hey doris, why don't you spend less time dictating what others should do and more time raising your own kid

We have to remember that the vaccine industry is fraught with ethical problems, including major financial conflicts of interest. They have been caught--and fined--over and over and over again, hiding adverse reactions, lying about efficacy, lying about safety testing, etc. The vaccine industry runs an extremely hard-line business, and their efforts at "physician education" (better known as propaganda) includes a shocking amount of misinformation (better known as "effective marketing"), and never mentions the long history of industry lies.

If you follow the money trail, you can easily find evidence that the vaccine industry is behind the political push to mandate "vaccine information."

And this begs the question: how ethical is it for ANY profiting-in-the-billions industry to be behind a law mandating doctors to give a marketing speech for that industry's products.

Answer: it's not ethical at all, even if you don't consider those who become injured or worse as a direct result of those products. Doctors should not be used as salesmen for a profitable industry, and medical procedures should not be politicized.

When you consider that those products are used as invasive medical procedures on healthy individuals, it's worse than unethical. It's downright criminal.

This law is not proposed by pharmaceutical companies. It's proposed by health officials worried about children getting sick because parents choose not to vaccinate. The decision not to vaccinate goes against the medical and scientific consensus.

How ethical is it to try and portray health officials and parents seeking to improve children's health as pawns of the industry? I'd say, not very. Or not at all.

The law is not proposed by health officials. It is proposed by a politician. It says so in the article.

Politicians' campaigns are paid for by lobbyists; one of the strongest and wealthiest lobbies is the pharmaceutical industry.

And I AM a parent seeking to improve children's health. I USED to be pro-vaccine; I believed the lies from the vaccine manufacturers, and I encouraged other parents to follow the recommended schedule.

Then I learned that the pharmaceutical industry has a long history of lying about the safety and efficacy of its products--including vaccines. I also learned that they covered up evidence of harm from some vaccines. I do feel that I WAS a pawn of the industry; all of us who believed their lies and encouraged others to vaccinate on the recommended schedule were pawns of the industry. I'm sorry you're unable to see that.

The law was created after a stakeholder engagement process initiated by the Department of Health. After it was written, it was sponsored by a bi-partisan group of politicians. It is supported by a host of medical and public health groups. That information is pretty easy to find if you google "colorado" "exemption" and "immunization".

It is not a bill written or promoted by a pharmaceutical company. It's a bill promoted by groups that worry about children's health.

The law is sponsored by a bi-partisan group of politicians: http://www.childrensimmuniz... and is supported by a host of medical and public health groups: http://www.childrensimmuniz....

It was created after a stakeholder engagement process initiated by the Department of Health: http://www.childrensimmuniz...

It is not a bill written or promoted by a pharmaceutical company. It's a bill promoted by groups that worry about children's health.

Dorit post on every PRO-vaccine story she can - PAID to POST! Know who funds those who posts!

According to the article on which we are commenting, the legislation was introduced by Representative Daniel Pabon, not by health officials, as you state. How much of his campaign finances were provided by the pharmaceutical industry or their lobbyists/other representatives? According to FollowTheMoney.org, the biggest chunk of those finances were from "lawyers and lobbyists," followed by "government agencies/education/other," "uncoded," and "health."

I don't need to "try and portray" parents as pawns of the industry. I used to be pro-vaccine. Now that I know how much the vaccine industry lied, and how I believed those lies and used them to encourage others to vaccinate on schedule, I think it's pretty clear that we were all pawns of the industry.

It's pretty easy to look up the stakeholder report and see the basis of the law and the widespread coalition behind it. It's your choice if you do not want to, but others can easily find the information.

Luckily, much of the information about vaccines does not come from the industry, but from governments - all over the world - and research teams all over the world. That's how we know how safe they are. The tiny anti-vaccine minority's argument has to be that there is a worldwide conspiracy. That's problematic.

Dr. Boyd Haley, Emeritus Professor of Chemistry/Biochemistry at the Markey Cancer Center, University of Kentucky, does not believe that vaccines are as safe and effective as the vaccine industry and their shills would have us believe. In this video, http://www.youtube.com/watc... he effectively shreds pretty much everything said by Dr. Paul Offit.

