Editor's Note: The following is excerpted from Dr. Stuart Warner's article in our March issue.
Recently, thousands of concerned parents, including many DCs, took part in "Occupy Trenton" at the State House in the capitol of New Jersey. This was a month-long climax to a two-year battle to defeat a proposed vaccine bill that would have removed the religious exemption for vaccination.
Grassroots Facebook groups successfully leveraged social media to get the word out to the masses. The Facebook pages kept everyone up to date on the issues including who to call, email and tweet; and urged parents, clergy, attorneys and others to converge at the State House on particular days.
After making it through committee, the bill was headed for the full Senate. It was paramount to organize as quickly as possible. We needed to influence the media and as many legislators as we could, so we planned a Vaccine / Religious Freedom Town Hall Meeting.
With only a few days notice, more than 400 people showed up, plus News 12 NJ, which interviewed us, took footage and got it right onto the 10 p.m. news. The entire event was live streamed, shared, replayed and watched by tens of thousands.
In the final week of debate, appearances by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Del Bigtree helped fuel the argument that parents, not government, should control their children's health care. In the end, only one vote stopped S2173 from passing, which would have barred nearly all exemptions to vaccines for students in New Jersey at any public or private school, including preschools and colleges.