Virginia State Assembly Given False Information to Support Removal of Vaccine Exemptions

Stephen Weiss made a presentation on vaccines to the Virginia General Assembly’s Healthy Living Health Services Subcommittee meeting on Aug. 3, 2016 in Richmond, VA. He showed a series of slides that was meant to educate legislators to enact legislation in 2017 regarding vaccine policy, which could include eliminating the religious vaccine exemption and restrict the medical exemption to narrow federal (CDC) vaccine contraindications. Was the information he presented accurate? Mr. Weiss is employed in government administration as a Senior Health Policy Analyst. His educational background is in government, and he apparently has no education or experience in practicing medicine. Dr. Suzanne Humphries is a medical doctor, board certified in Nephrology and trained in Internal Medicine, holding active unrestricted medical licenses in Maine and Virginia. She also has a degree in physics, and spent two years in a laboratory using techniques identical to those used for vaccine manufacture and testing. Dr. Humphries left a thriving medical practice where she was well-respected by her peers to pursue medical research, particularly research on vaccines. She wrote a book documenting her research on vaccines: Dissolving Illusions: Disease, Vaccines, and The Forgotten History. Dr. Humphries has sent a response to Stephen Weiss' slide presentation given to the Virginia Assembly, highlighting the erroneous information regarding vaccines and public health that was presented to support removing the religious exemption to vaccines in Virginia.