Dr. Offit is Children's Hospital of Philadelphia's Chief of Infectious Diseases, director of their Vaccine Information Center, and Professor of Vaccinology at University of Pennsylvania's School of Medicine. As the co-inventor of the current rotavirus vaccine, he has made millions of dollars from it, and his chair at UP's School of Medicine is endowed by Merck.

Dr. Offit gives factual information about the number of reported measles cases, hospitalizations, and deaths from the period of time just before the introduction of the disease.

Dr. Haley rebuts this as follows:

5:02 “Dr. Offit’s claim that the measles vaccine dramatically reduced the rate of measles in the United States is just not based on any sound foundation. Before the vaccine was reduced, the rate of measles was dropping dramatically and had dropped over 90% from its peak.”

Dr. Haley is conflating incidence and mortality. There was indeed a huge drop in measles mortality prior to the vaccine which is why Dr. Offit says there were 500 to 1,000 deaths rather than numbers higher than 10,000 as occurred near the beginning of the last century. With better food availability, less crowding, better general health, and better medical care, measles became a much less deadly disease to us, but some people did still die.

Contrary to what Dr. Haley claims, measles rates did not decline at all beyond their normal cyclical nature which rose and fell a bit every few years. Right up until the vaccine it was still a very common disease which virtually every child got.

Next,Dr. Offit talks about how the vaccine prevents disease. Dr. Haley responds:

5:43 “He’s making the claim that this does decrease you or ever prevent you from getting the measles. And the data, when you look at people when you look at the measles epidemics that have jumped up in the united states, small localized areas, the kids that got the measles were vaccinated.”

The point is that there are very few measles cases. Measles vaccine is about 95% effective afterone dose and 98% or so after two. With a
high enough vaccine rate you would expect more people to fall into that 2 to 5%of vaccine failures than the small number of unvaccinated and thus most of the cases would be in the vaccine failures.

However… when was this filmed? While there have been vaccinated cases and very small oubtreaks where everyone or nearly everyone was vaccinated, in the larger outbreaks we have been experiencing in the past few years, the vast majority of cases have been in unvaccinated individuals.

Dr. Offit talks about how for some diseases such as whooping cough and diphtheria there was indeed a small decline in incidence that came with improvements in sanitation, but that you didn’t see a big decline in
incidence until the vaccine.

Dr. Haley responds,

6:30 “They want to take claim for every decrease in a disease, but yet we have diseases like scarlet fever and typhoid that have essentially disappeared and no one ever made a vaccine for them. They were eliminated by good hygene.” Then he repeats the false claim that the major drop in disease incidence for measles came before the vaccine.

How is talking about the diseases that vaccines have caused to decline taking claim for every single disease that ever declined?

There was a particularly nasty strain of scarlet fever circulating in the 1800s that did seem to mutate back to less virulent, but scarlet feveris still around, though less common than other strains of strep. It is just a strain of strep, and strep is certainly still around, though thankfully pretty easy to treat with antibiotics!

Typhoid spread by means of water or food contaminated with feces. Proper sewage treatment and sanitation took care of it, but measles was still going strong after typhoid was no longer a problem because it is not spread by fecal contamination but directly from person to person or even by breathing the same air. So what sanitary measures caused the decline in measles, a disease virtually every single child got right up to the introduction of the vaccine?

I’m less than ten minutes in, but don’t know that I can be bothered to watch the rest since so far I haven’t seen Dr. Haley mange to shred a single one of Offit’s claims. He’s just throwing mud all over the issues and deliberately trying to confuse things and mislead people. Unless he really is
that confused about these things himself?

A. Dr. Boyd Haley made his living in recent year by selling untested chelation treatments for little autistic children, claiming those treatments removed the mercury they got from vaccines (again, with no evidence that chelation had anything to do with autism - and ignoring the real risks of chelation) until the FDA shut that down. He's hardly disinterested. And frankly, I didn't find him particularly convincing.
B. It's true that Dr. Offit received royalties - several millions - from the rotavirus vaccine that he worked on for 25 years, a vaccine that can save millions of lives. He does not get money for that anymore, and the fact that he devoted his life to working on the vaccine, with no guarantee of a reward, is evidence of how sincere his belief in the value of vaccines is. He's a pediatrician, runs an infectious diseases department and saves children lives annually. He also devotes time to educating parents about vaccines.

