Latest news with #AndyVargas
Boston Globe
17 hours ago
- Health
- Boston Globe
Mass. considers scrapping religious exemptions for vaccinations
Advertisement In Massachusetts, parents can write a letter stating that a vaccine conflicts with their 'sincerely held religious belief' in order to exempt their children from vaccination requirements needed to enroll in public schools. State Rep. Andy Vargas and State Sen. Edward Kennedy both Advocates who oppose the exemptions say that religious exceptions are being misused by parents who are hesitant about vaccinating their children. Advertisement 'It's definitely a general pattern of people abusing the exemption, especially since But parents across the state came to Beacon Hill to testify in support of religious exemptions at a hearing of the Legislature's Joint Committee on Public Health. They said exemptions were essential to their first amendment right to practice their religion and to honor the concept of informed consent. 'I'm curious why diversity, equity and inclusion is not being applied to those with sincerely held religious beliefs,' Lisa Ottaviano said while testifying at the hearing. Some speakers at the hearing said they were uncomfortable with the components of certain vaccines. 'We should not be forced into violating our moral conscience by injecting products developed from aborted fetuses such as the MMR, the varicella vaccines,' said Nicholas Kottenstette, a Catholic father of four from Sterling, Massachusetts. Vaccines don't contain fetal cells, Others testifying against the bill said they wanted to protect religious exemptions because they felt that accountability measures for vaccine manufacturers were insufficient. 'I started meeting more people whose children had reactions to vaccines that were adverse, so I started doing my own research and learnt a lot of concerning things like how pharmaceutical companies have legal protection against being sued,' Maureen Trettel, a grandmother from Milford said. Advertisement Similar bills have been filed in previous sessions, so the debate over religious exemptions for vaccines in Massachusetts has been going on since at least 2019, well before the COVID-19 pandemic that made vaccines a polarizing issue. The elevation of Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a vaccine skeptic, to U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services has drawn even more interest to the issue. Last week, Kennedy Logan Beyer, an aspiring pediatrician pursuing an MD/PhD degree in public health at Harvard, spoke in favor of eliminating religious exemptions. While volunteering at a Special Olympics event, Beyer spoke to a parent who told her that she was worried that vaccines caused autism. The mother told Beyer that she was planning to apply for a religious exemption because she was unsure about vaccinating her children. 'She told me that her family 'didn't really go to church' but you don't have to prove anything to get the exemption,' Beyer said. Beyer said that this incident made her concerned about growing vaccine hesitancy and inspired her to testify. 'At the hearing, so many parents said they just want to do what's best for their children … I love that instinct,' Beyer said, 'But I know that passing policies that help facilitate more kids getting vaccinated is really what can keep children safe.' Advertisement Harrison, mother of cancer-survivor Miranda, also understands the instinct of parents on the other side of the issue, even if she disagrees with them. In addition to Miranda, Harrison has twin six-year old boys who both have autism. 'I can know the grief and shock that parents experience when they find out their kid has autism. I get it,' Harrison said. 'But vaccines are not to blame ... autism is a result of Around 16,000 children in Massachusetts are unvaccinated without claiming an exemption — a group that the state describes as 'noncompliant students' in its documents. Many parents in opposition to the bills questioned why the bills were trained just on the 2,000 students who did have religious exemptions. 'I'm curious why the Legislature is targeting the small percentage of children with religious exemptions and ignoring the huge gap population,' said Ottaviano testifying at the hearing. Advocates for the bills said the new provisions that mandate that all schools must report vaccination numbers to the state's department of public health would address these noncompliant students as well. 'That's what the data reporting is about, we want to make sure that schools have accurate records,' Blair of Massachusetts Families for Vaccines said. 'If there is a gap … they should reach out to those students to find out why the records are not on file.' Speakers in favor of the bills were focused on eliminating religious exemptions in order to protect children who cannot be vaccinated due to medical reasons like allergies or problems with their immune systems. 'It's actually those people … that we're really doing this for, because they're the ones who depend on herd immunity,' Blair said. Advertisement Angela Mathew can be reached at
Yahoo
