Senate vaccine debate draws protest
Thousands rally against bill to end religious exemption
HARTFORD — About 4,000 people surrounded the State Capitol Tuesday in a day-long attempt to derail the expected Senate vote that would force new students in all Connecticut schools and childcare programs to be vaccinated by September 2022.
Cheering “Kill the bill... Kill the bill,” the generally festive crowd anticipated the passage of the repeal of the state’s religious exemption, but made their presence known on the issue of parental rights and the problems they have
finding doctors to approve medical exemptions for childhood vaccinations.
“I feel that a scary narrative is being pushed in this building,” said Amy Mallardi, 45, of Oxford, who doesn’t want to be ordered to get all recommended inoculations for her youngest child. “The government is now mandating every vaccine on the vaccine schedule.”
Crowds, including hundreds of children, began rallying at the State Capitol building during the morning rush hour, lining Capitol Avenue and the entrance to the adjacent Legislative Office Building, waving signs saying “Mandate freedom of choice,” “Organic kids matter,” “Parents call the shots” and “Stop the tyranny.”
By 11, while the drizzle yielded to sunshine, the peaceful crowd had drifted and massed to the north entrance of the Capitol, spilling down into Bushnell Park, waiting for speakers brought in from around the country. LeeAnn Ducat of Woodstock, CT, the founder of the Informed Choice USA, who hosted the event, praised the crowd’s behavior, but stressed the seriousness of the occasion, called the Rise Up Rally.
In an interview, Ducat said that many people at the rally were not opposed to vaccinating their children. “Pro-choice doesn’t always mean anti-vaccine,” Ducat said. “A lot of the people here actually did vaccinate their kids and then stopped when they thought something might be going wrong, and their doctors may or may not have agreed with them. And their belief systems did not encourage continuing upon that schedule.”
Shortly after 11, Ducat grabbed a microphone, to introduce House Republicans who last week voted against the bill. The dozen or so opponents enjoyed large ovations.
“I do believe in miracles,” Ducat shouted into the microphone as she pondered the inevitability.
Victoria Lawlor, of Milford, a mother of two school-aged kids, said she’s been coming to the Capitol since 2015 to protest efforts to crack down on the religious exemption, which was adopted along with the medical exemption in 1959. Lawlor said she’s not anti-vaccine, “I’m for vaccine choice.”
She’s used the religious exemption for her two children as vaccines are “not how we approach health,” she said. Instead, the family is careful about what it eats, takes supplements, sees a holistic practitioner, and “works with the innate immune system that we have,” Lawlor said. “The path is not the same for everyone,” she said, “but everyone should have the right to choose their own path.”
Instead of focusing on the 8,000 or so students who claim the religious exemption, Lawlor said lawmakers should target the more than 20,000 students who are non-compliant when it comes to proof of vaccination
Inside the Capitol, at 12:15, the Senate began debate on final passage of the bill that would bar parents from using a claim of religious objection to avoid traditional MMR vaccinations mumps, measles and rubella - for their children. Under the legislation, which passed the House of Representatives last week, and which Gov. Ned Lamont supports, only medical exemptions would be allowed in the statewide student population of about 574,000.
The bill passed the House 90-53, with several Republicans voting for it and a few Democrats opposed.
Republicans, with a 24-12 minority in the Senate, are expected to solidly oppose the measure. Early in the debate Sen. Cathy Osten, D-Sprague and Sen. Dennis Bradley, D-Bridgeport, said they would also vote against the measure. During the afternoon, Bradley appeared briefly before the demonstrators, stressing the need for lawmakers to protect civil liberties.
By mid-afternoon, Dr. Gregory Shangold, president of the Connecticut State Medical Society reiterated the profession’s support of the bill.
“The Connecticut State Medical Society believes all children should be vaccinated unless medically advised, and a decision by the state Senate to follow expert medical recommendations and remove the “non-medical” exemption for immunizations will allow us to move forward and work together to make Connecticut a healthier and safer state for all that live here,” Shangold said in statement.
State Sen. Mary Daugherty Abrams, D-Meriden, co-chairwomen of the legislative Public Health Committee, who introduced the bill, noted that in the 2013 school year, among the 96,000 new entrants there were 316 whose parents claimed the religious exemption. By the 2019 school year, 83,000 new pupils had 1,536 religious exemptions.
During the same period, community immunity has decreased sharply, putting schools in danger of susceptibility to childhood diseases. “We have the opportunity to be proactive,” Daugherty Abrams said during the start of the debate in the near-empty, socially distant Senate chamber.
Of the 3,256 schools, 134 have vaccination rates below the 95percent recommended by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
“I believe in the science,” said Sen. Tony Hwang, R-Fairfield. “But to me this debate is much more in understanding the role of government in individual choice. We are creating a distinct separation and in some cases the segregation within someone’s family. I believe in the principle that an individual’s right to body choices should ultimately reign supreme.”
Sen. Eric Berthel, R-Watertown, said that in his seven years in the legislature “this is one of the most-dangerous ideas” he has seen. “This bill smacks in the face of every child who has claimed a religious exemption. I am having trouble understanding why this bill is before us. What is the rationale.”
The legislation started out as an outright ban on any unvaccinated students except those excused for medical reasons. During the compromise this year among majority Democrats on the Public Health Committee, children in seventh grade and above would be allowed to remain in school. It was amended further when the bill reached the House of Representatives last week, extending the grandfather provision for all currently K-12 students.
According to the state Department of Public Health, there were 8,328 children whose parents took the religious exemption in the 2019 school year. Currently, Maine, California, West Virginia and Mississippi have ended religious exemptions.
The coronavirus pandemic derailed the debate last, with an irony lost on few people that events at the Capitol are back in part because of a new vaccine during a pandemic that has been linked to 8,067 fatalities.
The bill is unrelated to the COVID-19 vaccination roll-out. COVID vaccines are not authorized for children under age 16, although demonstrators were warned that the bill could result in an expansion of mandatory inoculations in the future, including COVID.
Tuesday’s rally brought prominent voices in the anti-vaccine community, including Robert F. Kennedy Jr, son of the assassinated former U.S. senator.
“I will get a vaccine when they do a safety study that shows that vaccinated individuals are healthier than unvaccinated individuals,” said Kennedy, whose Instagram was recently blocked for spreading misinformation about vaccines. Kennedy’s Instagram account was recently blocked for spreading misinformation about vaccines.
In contrast to earlier anti-mandatory vaccine protests, which were largely attended Connecticut parents, Tuesday’s event, with sponsors including Health Choice 4 Action CT, drew buses full of protesters, and people from Vermont, New York, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Indiana.
Outside, long after the speaker program ended and the Senate debate headed into its eighth hour, the crowd continued chanting “Kill the bill... kill the bill,” even as the crowd began to thin out and sunset approached.