Individuals and organizations can sign on to the letter online at https://form.jotform.com/200315309354143
February 3, 2020
President Donald J. Trump
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20500
Re: Recognizing Freedom of Conscience and Religious Objections to State Mandated Vaccination and Ending the Persecution of the Unvaccinated People of Faith
Dear President Trump,
We write to you as a group of individuals and organizations, who are religious and secular leaders, scholars, human rights advocates, and medical professionals to express our serious concerns over the persecution of people of faith through vaccine mandates for school and daycare attendance. We urge your immediate intervention to prevent and remedy the persecution of people who choose to honor their faith by refusing or foregoing some or all vaccinations. Please consider implementing an executive order or other legal means to protect the religious freedom of vaccine choice.
In a recent speech you stated, “Religious liberty is under attack all over the world, and frankly, very strongly attacked in our nation.” Worldwide, without regard for individual religious freedom, governments are forcing and coercing a pharmaceutical product upon children that is made from religiously objectionable ingredients, specifically human aborted fetal DNA, animal cells, carcinogenic preservatives, and neurotoxins such as mercury and aluminum. This coercion of mandated vaccines is a clear attack on religious liberty and a form of government overreach. Making personal decisions about protecting one’s body is a basic human right, and most religions agree that our sacred bodies are the holiest of temples.
● In 2019, Samoa mandated every man, woman, and child to be force-vaccinated by mobile medical units, accompanied by police, going door-to-door to inject them with the Measles, Mumps, and Rubella (MMR) vaccine. MMR is a live virus vaccine created using a human aborted fetal cell line known as MRC-5. The majority of Samoa’s population is Christian, with roughly 20% being Catholic. However, the Pontifical Academy for Life issued a document in collaboration with the “Ufficio per la Pastorale della Salute" of Italian Bishops' Conference and the "Association of Italian Catholic Doctors," on July 31, 2017, asserting that Catholics should seek alternatives to vaccines that use human aborted fetal cell lines. Yet, alternatives remain unavailable.
● The Kenya Catholic Doctors Association, and Kenyan Christian Professionals Forum, have spoken out against mass vaccination programs. Catholic bishops in Nairobi are warning people of the forced government sponsored Human Papillomavirus (HPV) vaccination program. They have also declared a boycott of the World Health Organization's (WHO) vaccination campaign due to receiving tetanus vaccines which tested positive for containing the HCG anti- fertility antigen which is known to cause sterility.
● In 2018, the Indonesian Ulema Council issued a fatwa declaring the Measles Rubella vaccine "haram," or forbidden under Islamic law due to the presence of porcine/pig contamination. Yet, the Muslim community in several U.S. states is being forced to give their children these same “haram” products or else lose access to attending public or private school, due to the loss of religious exemptions in their state.
● In recent years, the people of California, New York and Maine lost their religious exemption to state vaccine mandates, joining
Mississippi and West Virginia as states that deny access to education, childcare and other public benefits to children whose religious beliefs dictate a choice to decline vaccines. In New Jersey, after the religious exemption repeal bill was defeated in January 2020, Senate President Stephen Sweeney made it clear that the concerns of the faith community would be ignored and deemed insignificant by stating, “We’re ready to go to war on this, and we will...We will pass this bill.” This statement came just after leadership in New Jersey’s Jewish community came forward in strong opposition of the bill, including prominent rabbis from one of the top rabbinical colleges in the nation, Beth Medrash Govoha. Egregious bills of this nature are currently pending in several other states.
When governments abuse their power to oppress citizens over their religious beliefs, tyranny is the only word for this persecution. The medical and pharmaceutical lobby are unaccountable to the American people. State militarization of public health in the 21st century should be of great concern to every person who values life and liberty. These laws repealing religious exemptions violate fundamental human rights to informed choice, bodily autonomy, and also the civil rights to attend both public and private schools. On January 18, 2019, you stated in the Proclamation on National School Choice, “Every child deserves the chance to flourish in an educational environment that best leverages their unique learning style, cultivates their talent, and develops the skills needed to succeed in an ever-changing world.” Yet, in 2019 alone, these overreaching vaccine mandate laws have caused close to 30,000 students to be kicked out of U.S. schools for declining even one mandated vaccine. In addition, these laws violate the foundational First Amendment right to freely exercise one’s faith, and also violate the equivalent protections provided in state constitutions.
People of faith have several legitimate objections and concerns regarding vaccines. They have relied on religious exemptions since the beginning of state-run mass vaccination programs. No person of faith should ever be forced to inject human aborted fetal DNA into their children in order for them to attend school. The government cannot compel, or unreasonably burden one’s choice, which leads to permanent alteration of our sacred bodies and the human immune system. We should also have deep concerns regarding the corrupt, so-called “no-fault” compensation program enforced by Congress.
