Post Hurricane Support for Vaccine Exemptions and School Enrollment Rights
by National Vaccine Information Center
Many parts of Texas have suffered severe flooding and damage where families have had their lives drastically affected. This is just the start of a challenging journey ahead recovering from Hurricane Harvey.
If your family has been displaced and/or your property damaged and need to find new health care practitioners that will take care of your family and respect your vaccine refusal or delay decisions, we can check in with our community to find you the referrals you need where you need them.
If you are reading this and have a great referral for a health care provider that is supportive of your rights to decline or delay vaccines, please let us know their names, contact information, and location so we can pass that information on to families in need.
You can reach Dawn in Austin and Rebecca in Houston by emailing TXDirector@nvicadvocacy.org.
If you have become temporarily homeless or your school has become damaged and your child needs to re-enroll somewhere else, please know you have rights.
“Students who are experiencing homelessness are to be enrolled immediately. Districts cannot require students experiencing homelessness to provide proof of residency, immunizations, birth certificates guardianship documents, or any other sort of required paperwork before enrolling. Requiring missing paperwork or any other delay to enrollment is a violation of the McKinney-Vento Act.”
The Texas Department of State Health Services issued a letter on Tuesday, August 29, 2017 regarding immunization records and enrollment of students displaced by Hurricane Harvey. As a reminder, students displaced by the hurricane are considered homeless and receive immediate enrollment even without the normally required paperwork (including immunizations). The text of the letter is as follows:
The purpose of this letter is to remind school districts of the current immunization rules that affect students displaced by Hurricane Harvey and to provide information on how schools can obtain immunization histories for transfer students.
The Texas Department of State Health Services (DSHS) rules relating to immunization requirements for school entry allow a student transferring from one Texas school to another to be provisionally enrolled without proof of required immunizations for up to 30 days. (Texas Administrative Code, Title 25, Part I, Chapter 97, Subchapter B, Section 97.69.) As the 30-day period draws closer to an end, if there appears to be a significant number of displaced students who are still having trouble obtaining their immunization records, DSHS will consider whether a short additional provisional enrollment period is possible. The 30-day time period begins the day the student begins attending classes at the new school.
Additionally, students displaced by Hurricane Harvey and who are considered homeless under the federal McKinney-Vento Act may be admitted to attend school without documentation of required immunizations for up to 30 days. (Texas Administrative Code, Title 25, Part I, Chapter 97, Subchapter B, Section 97.66(b).) For more information regarding specific guidelines for homeless students, contact the Texas Homeless Education Office (1-800-446-3142 or www.theotx.org).
The Texas Homeless Education Office has put together a list of Local, State, and Federal Resources to Assist in Dealing with Hurricane Harvey. http://www.theotx.org/local-state-federal-resources-aid-dealing-hurricane-harvey/
If your school was damaged and can’t transfer records and you need to request a new conscientious/religious vaccine exemption form that will need to be submitted to the school prior to the end of the 30 day grace period (provisional enrolment period), there are several ways to obtain an affidavit. (the information below was compiled from: http://www.dshs.texas.gov/immunize/school/exemptions.aspx#conscience)
A person claiming exclusion for reasons of conscience, including a religious belief, from a required immunization may only obtain the affidavit form by submitting a request (via online form, mail, fax or hand-delivery) to the department. The request must include following information:
- Full name of child or student
- Child’s or student’s date of birth (month/day/year)
- Complete mailing address (use an address that is not compromised by flooding)
- Number of requested affidavit forms (not to exceed 5).
Affidavit form requests will be processed and mailed within one week from the receipt of the request. If additional information is needed in order to process the affidavit, you will be notified.
Email or telephone requests cannot be processed. Requests for affidavit forms must be submitted to the department through one of the following methods:
Obtaining an Affidavit Online
Affidavits may be requested via the Immunization Unit Affidavit Request website.
Obtaining an Affidavit By Mail
A written request for an affidavit may be sent through the United States Postal Service (or other commercial carrier) to:
Texas Department of State Health Services
Immunization Branch, Mail Code 1946
P.O. Box 149347
Austin, Texas 78714-9347
Obtaining an Affidavit By Fax
Fax written requests for affidavits to: (512) 776-7544.
Obtaining an Affidavit In Person
Requests for an affidavit may be made in-person at:
Texas Department of State Health Services
1100 West 49th Street
Austin, Texas 78756
NOTE: No requests will be filled at the time of hand-delivery. All affidavit forms will be mailed to you via U.S. Postal Service so use an address that is able to receive mail.
Please share this information with families you know who may need it and are not able to access the internet right now. This letter is also published in the announcement section on the Texas state page on the NVIC Advocacy portal. http://NVICAdvocacy.org
God Bless Texas!
Sincerely,
Dawn Richardson
Rebecca Rex
NVIC Advocacy Team
National Vaccine Information Center
http://NVIC.org and http://NVICAdvocacy.org
https://nvicadvocacy.org/members/Members/ContactUs.aspx
The National Vaccine Information Center (NVIC) works diligently to prepare and disseminate our legislative advocacy action alerts and supporting materials. We request that organizations and members of the public forward our alerts in their original form to assure consistent and accurate messaging and effective action. Please acknowledge NVIC as originators of this work when forwarding to members of the public and like-minded organizations. To receive alerts immediately, register at http://NVICAdvocacy.org, a website dedicated to this sole purpose and provided as a free public service by NVIC.
Read the full article at NVIC.org.
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Leaving a lucrative career as a nephrologist (kidney doctor), Dr. Suzanne Humphries is now free to actually help cure people.
In this autobiography she explains why good doctors are constrained within the current corrupt medical system from practicing real, ethical medicine.
One of the sane voices when it comes to examining the science behind modern-day vaccines, no pro-vaccine extremist doctors have ever dared to debate her in public.
Medical Doctors Opposed to Forced Vaccinations – Should Their Views be Silenced?
One of the biggest myths being propagated in the compliant mainstream media today is that doctors are either pro-vaccine or anti-vaccine, and that the anti-vaccine doctors are all “quacks.”
However, nothing could be further from the truth in the vaccine debate. Doctors are not unified at all on their positions regarding “the science” of vaccines, nor are they unified in the position of removing informed consent to a medical procedure like vaccines.
The two most extreme positions are those doctors who are 100% against vaccines and do not administer them at all, and those doctors that believe that ALL vaccines are safe and effective for ALL people, ALL the time, by force if necessary.
Very few doctors fall into either of these two extremist positions, and yet it is the extreme pro-vaccine position that is presented by the U.S. Government and mainstream media as being the dominant position of the medical field.
In between these two extreme views, however, is where the vast majority of doctors practicing today would probably categorize their position. Many doctors who consider themselves “pro-vaccine,” for example, do not believe that every single vaccine is appropriate for every single individual.
Many doctors recommend a “delayed” vaccine schedule for some patients, and not always the recommended one-size-fits-all CDC childhood schedule. Other doctors choose to recommend vaccines based on the actual science and merit of each vaccine, recommending some, while determining that others are not worth the risk for children, such as the suspect seasonal flu shot.
These doctors who do not hold extreme positions would be opposed to government-mandated vaccinations and the removal of all parental exemptions.
In this article, I am going to summarize the many doctors today who do not take the most extremist pro-vaccine position, which is probably not held by very many doctors at all, in spite of what the pharmaceutical industry, the federal government, and the mainstream media would like the public to believe.
