Mr. Chair and Members of the House Education committee:
The World Health Organization identifies immunization as a key component of primary health care and one of the best health investments money can buy. Vaccines are critical to the prevention and control of infectious-disease outbreaks. Now, especially during a pandemic, is not the time to open the door to alternative therapies that have little to no research to support their use.
I want to start by quickly clarifying a couple important definitions. Centers for Disease Control defines immunization as “a process by which a person becomes protected against a disease through vaccination.” And vaccination is “the act of introducing a vaccine into the body to produce immunity to a specific disease.” A vaccine is a substance used to stimulate the production of antibodies (Oxford).
This bill attempts to incorrectly redefine “immunization” (see line 17 on page 1). Semantically, it is inaccurate to state that when a person has, or recovers from, a disease, that they have received an immunization or vaccination. They may have immunity to the disease, but they did not receive an immunization.
Not only does HB 332 get the definition of immunization wrong, it proposes a fictional definition of the term “immunizing agents” by including immunotherapy and homeoprophylaxis as alternatives to vaccines (lines 19-21). This is highly concerning. The authors of this bill are attempting to expand the definition of immunization to include non-medical options that are not proven to be effective. Vaccines have gone through extensive scientific trials and extensive safety testing. If we allow our kids to receive homeoprophylaxis instead of legitimate vaccines, we will see increased cases of vaccine-preventable infectious diseases, especially in a school population. This leads to increased medical costs, missed school, missed work for parents, and potential outbreaks.
Homeoprophylaxis vaccines are also known as nosodes. Conventional vaccines contain a small, but detectable amount of a killed or weakened bacteria or virus. This triggers the body to develop antibodies to fight off illness. There’s no evidence that nosodes do this. Nosodes are basically plain water, with no active ingredients in the product that can affect the immune system. To date, there is no high-quality, well-designed study from any country that proves that homeopathic
nosodes can prevent any disease. They do not work. In 2015 the Canadian Paediatric Society published a position statement against using nosodes in children to combat the growing anti-vaccine movement. Their FAQ document titled False Claims about Homeopathic Nosodes is very enlightening, and I’m happy to share it with anybody who would like to see it. The American Association of Homeopathic Pharmacists published an article in 2015 that reminds manufacturers and marketers that promotion of any product as an over-the-counter alternative to a vaccine is a violation of federal law. It scares me to think that if this bill passed, we would be allowing and essentially promoting these products as substitutes for our life-saving vaccines.
Currently, there are no homeopathic products approved by the FDA. Products labeled as homeopathic and currently marketed in the U.S. have not been reviewed by the FDA for safety and effectiveness to diagnose, treat, cure, prevent or mitigate any diseases or conditions.
Vaccines are the only scientifically-proven choice for safe and effective disease prevention. Not other immunotherapies and not homeoprophylaxis. In the words of the Canadian public health slogan, “Nosodes are NO substitute for vaccines.”
We ask that you please OPPOSE this short but dangerous bill as it would cause serious harm to the health of our school communities.
Staff testimony, Feb. 17:
ReplyDeleteHB 332- OPPOSED
Mr. Chair and Members of the House Education committee:
The World Health Organization identifies immunization as a key component of primary health care and one of the best health investments money can buy. Vaccines are critical to the prevention and control of infectious-disease outbreaks. Now, especially during a pandemic, is not the time to open the door to alternative therapies that have little to no research to support their use.
I want to start by quickly clarifying a couple important definitions. Centers for Disease Control defines immunization as “a process by which a person becomes protected against a disease through vaccination.” And vaccination is “the act of introducing a vaccine into the body to produce immunity to a specific disease.” A vaccine is a substance used to stimulate the production of antibodies (Oxford).
This bill attempts to incorrectly redefine “immunization” (see line 17 on page 1). Semantically, it is inaccurate to state that when a person has, or recovers from, a disease, that they have received an immunization or vaccination. They may have immunity to the disease, but they did not receive an immunization.
Not only does HB 332 get the definition of immunization wrong, it proposes a fictional definition of the term “immunizing agents” by including immunotherapy and homeoprophylaxis as alternatives to vaccines (lines 19-21). This is highly concerning. The authors of this bill are attempting to expand the definition of immunization to include non-medical options that are not proven to be effective. Vaccines have gone through extensive scientific trials and extensive safety testing. If we allow our kids to receive homeoprophylaxis instead of legitimate vaccines, we will see increased cases of vaccine-preventable infectious diseases, especially in a school population. This leads to increased medical costs, missed school, missed work for parents, and potential outbreaks.
Homeoprophylaxis vaccines are also known as nosodes. Conventional vaccines contain a small, but detectable amount of a killed or weakened bacteria or virus. This triggers the body to develop antibodies to fight off illness. There’s no evidence that nosodes do this. Nosodes are basically plain water, with no active ingredients in the product that can affect the immune system. To date, there is no high-quality, well-designed study from any country that proves that homeopathic
nosodes can prevent any disease. They do not work. In 2015 the Canadian Paediatric Society published a position statement against using nosodes in children to combat the growing anti-vaccine movement. Their FAQ document titled False Claims about Homeopathic Nosodes is very enlightening, and I’m happy to share it with anybody who would like to see it. The American Association of Homeopathic Pharmacists published an article in 2015 that reminds manufacturers and marketers that promotion of any product as an over-the-counter alternative to a vaccine is a violation of federal law. It scares me to think that if this bill passed, we would be allowing and essentially promoting these products as substitutes for our life-saving vaccines.
Currently, there are no homeopathic products approved by the FDA. Products labeled as homeopathic and currently marketed in the U.S. have not been reviewed by the FDA for safety and effectiveness to diagnose, treat, cure, prevent or mitigate any diseases or conditions.
Vaccines are the only scientifically-proven choice for safe and effective disease prevention. Not other immunotherapies and not homeoprophylaxis. In the words of the Canadian public health slogan, “Nosodes are NO substitute for vaccines.”
We ask that you please OPPOSE this short but dangerous bill as it would cause serious harm to the health of our school communities.
Colleen Morris