In 2005, on behalf of a global consensus, which involved 193 countries (including the United States), UNESCO adopted the Universal Declaration on Bioethics and Human Rights. Article 6(1) “Consent” declares:
Any preventive, diagnostic and therapeutic medical intervention is only to be carried out with the prior, free and informed consent of the person concerned, based on adequate information. The consent should, where appropriate, be express and may be withdrawn by the person concerned at any time and for any reason without disadvantage or prejudice.
Article 3(2) “Human dignity and human rights” provides:
The interests and welfare of the individual should have priority over the sole interest of science or society.
Article 11 “Non-discrimination and non-stigmatization” states:
No individual or group should be discriminated against or stigmatized on any grounds, in violation of human dignity, human rights and fundamental freedoms.
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights was adopted in 1948 after World War II in response to its medical and ethical horrors. It reads,
“Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance.”
Created in 1947, the Nuremberg Code, which is the most important document in the history of medical ethics, serves as a blueprint for today's principles surrounding informed consent in medical care. Yet, medical professionals speaking at the World Health Organization Vaccine Safety Summit in December 2019 admitted that scientists do not truly understand how vaccine adjuvants work, also that studies on vaccines in pregnancy do not exist, and that there are no safety studies on injecting multiple vaccines, with multiple adjuvants, into a child at once.
At the 2019 World Health Organization Vaccine Safety Summit, Stephen Evans, BA, MSc, Professor of Pharmacoepidemiology at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine stated,
"Adjuvants multiply the immunogenicity of the antigens that they are added to, and that is their intention. It seems to me they multiply the reactogenicity in many instances, and therefore it seems to me that it is not unexpected if they multiply the incidence of adverse reactions that are associated with the antigen but may not have been detected through lack of statistical power in the original studies."
Dr. Soumya Swaminathan, MD, WHO Chief Scientist and non-practicing Pediatrician added,
"We really don’t have very good safety monitoring systems in many countries, and this adds to the miscommunication and the misapprehensions because we’re not able to give clear-cut answers when people ask questions about the deaths that have occurred due to a particular vaccine...We need to put mechanisms in place to monitor what's going on. With many drugs, we only learn about adverse events after they are introduced to the populations."
Additionally, Dr. Heidi Larson, Director of the Vaccine Confidence Project proclaimed,
"We need much more investment in safety science...The other thing that’s a trend and an issue is not just confidence in patients but confidence of health care providers...When the front-line professionals are starting to question (the safety of vaccines) or they don’t feel like they have enough confidence about the safety to stand up to it, to the person asking them the questions. I mean, most medical school curriculums, even nursing curriculums, I mean in medical school you’re lucky if you have a half-day on vaccines. Never mind keeping up to date with all this."
Government vaccine mandates violate the principles of the Nuremberg Code and the Universal Declaration on Bioethics and Human Rights. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and all other government regulators worldwide, lack the science to support their recommended vaccination schedules. Additionally, they are using “police power” to coerce these schedules upon the population, and in so doing are in violation of religious freedom. The religious exemption repeal bills which have already passed, and those pending in 2020, demonstrate that state governments around the United States are committing a flagrant violation of U.S. citizens’ right to freedom of religion. Informed consent is a fundamental and inalienable human right, embodied in our Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, most especially in the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment. Informed consent cannot be present where there is state coercion.
Mr. President, we appreciate that you consistently endorse and enforce the principle and preservation of religious freedom. We thank you for proclaiming January 16th as Religious Freedom Day and ask that you go one step further and rightfully do everything in your power to protect religious vaccine exemptions. We respectfully ask you to please ensure that those of faith are not forced to violate their Constitutional rights of freedom of religion in order to exercise their Civil rights, including the right to education.
Please take immediate action to protect religious liberty with respect to mandated vaccines.
Respectfully,
Dr. Shannon Kroner, President, Freedom Of Religion – United Solutions (FOR-US) www.forunitedsolutions.org
Kevin Barry, J. D., President, First Freedoms www.firstfreedoms.org
Renee Bessone, President, Conscience Coalition www.consciencecoalition.com
James A. Moody, J.D.
Rev. Dr. Robert Schuller
SIGNATURES
We are urging President Trump for immediate intervention to prevent and remedy the persecution of people who choose to honor their faith by refusing or foregoing some or all vaccinations. We ask that he consider implementing an executive order or other legal means to protect the religious freedom of vaccine choice.
If you support the above letter, please sign your name and/or organization’s name below. If you are not part of any organization, feel free to write in FOR-US, the Conscience Coalition, First Freedoms, or leave it blank.