The last comment shows the commentator lack of understanding of what an endowed chair is. Merck gave money to endow a chair in the name of a former employee. Once that money is given, Merck does not control who gets the chair, or what that person does. Their involvement is over. The chair money does not go into Dr. Offit's pockets - it's research money.

Dr. Offit is a real expert on vaccines. He cares passionately about children's health. He is reviled, and received death threats from anti-vaccine activists - but he keeps on speaking up to protect children against diseases. He's a real hero, and an extremely honest man. Very worth listening to.

By federal law, doctors are required to provide Vaccine Information Sheets (VIS's) to each patient or parent of a patient prior to administering each vaccine. These sheets detail risks, benefits, and even information on how to report an adverse event. While I'm not wild about all of the wording on them, they do provide more than enough in the way of informed consent. Because so few doctors are in compliance with this law, exempting parents could simply sign that they have read and understood these sheets, (one for each vaccine declined), and hand them in with their exemption certificates. There is no need to force parents into paid, contractual relationships with providers, many of whom will refuse to sign and thereby delay public school admsission for children, or watch nanny-state propaganda that will no doubt show a hard-case iron lung and then make a black-and-white appeal for chicken pox vaccination.

Doctors do not comply with these law. They are too busy pushing vaccines to explain anything. Time is money.

Do you have evidence that doctors do not comply with those laws?

This case would be one of the few in which anecdotes do matter, because three different providers have failed me in this area, and in my mind, thrice is thrice too many. :-) There is no enforcement provision that I'm aware of to the VIS requirement, and I'd love to know if there are any repercussions for not providing VISs.

I do think you make a valid point below about how parents only receive this information when consenting to vaccination. So why not make this information available to ALL parents, whether they vaccinate fully, partially, or not at all? There is no realistic way to micro-manage physicians and ensure uniformity in what they tell exempting parents, nor do we know precisely how the online video will appear. With VIS, we have assurance that risks, benefits, and recourse for adverse events are all addressed.

To some degree, it is provided: they're easily available online, but parents have to go seek it, and the only way to make sure they do is to require some kind of signature. This law does not use the VIS, but it goes to the same place - to make sure that parents get that information.

I haven't seen a sanction in the law for violating the provisions about the VIS. I can ask. At the very least, I'd say it can be grounds for an informed consent tort suit and disciplinary action.

While I believe most parents should and do listen to a healthcare provider's point of view - I don't think it should be mandated. Parents are allowed to make decisions for their children without interference, even if you disagree with those statement. There are rare exceptions, but prophylactic measure on healthy children in non-outbreaks would NOT be one of them.

"There are rare exceptions, but prophylactic measure on healthy children in non-outbreaks would NOT be one of them."

That's true, but it has nothing whatever to do with admission to public school. You don't have the right to unilaterally decide on attendance requirements because you think the school day or year is unhealthfully long, either.

This law would not in any way impinge on a parent's right to not vaccinate a child. According to the article the parent would be required to speak with a physician to discuss vaccines and the consequences of not vaccinating a child.

By the looks of some of these comments, many people are quite uneducated in childhood vaccines and the diseases they prevent

In 2013, health care corporations began firing workers who refused flu shots--even though the Cochrane Group, the gold standard of mainstream medical review, has not found any proof (even in the industry-funded studies) that vaccinating health care workers protects patients. Even pregnant women, with a history of miscarriage were expected to submit to the invasive procedure of a flu shot, even if they had a signed medical waiver form from their OBGYN.

We've also seen pediatric practices "fire" patients if their parents don't want them to receive every single vaccine on the recommended (for convenience, not for true need) schedule.

Now we have legislation that forces parents to listen to propaganda from the vaccine industry AND get a doctor's signature (from the same group of doctors who refuse to treat unvaccinated patients?) before they are allowed to opt out of this invasive medical procedure.

And that's the real issue. IT'S AN INVASIVE MEDICAL PROCEDURE.

But looking at some of the more disturbing posts from those defending it, we can see that there is a loud outcry for those who don't "go along with the program" to be barred from schools, even to be stripped of their right to claim a RELIGIOUS exemption.

