TALKING POINTS, WHY AB 1797 SHOULD BE OPPOSED (Please personalize to share how this bill affects you and your family):
OPPOSE AB 1797, which significantly expands and mandates unconsented government surveillance and tracking of vaccination status and race for all ages.
The state vaccine tracking system is a waste of taxpayer money duplicating what is already stored in electronic medical records. It should be shut down, not expanded. AB 1797 should also be opposed for the following reasons:
AB 1797 Mandates Reporting of Personal Private Information Without Consent to the State Vaccine Tracking System and the State Health Department
· Current law,
California Health and Safety Code Sec. 120440(c) states health care providers, and other agencies, including, but not limited to, schools, child care facilities, service providers for the California Special Supplemental Food Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC), health care plans, foster care agencies, and county welfare departments, may disclose a list of 10 data points from a patient’s private medical records or a client's records with local health departments operating countywide or regional immunization information and reminder systems and the State Department of Public Health.
· AB 1797 changes may to "shall", mandating the reporting of this personal information by all of these entities to both the state tracking system CAIR and the State Department of Health.
· There are health care providers who don’t believe it is an appropriate function of government to operate a centralized government vaccine tracking and enforcement database, and have chosen not to participate, but now they are forced to have to report their patients and their private information to the government under this bill making them agents of state government surveillance.
· There are
69 total core data elements that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention promote for collection and storage by vaccine tracking systems. Included in this information are vaccine exemptions and encounters where patients refuse vaccination. This is going too far. While AB 1797 mandates the reporting of 11 points, the reporting is not confined to these 11 points making this system one that is being set up to be punitive towards anyone not wanting to use a vaccine.
AB 1797 Expands Mandated Tracking to Include Race or Ethnicity
· AB 1797 adds race or ethnicity to the current list of data points that must be reported. This will allow state and local government to target racial and ethnic groups that may not want to use a vaccine with compliance and enforcement measures.
· There are individuals from various ethnic and racial backgrounds as well as individuals and families wanting to decline vaccination, especially the COVID-19 vaccine, that do not want their racial or ethnic background or their vaccination status tracked by the government period.
· According to this article by The San Diego Union-Tribune,
San Diego leaders, Educators unveil new legislation to update statewide vaccine registry, San Diego Unified Pediatrician Dr. Howard Taras said the proposed legislation will create a demographic profile, requiring providers to include race and ethnicity information, to help determine which communities need more education and assistance with vaccinations.
· A report from The National Vaccine Advisory Committee titled,
Advancing Immunization Equity: Recommendations from the National Vaccine Advisory Committee, claims that as these systems evolve, they could use them to gain even more specific data on locations and populations with low vaccine rates using geomapping to help tailor interventions. They also claim that additional groups may be targeted in the future such as, the disabled, institutionalized, incarcerated, LGBT, and homeless people to facilitate the use of IIS data all in the name of “immunization equity”.
· This type of profiling and intrusion is discriminatory and is not wanted or needed.
Mandated Data Collected Is in State Vaccine Tracking System for Life and Private, Personal information is Never Removed
· The vaccine registry/tracking system
CAIR retains everyone’s information for life, it is never removed.
· One can only ask that their personal information or that of their child’s in the immunization registry not be shared.
· An option to not share data does nothing to alleviate the concerns of those whose objection is government tracking.
· A more appropriate name for this tracking system would be the “Hotel California Immunization and Race Registry” because you can “check out anytime you like, but you can never leave.”
· Until California only tracks the information of those who give opt-in informed consent to being tracked by the government, an expansion leading to this degree of unconsented surveillance should be strongly rejected by California lawmakers.
AB 1797 Compromises Privacy Rights
· Federal law, The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (
HIPAA)
45 CFR 164.512(b)(1)(i), allows disclosure of private and protected health information without knowledge or consent for conducting public health surveillance, investigations, or interventions. This includes information in state vaccine registries and tracking systems including CAIR that can be used to identify individuals and/or groups of people who are not vaccinated with all doses of all the federally recommended or state required vaccines so interventions can be applied.
· The only privacy protection for immunization information held by public schools is currently provided by
FERPA (The Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act).
34 CFR Part 99.30 requires prior written parental consent before personally identifiable information (PII) is disclosed and requires schools to provide copies of those records disclosed.
· If vaccine information is collected by CAIR instead of being submitted to the school, FERPA privacy protections have been circumvented and no longer apply.
· Confidentiality does not mean privacy. If state or federal law or rule requires that information be kept “confidential,” it still allows for any disclosures permitted by law.
Requires Multiple Entities to Perform Intrusive Vaccine Checkpoints
· AB 1797 bill also requires schools, childcare facilities, family childcare homes, and county human services agencies, in the event of a public health emergency, to perform immunization status assessments of pupils, adults, and clients.
· Current law only allows for the compilation and dissemination of statistical information of immunization status on groups of patients or clients or populations in California, without identifying information for these patients or clients included in these groups or populations.
· This new section would mandate schools determine individual vaccination status for COVID-19 or any other future vaccine required during a public health emergency creating another added layer of surveillance and additional burdens for schools.
· In fact, a California court ruled in late April that individual school boards are
not legally authorized to mandate new vaccines. The school which was the defendant in the suit chose to repeal their COVID-19 vaccine mandate.
· COVID-19 vaccines are not currently required to attend school in California so schools are not required to keep those records. This bill would require schools to verify individual vaccination status for COVID through CAIR
Sincerely,
NVIC Advocacy Team
National Vaccine Information Center
National Vaccine Information Center - Your Health. Your Family. Your Choice. and
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