven that they cannot be trusted and are willing to go outside the bounds of the law to try and get everybody vaccinated whether they want to or not.  

 

The Florida shots database, even before HB 213 passed, gives the example on their website how HMOs will automatically upload and update vaccines records


 

The SHOTS website, prior to the passage of HB 213, Talked about automated uploads starting on July 1.  This is extra presumptuous and offensive because the law that allows for these uploads hadn’t been passed yet when these screenshots were taken and Permission to grab data automatically doesn’t go in effect until 2021.


View the Florida Department of Health Vaccine Exemption Tracking System (Using Unlawfully Obtained Data) Here.

We also caught the health department utilizing the Florida shots database to create a state wide religious exemption frequency map. This was never authorized in statute. I spoke with an attorney on the state health department and she was not able to cite a law granting authority for them to do this. As a matter of fact, she claimed they weren’t doing it and I had to challenge her and say that’s not true because I’m looking at your website with this data displayed already in map form citing the shots database tracking system as the source. Even worse is the fact that the website claims that all religious exemptions are registered in the Florida shots database and have been since December 2011.


 

Besides the fact that we have a state agency gone rogue operating outside the bounds of their authority in Law, Why else should you be concerned? Three points hacking tracking and enforcement with home visits!

 

Your data is not safe in this database. Florida has been ranked fourth with the most data breaches in the last 10 years. Detailed personal information including Social Security numbers birthdays and other sensitive private information is stored in this tracking system and many entities have access to this data providing vulnerabilities.  It is less likely to catch identity theft and children because there aren’t the checks and balances of shut down credit cards or denial of loans when your data has been exploited. 

 

Don’t fall for the untrue claims by the health department that your data is safe when it is used in an aggregate unidentified format. Scientists have revealed that even if your data were anonymized scientists say you can still be identified Increasing concerns even more about hacking.

 

Probably the most concerning application of the registry is that it is used to track coerce or force people to receive vaccines that they may not want to receive for religious medical or safety reasons. There was recently a pilot project in Duval county where the Florida shots database was used to go door to door and get everybody vaccinated. [See: A Good Shot: Reaching Immunization Targets in Duval County]

 

Send [email protected] picturees of the "vaccine education form."

We are so grateful that you tuned in with us to learn about the key issues affecting your rights with regard to inform consent and medical privacy surrounding vaccination in the state of Florida. I would just like to take this opportunity to highlight a handful of key take-home points

 

Please use this information and the information on our website to learn about your rights and to hold those accountable who misrepresent or omit accurate and complete information about delaying or declining vaccines or how a law change is needed  to avoid tracking. This includes the media. Let them know with comments, letters, or calls when they have misinformation and ask that they correct it. Please stay in touch and send us pictures or information about any violations of this. 

 

Do not be fooled into signing the compelled speech with incriminating language vaccine education form when you are requesting Copies of religious or medical exemption forms from your local health department.

 

It is critical that you make an appointment with your state representative and your state senator to express opposition to send it till six for them to explain why it is important to your family to maintain both medical and religious exemptions. Share your personal stories of vaccine reactions harassment and discrimination for altering the vaccine schedule. Get to know your legislators and allow them to get to know your family. Building those relationships in this interim period is the most important thing you can do.

 

Contact the sponsor of SB 64 senator and Lauren book and ask her to withdraw her bill. 

 

Please make sure you are registered with the NVIC advocacy portal So you can get updates about important legislative action needed in Florida-and connect to Health freedom Florida And National Vaccine Information Center Facebook accounts.

 

One of these efforts is going to be supporting legislation in 2020 to repeal House Bill 213 and make the vaccine tracking system up then informed consent only!

 

We thank you for your time in joining us and hope that you find this information informative and empowering.  Please share This presentation with your family and friends as well. Thank you and good night.

 

https://NVICAdvocacy.org and https://NVIC.org 

 

For an additional call to action, use the Stand for Health Freedom campaign to look up your local representatives by zip code and send them your comments here.

 

 

 

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