Since when does the government get to decide which invasive procedures should be done on people who don't want them? Since when does the government get to decide which religious beliefs are valid and which are not?

Some hospitals are allowing workers to turn down the ineffective flu shot--if they wear a mask and special badges that identify them as unvaccinated, so that people can stay far away from them.

Let's see, special clothing/badges for unvaccinated adults, unvaccinated children barred from schools (and therefore school district activities) and from doctors. One Hershey, PA mother (who had tested negative for Hep B)had her newborn taken from her because she wanted to wait until her husband arrived to decide whether to allow the Hep B shot THAT DAY.

Oh, and one of the most prolific commenters on this comment feed has been publishing articles proposing lawsuits against unvaccinated people if someone else comes down with a disease.

This has every hallmark of a fear campaign. Basically, the message is, "Submit to the government-mandated invasive procedure or else we (make you wear special badge and/or mask to cover your face) (fire you) (kick your kids out of school) (kick your kids out of the pediatric practice) (take your kids away)."

What's next? What other invasive procedures does the government want to force "for the greater good?" Hysterectomies? Lobotomies? Pregnancies? Sterilizations? Clitoridectomies? Tattoos?

I'm sorry that you see fit to equate legislation requiring parents to get information with legislation forcing a procedure. There is a dramatic difference, and information about vaccines risk is not propaganda.

If parents choose to leave their children unvaccinated, they should at least receive good information. Comparing this to forcing any procedure is very, very problematic.

"One Hershey, PA mother (who had tested negative for Hep B)had her newborn taken from her because she wanted to wait until her husband arrived to decide whether to allow the Hep B shot THAT DAY."

Let's see... corroboration... Of course! "The Healthy Home Economist." Unfortunately, you don't even get this part right, because the husband, Scott Ferris, had already *departed*. And Jodi Ferris hadn't been tested. The "question" (according to the frequently deranged Sarah Pope, THHE) was something about waiting for him to return.

Oh, and Sarah wants you to donate to the "Homeschool Freedom Fund" to assist the "Homeschool Legal Defense Association" to assist with a court case, which seems outside of their nominal realm. With the names in hand, which you conveniently omitted, however, it's now possible to see what happened, albeit with no thanks to HSLDA, which seems to have some sort of aversion to providing case numbers.

This is 1:2012-cv-00442 in the Pennsylvania Middle District. So far, the "conspiracy" claim has been dismissed, claims against the medical center have been dismissed, and claims against the police have been dropped. I'm not paying to read what's left of the amended complaint. (And I stupidly wasn't using RECAP for what I did pay for.) It's probably still in discovery. Jury selection is December 2.

"In 2013, health care corporations began firing workers who refused flu shots"

An employee at will can be fired for any reason or for no reason at all.

The bill is not offensive. Individual States have the right, indeed the duty, to ensure a high level of immunization to protect its citizens from outbreaks of vaccine-preventable-diseases....and other highly infectious communicable diseases.

This bill does not, in any fashion, abridge your rights to not have your child(ren) vaccinated. It merely provides parents who are basing their opinions to not vaccinate their child(ren) on what they hear from other parents or what they read on the internet, the opportunity to discuss each vaccine with their children's health care provider. Are you claiming to know more about vaccines, immunology, bacteriology and the epidemiology of vaccine-preventable-diseases than your child's health care provider?

I am fully educated about my choice by reading and researching from both sides of the argument, and the best thing for our family is to avoid vaccinations. We already have sensitivities to GMOs and other ingredients used in vaccines that we do not wish to inject them into our bodies. It is just another annoyance that we may be required to visit a physician yearly just to be told the pro-vac side of the argument and to sign off on a waiver.

And your sources for your research for "both sides of the argument" would be?

No GMOs are contained in vaccines. Which physician performing which laboratory tests, told you that you and other members of your family "have sensitivities" to the ingredients in vaccines?

I find this bill offensive. The implication is that anyone who has chosen to fore go vaccinations or modify the vaccine schedule for their child is deemed "uneducated" and in need of Doctor intervention. I have researched this decision at length and continue to stay informed about the risks and benefits of vaccines. The implication is that the Doctors aren't currently following informed consent practices if additional education has to be mandated. I don't want the government stepping any further into my decision about what medical procedures/drugs (including vaccines) should be administered to my children.