10-04-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
State templates may influence Mass. data privacy policy
BOSTON (SHNS) – Lawmakers restarted their work Wednesday to bolster data privacy protections for Bay Staters, and some Democrats clashed with an attorney representing major tech companies over the best set of regulations to curtail exactly what type of information can be collected and used. Reps. Andy Vargas and David Rogers pitched their proposal (H 104), dubbed the Massachusetts Data Privacy Act, as a top priority for the Legislature to safeguard residents' sensitive information online, particularly as companies collect and sell data without consumers' full knowledge or consent. The bill would create 'data minimization' standards, which limit the information that companies can store and process based on 'what is reasonably necessary and proportional to their lawful purpose,' according to a legislative summary. 'Data minimization is just the notion that the company uses it only for the specific purpose the person's there — they don't gather all this other information and start selling it to other third parties,' Rogers told the Joint Committee on Advanced Information Technology, the Internet and Cybersecurity during its first hearing of the session. 'I mean, it's just common sense, it really is. It's not overreaching.' The bill also installs protections for minors against targeted advertising, gives Bay Staters the ability to sue for data privacy violations, and imposes restrictions on processing sensitive information like geolocation, biometric or genetic data. Bay Staters would also gain more power over the information that companies and other entities collect about them, including requesting the data be corrected or deleted. Andrew Kingman, who represents the State Privacy & Security Coalition, urged the committee to consider a different data privacy framework on the hearing agenda Wednesday. His coalition represents 35 companies and six trade associations, including Amazon, Google, Netflix and Meta. Kingman praised a Rep. Kate Hogan bill (H 80), the Comprehensive Massachusetts Consumer Data Privacy Act, which he said uses a framework adopted by Connecticut, Rhode Island, New Hampshire and 15 other states. He said the bill adds restrictions around reproductive health care and geolocation data, while deploying a data minimization standard that currently applies to 600 million consumers across the globe. It does not give consumers the private right of action, Rep. Steven Owens pointed out. 'A number of the other frameworks today would be novel, distinct — even from Maryland, which was brought up,' Kingman said, referring to a new state data privacy law. 'The data minimization provisions in some of those frameworks are very concerning because companies don't know what's expected of them or how to comply,' Kingman continued. 'They also unintentionally — clearly, but unintentionally — can have the effect of depriving marginalized populations of goods and services designed for them, and they can make it harder for Massachusetts businesses to reach their own customers than it is for those Massachusetts business to reach customers, again, in New Hampshire, Connecticut and Rhode Island.' Kingman faced questions from Reps. Joan Meschino and Tommy Vitolo about which companies he represents and the apparent harm of Massachusetts taking a data privacy approach that differs from other states. 'So I push back strongly on the idea that you and your colleagues are incapable of reading MGL (Massachusetts General Laws) and understanding what we expect in our commonwealth, and reading the laws of the great state of North Carolina and figuring out what they want. I believe in you,' Vitolo said. 'I just wholeheartedly push back on this idea that we should have a single set of laws in this United States on issues that affect us personally and culturally. And it just might be that the great state of Massachusetts has a different idea on privacy than even my state that I was born and raised in, Connecticut.' Committee co-chair Rep. Tricia Farley-Bouvier, who also filed a consumer data privacy bill (H 78), said the panel and Kingman will need to work together to iron out differences on data minimization standards. Kingman said Farley-Bouvier's bill, as well as the proposal from Vargas and Rogers, raises questions over whether companies can offer product recommendations based on purchasing history or provide security updates on apps. 'We look forward to continuing the conversation, to be able to give specific feedback so that we can together reach our shared goals,' Farley-Bouvier said. In his opening remarks, committee co-chair Sen. Michael Moore decried the increasing frequency of data breaches and how personal data has been 'weaponized,' including to 'undermine women's health.' 'Congress should act to protect our residents, but we know they will not,' Moore said. 'The Legislature must act to establish real data protections that address these issues and protect our constituents because it is clear that (the) status quo cannot and will not work.' Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