Individuals and organizations can sign on to the letter online at https://form.jotform.com/200315309354143
February 3, 2020
President Donald J. Trump
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20500
Re: Recognizing Freedom of Conscience and Religious Objections to State Mandated Vaccination and Ending the Persecution of the Unvaccinated People of Faith
Dear President Trump,
We write to you as a group of individuals and organizations, who are religious and secular leaders, scholars, human rights advocates, and medical professionals to express our serious concerns over the persecution of people of faith through vaccine mandates for school and daycare attendance. We urge your immediate intervention to prevent and remedy the persecution of people who choose to honor their faith by refusing or foregoing some or all vaccinations. Please consider implementing an executive order or other legal means to protect the religious freedom of vaccine choice.
In a recent speech you stated, “Religious liberty is under attack all over the world, and frankly, very strongly attacked in our nation.” Worldwide, without regard for individual religious freedom, governments are forcing and coercing a pharmaceutical product upon children that is made from religiously objectionable ingredients, specifically human aborted fetal DNA, animal cells, carcinogenic preservatives, and neurotoxins such as mercury and aluminum. This coercion of mandated vaccines is a clear attack on religious liberty and a form of government overreach. Making personal decisions about protecting one’s body is a basic human right, and most religions agree that our sacred bodies are the holiest of temples.
● In 2019, Samoa mandated every man, woman, and child to be force-vaccinated by mobile medical units, accompanied by police, going door-to-door to inject them with the Measles, Mumps, and Rubella (MMR) vaccine. MMR is a live virus vaccine created using a human aborted fetal cell line known as MRC-5. The majority of Samoa’s population is Christian, with roughly 20% being Catholic. However, the Pontifical Academy for Life issued a document in collaboration with the “Ufficio per la Pastorale della Salute" of Italian Bishops' Conference and the "Association of Italian Catholic Doctors," on July 31, 2017, asserting that Catholics should seek alternatives to vaccines that use human aborted fetal cell lines. Yet, alternatives remain unavailable.
● The Kenya Catholic Doctors Association, and Kenyan Christian Professionals Forum, have spoken out against mass vaccination programs. Catholic bishops in Nairobi are warning people of the forced government sponsored Human Papillomavirus (HPV) vaccination program. They have also declared a boycott of the World Health Organization's (WHO) vaccination campaign due to receiving tetanus vaccines which tested positive for containing the HCG anti- fertility antigen which is known to cause sterility.
● In 2018, the Indonesian Ulema Council issued a fatwa declaring the Measles Rubella vaccine "haram," or forbidden under Islamic law due to the presence of porcine/pig contamination. Yet, the Muslim community in several U.S. states is being forced to give their children these same “haram” products or else lose access to attending public or private school, due to the loss of religious exemptions in their state.
● In recent years, the people of California, New York and Maine lost their religious exemption to state vaccine mandates, joining
Mississippi and West Virginia as states that deny access to education, childcare and other public benefits to children whose religious beliefs dictate a choice to decline vaccines. In New Jersey, after the religious exemption repeal bill was defeated in January 2020, Senate President Stephen Sweeney made it clear that the concerns of the faith community would be ignored and deemed insignificant by stating, “We’re ready to go to war on this, and we will...We will pass this bill.” This statement came just after leadership in New Jersey’s Jewish community came forward in strong opposition of the bill, including prominent rabbis from one of the top rabbinical colleges in the nation, Beth Medrash Govoha. Egregious bills of this nature are currently pending in several other states.
When governments abuse their power to oppress citizens over their religious beliefs, tyranny is the only word for this persecution. The medical and pharmaceutical lobby are unaccountable to the American people. State militarization of public health in the 21st century should be of great concern to every person who values life and liberty. These laws repealing religious exemptions violate fundamental human rights to informed choice, bodily autonomy, and also the civil rights to attend both public and private schools. On January 18, 2019, you stated in the Proclamation on National School Choice, “Every child deserves the chance to flourish in an educational environment that best leverages their unique learning style, cultivates their talent, and develops the skills needed to succeed in an ever-changing world.” Yet, in 2019 alone, these overreaching vaccine mandate laws have caused close to 30,000 students to be kicked out of U.S. schools for declining even one mandated vaccine. In addition, these laws violate the foundational First Amendment right to freely exercise one’s faith, and also violate the equivalent protections provided in state constitutions.
People of faith have several legitimate objections and concerns regarding vaccines. They have relied on religious exemptions since the beginning of state-run mass vaccination programs. No person of faith should ever be forced to inject human aborted fetal DNA into their children in order for them to attend school. The government cannot compel, or unreasonably burden one’s choice, which leads to permanent alteration of our sacred bodies and the human immune system. We should also have deep concerns regarding the corrupt, so-called “no-fault” compensation program enforced by Congress.