I'm sorry you find the requirement to provide parents with information offensive.
When parents choose not to vaccinate, doctors often cannot follow informed consent procedures - parent do not come to be informed. This bill would at least assure that parents know the risks they are taking by leaving their children exposed.

Dorit, doctors are ethically bound to provide parents informed consent for any test, procedure, or other intervention. How is it that they "often cannot," and how will one more visit to the exam room of my board-certfitied physician, who happens to disagree with routine childhood chicken pox vaccination, convince me to vaccinate my children for chicken pox? Also, do you have any evidence to provide showing that these laws actually work, ie sway non-compliant parents into compliance? The Washington State example doesn't count because cause isn't correlation, and health officials have admitted that the dip in exemptions is attributed to parents who simply hadn't gotten vaccines out of convenience. Maybe you think that having the system "catch" these parents is a good thing if it brings up compliance rates. But if you have no proof that these laws truly convert the heathens, as opposed to just further alienating and angering parents who've chosen not to vaccinate on schedule, then you need to drop the disingenuous rhetoric of "informed consent."

To remind you, we are talking about parents who choose not to vaccinate. Some of them may be using alternative providers, or refusing to talk. Doctors cannot force the information on parents. And the requirements of informed consent apply when a procedure is offered, not when it's not used. If a parent refused to vaccinate, they would not get the VIS that doctors would give them if they do vaccinate, and they can also refuse a discussion on that. Parents should at least have that information before deciding not to vaccinate.

I'm sorry you feel that a decrease in parents who do not vaccinate out of convenience is not a good result. I actually feel that if all this law does is eliminate exemptions of convenience, that's a big step. It will increase vaccination rates, and may also protect the children whose parents do not vaccinate, by improving herd immunity. The law certainly won't cause the committed anti-vaccine people to vaccinate; but the information may reach the fence sitters, by presenting them with the accurate risk/benefit information, and as you point out, it will eliminate exemptions of convenience. These are great reasons for this change.

"Doctors cannot force that information on parents?" Isn't this law intending to have doctors force vaccine information on parents??

Again, perhaps it is your personal view that an end to paperwork exemptions is a good thing, but it isn't fair to portray this proposed legislation as an proven, effective means of swaying parents from non-compliance to compliance. So I ask again: Can you provide any evidence that these laws are effective in convincing conscientiously exempting parents to vaccinate their children with the vaccines requested for school admission?

So far, this bill appears to be the result of knee-jerk emotions rather than a solid evidence basis.

On that note, I'm wondering if Colorado policy-makers wouldn't be better off commissioning a study on Washington's experience, as this state has had the law implemented the longest. Perhaps surveys of Washinton's conscientious exemptors are in order. Was the visit with their provider helpful? Did they change their minds as a result of it? Did they learn anything new? Have they changed their minds in any way on the vaccination issue? How do they feel about the new law?

Keep in mind that creating resentment in this demographic could backfire, especially if it solidifies their views, and vaccine critics, in turn, influence others in their peer circles. Legislation can have unintended consequences. Perhaps Colorado is leaping too hastily?

Once again, I don't think the bill will convince committed anti-vaccine parents to vaccinate. But that's not the aim. The aim is to provide information to the unsure, to make sure parents have this credible information before them, even if they choose not to use it, and to prevent exemptions on convenience - and for that, as you yourself cited, the Washington experience provides evidence. There's also, of course, the evidence that states with easier to use exemptions have higher rates of exemptions:

S. Stadlin, et al., Medical exemptions to school immunization
requirements in the United States--association of state policies with medical
exemption rates (2004-2011). 206 JOURNAL OF INFECTIOUS DISEASES 989(2012).
Jennifer S. Rota, et al., Processes for obtaining nonmedical exemptions to state immunization laws, 91 AMERICAN JOURNAL OF PUBLIC HEALTH 645(2001).

Saad B. Omer, et
al., Nonmedical Exemptions to School Immunization Requirements: Secular
Trends and Association of State Policies With Pertussis Incidence, 296 JAMA
1757(2006).

Well it serves me right for having typed such a long post; it's been "held for moderation" for a couple of days!

When there's a proposed policy change, proponents should bear the burden of proof for its effectiveness and evidence basis. So far, you haven't shown an evidence basis but an evidence-free hypothesis--namely, that on-the-fence parents will be swayed by government-mandated doctor visits and videos.

As an on-the-fence parent myself, I know that these laws won't achieve their aim of manipulating me into compliance. In fact, my own hypothesis is that other on-the-fence parents will feel the same. We're not fanatics, so we see doctors and have had ample time to discuss vaccines with them. We even vaccinate, albeit not obediently to the government schedule. We go online for information, so this video won't tell us anything we haven't already heard. Sure, there is misinformation on anti-vaccine websites. This law, if enacted, won't make those websites go away.

Again, why not simply have them sign VISs a part of their exemption paperwork? These at least portray vaccine risks, however miniscule you consider them, and detail instructions on reporting adverse events. It will save CO taxpayers money spent to develop and maintain the video, and it won't anger parents nearly as much as this proposed state-sanctioned paternalism.

I think you are wrong on three levels.

A. Since laws are often future looking and there is no past evidence, or there is limited experience, you don't have to bring evidence that it will work: you just have to make a good case that it might work. Anything else would entrench the status quo and make change impossible - something opponents of change want, I've no doubt, but is not how our system is built: our system allows change.

B. In a democracy, to pass a law, you do not have to prove that the law will be effective. You have to show that it is what the majority of elected representatives want. You have to convince them that it's a good idea, but unlike an agency or a court, that does not require an empirical show of effectiveness. It's a political decision, not an analytical one.

In this case, if you were going by analytical evidence, the right thing to do would be abolish the exemption completely, since we know that works. There are multiple studies showing harder and narrower exemptions lead to better immunization rates. But it's not an analytical discussion.

C. As already mentioned, we do have some evidence from Washington - that you seem to dismiss - that it does work on exemptions of convenience.

As to taking parents' non-medical exemption rights away, I find it inane that I live in one of the few first world, Western nations in which there is even a debate over exemptions. As I'm sure you're aware, exemptions are not diseases. I wonder how the U.S. fares in aggregate, per-capita vaccine-targeted disease cases next to countries without mandatory/compulsory vaccination: U.K., Germany, Australia, Canada, etc.

In 2011, Europe had about 27000 measles cases. 9 people died. 27 suffered brain damage. Over 1000 were hospitalized with pneumonia. Over 80% were completely unvaccinated, including children too young to vaccinate. Other years had measles cases in the thousands too. This is the price of vaccines scares in countries without school immunization requirements.

Measles comes back first because it's super contagious and because of Andrew Wakefield's incorrect claims about MMR. I really would rather not go to what's next.

I'm not trying to scare monger: I am worried. Not vaccinating brings these diseases back - there's no way around that. That kills children. That harms children. I don't want that. It's preventable, and children deserve better.

This puzzles me because even Eurosurveillance concedes that despite a lack of compulsory vaccination in most of the continent, the region has a high compliance rate, usually 90% for the 2-dose regimen and even higher for one dose. (See the World Health Organization's VPD Monitoring System, 2013 Global Summary). (You may recall that one dose of the measles vaccine confers 95% effectiveness). There's a remote chance that we could again see something similar to the autism scare, research that may or not be legit, but I suspect that responding by banning all non-medical exemptions or even just imposing requirements won't quell any concerns and may, in fact, exacerbate them.

The bottom line is that there is no public health crisis in Colorado. And the legislators sponsoring this bill have no proof that their paternalism will stop one.

It depends on area, and on age group - to remind you, vaccine rates dipped after Andrew Wakefield's misleading statements to the press. There's an age group with lower rates.

I'm less optimistic than you. If someone obviously well educated can still refer to that research as research that "may or may not be legit", after multiple large scale studies found no link and with no shred of credible evidence supporting it, it supports Dr. Paul Offit's point that "it's easier to scare people than unscare them". The fact remains: the scare had worse effects in Europe - and the evidence suggests school immunization requirements are effective and help.
If there were widespread outbreaks, that would justify more extreme measures, like abolishing the exemption. A rise in exemptions and signs of coming outbreaks seem enough to justify taking the more moderate step of requiring education before exemption. And that's all this does.