In 2005, on behalf of a global consensus, which involved 193 countries (including the United States), UNESCO adopted the Universal Declaration on Bioethics and Human Rights. Article 6(1) “Consent” declares:
Any preventive, diagnostic and therapeutic medical intervention is only to be carried out with the prior, free and informed consent of the person concerned, based on adequate information. The consent should, where appropriate, be express and may be withdrawn by the person concerned at any time and for any reason without disadvantage or prejudice.
Article 3(2) “Human dignity and human rights” provides:
The interests and welfare of the individual should have priority over the sole interest of science or society.
Article 11 “Non-discrimination and non-stigmatization” states:
No individual or group should be discriminated against or stigmatized on any grounds, in violation of human dignity, human rights and fundamental freedoms.
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights was adopted in 1948 after World War II in response to its medical and ethical horrors. It reads,
“Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance.”
Created in 1947, the Nuremberg Code, which is the most important document in the history of medical ethics, serves as a blueprint for today's principles surrounding informed consent in medical care. Yet, medical professionals speaking at the World Health Organization Vaccine Safety Summit in December 2019 admitted that scientists do not truly understand how vaccine adjuvants work, also that studies on vaccines in pregnancy do not exist, and that there are no safety studies on injecting multiple vaccines, with multiple adjuvants, into a child at once.
At the 2019 World Health Organization Vaccine Safety Summit, Stephen Evans, BA, MSc, Professor of Pharmacoepidemiology at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine stated,
"Adjuvants multiply the immunogenicity of the antigens that they are added to, and that is their intention. It seems to me they multiply the reactogenicity in many instances, and therefore it seems to me that it is not unexpected if they multiply the incidence of adverse reactions that are associated with the antigen but may not have been detected through lack of statistical power in the original studies."
Dr. Soumya Swaminathan, MD, WHO Chief Scientist and non-practicing Pediatrician added,
"We really don’t have very good safety monitoring systems in many countries, and this adds to the miscommunication and the misapprehensions because we’re not able to give clear-cut answers when people ask questions about the deaths that have occurred due to a particular vaccine...We need to put mechanisms in place to monitor what's going on. With many drugs, we only learn about adverse events after they are introduced to the populations."
Additionally, Dr. Heidi Larson, Director of the Vaccine Confidence Project proclaimed,
"We need much more investment in safety science...The other thing that’s a trend and an issue is not just confidence in patients but confidence of health care providers...When the front-line professionals are starting to question (the safety of vaccines) or they don’t feel like they have enough confidence about the safety to stand up to it, to the person asking them the questions. I mean, most medical school curriculums, even nursing curriculums, I mean in medical school you’re lucky if you have a half-day on vaccines. Never mind keeping up to date with all this."
Government vaccine mandates violate the principles of the Nuremberg Code and the Universal Declaration on Bioethics and Human Rights. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and all other government regulators worldwide, lack the science to support their recommended vaccination schedules. Additionally, they are using “police power” to coerce these schedules upon the population, and in so doing are in violation of religious freedom. The religious exemption repeal bills which have already passed, and those pending in 2020, demonstrate that state governments around the United States are committing a flagrant violation of U.S. citizens’ right to freedom of religion. Informed consent is a fundamental and inalienable human right, embodied in our Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, most especially in the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment. Informed consent cannot be present where there is state coercion.
Mr. President, we appreciate that you consistently endorse and enforce the principle and preservation of religious freedom. We thank you for proclaiming January 16th as Religious Freedom Day and ask that you go one step further and rightfully do everything in your power to protect religious vaccine exemptions. We respectfully ask you to please ensure that those of faith are not forced to violate their Constitutional rights of freedom of religion in order to exercise their Civil rights, including the right to education.
Please take immediate action to protect religious liberty with respect to mandated vaccines.
Respectfully,
Dr. Shannon Kroner, President, Freedom Of Religion – United Solutions (FOR-US) www.forunitedsolutions.org
Kevin Barry, J. D., President, First Freedoms www.firstfreedoms.org
Renee Bessone, President, Conscience Coalition www.consciencecoalition.com
James A. Moody, J.D.
Rev. Dr. Robert Schuller
SIGNATURES
We are urging President Trump for immediate intervention to prevent and remedy the persecution of people who choose to honor their faith by refusing or foregoing some or all vaccinations. We ask that he consider implementing an executive order or other legal means to protect the religious freedom of vaccine choice.
If you support the above letter, please sign your name and/or organization’s name below. If you are not part of any organization, feel free to write in FOR-US, the Conscience Coalition, First Freedoms, or leave it blank.
Individuals and organizations can sign on to the letter online at https://form.jotform.com/200315309354143
| irf_roundtable_-kevin.pdf |