You misread my post. Wakefield's research is not legit. New research may come out that may or may not be. I, for one, am grateful that EU countries don't espouse the fanaticism that we see in the US.

In 2011, Europe had about 27000 measles cases. Look at the complications table. http://ecdc.europa.eu/en/pu.... Other years had measles cases in the thousands too. This is the price of vaccines scares in countries without school immunization requirements.

Measles comes back first because it's super contagious and because of Andrew Wakefield's incorrect claims about MMR. I really would rather not go to what's next.

I'm not trying to scare monger: I am worried. Not vaccinating brings these diseases back - there's no way around that. That kills children. That harms children. I don't want that. It's preventable, and children deserve better.

I would argue that sound policy-making calls for consideration of potential unintended consequences, some of which I've detailed upthread. We already know from research announced just today, from the journal Pediatrics, that PR campaigns to convince parents to vaccinate are back firing. I therefore cannot imagine how this Colorado's (or Oregon's for that matter), online module will coax parents into compliance.

That same research posits that a trusted physician *can* be effective. This sounds plausible to me, as I wasn't planning on vaccinating but ended up doing so, in part, thanks to conversations with our family's provider. But for the government to *force* parents into an extra visit may only serve to erode away at this much-needed trust. Indeed, the aforementioned study addresses only voluntary doctor visits and not (nanny) state-mandated ones.

To be clear, I am not dismissing Washington State's decrease in paperwork exemptions. I expect that the 2-3% of parents inclined to file them will remain a stagnant statistic. But parents filing non-medical conscientious exemptions may increase despite, and perhaps because of, these laws. What happens may depend on any new vaccine mandates, new research on safety or effectiveness, or even whether exempting parents become further entrenched in their views out of anger toward this paternalistic policy.

In short, these factors are valid considerations, and an evidence basis to this proposed measure to prevent unintended consequences isn't an outrageous request.

Notice that you, too, are speculating about the effects. Because when you legislate anew, there often isn't a lot of data to go on. That does not necessarily justify doing nothing, as you are suggesting. Would you prefer that the state completely remove exemptions? That's perfectly constitutional, and we know it will lead to vaccination rates going up.
This measure is a small step towards reducing non-vaccination rates. You suggest it might erode trust; the detailed stake holder report suggested it can reduce exemptions of convenience. The premise is sound, and has some evidence behind it - while you have no evidence that this will reduce trust rather than increase compliance. You can disagree with it, but trying to say it's not sound policy making seems problematic. There is nothing wrong with this proposal. It was created after a thoughtful report was compiled; it has sound reasoning behind it; it has some evidence, although there is still some uncertainty; it is neither extremely coercive nor a radical change.

Again, where there is uncertainty, particularly in the face of spanking new research, that this policy will even work, then I see no rationale for enacting it. I referred to the potential for unintended consequences, and my hypothesis is well-founded enough to warrant further investigation.

Again, under this approach, nothing would be done under conditions of uncertainty, which is the usual situation when you're making broad policy.
There is a detailed report behind this proposal, investigating many of the potential consequences. The proposal is not new: it's been suggested as far back as 2003. There is research showing ease of exemption is correlated with higher exemptions. I think the evidence, such as it is, goes the other way from your point of view.

Well, the aforementioned research has already shown that the proposed video module will backfire and even strengthen vaccine skepticism. If I were a Colorado legislator and tempted to support this bill, I'd want to make damn sure that a state-enforced physician consult wouldn't do the same.

Why not just the VIS? Because there's no guarantee anyone will look before signing. There is no guarantee here too, but it's more likely that parents will listen under these circumstances - those open minded enough. The committee anti-vaccine people, of course, will not.

You have no way of knowing that someone will read the VIS thoroughly OR actually watch the video instead of having it on as background while folding laundry, (or sardonically laughing at it). You also have no way of knowing that parents aren't going to find providers who will simply rubber stamp their decisions, (either out of the provider's vaccine skepticism or mere disdain for the law). Exactly how control freakish and thought-policing does the State have to get to meet your standards? Should it supervise and surveil the doctor visits to make sure that it approves of the conversation? By the time somebody is trying this hard to escape the reach of government paternalism, you're probably unlikely to convert them, anyway.

I really need to get my day started but will gladly address your other comments at a later time.