Vaccine Choice Supporter Chris Christie Wins NJ Governors Race

New Jersey, highest autism rate in the nation, no philosophical exemption for vaccination, and a governor that has been less than helpful to our community.

Exit Corzine, enter Christie.

Let's hold Governor Christie's feet to the fire.

From Life Health Choices:

MEDIA ADVISORY
Louise Kuo Habakus
louise@lifehealthchoices.com
917-553-4634

Citizens Demanding Vaccination Choice Carry Republican Chris Christie To New Jersey Governorship November 3, 2009, Middletown, NJ – In an unprecedented and historic move, Chris Christie put pen to paper last week and made an official campaign promise to citizens of New Jersey in support of vaccination choice. He further cemented his position on live radio with Don Imus, by becoming the first gubernatorial candidate to utter the words vaccines, autism and parental choice in the same sentence. Vaccine choice supporters showed up in record numbers tonight to cast their vote for Christie.

“Tonight, vaccine choice advocates in New Jersey are proud to announce that vaccination choice is officially a voting block,” says Life Health Choices Founder, Louise Kuo Habakus, who met with campaign leaders last December and kept the lines of communication open. “This election is a wake-up call to politicians nationwide. Vaccine choice belongs in the parents’ house, not the Statehouse or the White House.”
After receipt of the official Christie campaign promise on Friday, vaccination choice and autism advocates mobilized in force on the internet. They alerted tens of thousands of supporters, who in turn took to Facebook, Twitter, and their own support group networks to reach hundreds of thousands more. News of Christie’s now famous statement spread like wildfire through the state and across the country:

“I stand by them now, and will stand with them as their governor in their fight for greater parental involvement in vaccination decisions that affect their children… Ending waste in government in order to improve care and services for these unique children and adults, as well as giving parents the choice they deserve in their children’s health care decisions, will be top priorities.”

Anger towards Governor Corzine has been building. It is well known that New Jersey, Autism Capital of the world, is also Ground Zero for mandated shots for school. Many parents and grandparents blame environmental causes, including the state’s ultra-aggressive vaccine schedule. The “Freedom of Choice” rally in Trenton last fall garnered national media attention and catapulted this issue into the mainstream dialogue. On the heels of Corzine’s 2008 decision to add four additional vaccine mandates to the state’s already crowded schedule, thousands of parents have lined up to attend vaccination choice seminars and protests across the state.

In August, Christie and running mate, Monmouth County Sheriff Kim Guagdano, met with parents and received an unvarnished assessment of New Jersey’s position on this issue from Habakus: “Fifty percent of Americans in 18 U.S. states including the highly populous, corridor states of California and Texas have vaccination choice. We deserve it here, in the state that leads the nation in autism incidence and the number of mandated shots for school attendance.”

“We look forward to Governor-elect Christie’s leadership and working with the new administration,” says Habakus.

For more information, go to www.lifehealthchoices.com

Chris Christie Supporing Parental Choice in Vaccination in his Bid for Governor of NJ

Welcome news as Corzine has admitted that the only thing he gets more calls about than autism is tolls, yet has failed to follow through on the committements he made to our community. 

Corzine needs to go.

From Louise Kuo Habakus of Life Health Choices:

A PERSONAL APPEAL TO VOTE FOR CHRIS CHRISTIE

I'm making a personal appeal to our community. Please join me in voting Chris Christie for Governor on Tuesday, November 3rd.

Whether you live in New Jersey or not, this e-mail is for you.

I'm asking you to forward this to everyone you know. This is a bona fide "get out the vote" from someone who has lived here for nearly two decades and seen firsthand how Trenton is failing the people of New Jersey.

It's time to stop wringing our hands about how bad things have gotten. In a democracy, we get the government (and the governor) we deserve. The election is close. If you know me, then you will know that my standards are high, my commitment to progress is deep, and I do not make this appeal lightly.

Here's why you must vote. For Christie.

WHY WE MUST VOTE CHRIS CHRISTIE FOR GOVERNOR ON TUESDAY Christie supports vaccination choice. He wrote the following letter of support on Campaign letterhead, to the vaccination choice and special needs communities. He states: Many of these families have expressed their concern over New Jersey's highest-in-the-nation vaccine mandates. I stand with them now, and will stand with them as their governor, in the fight for greater parental involvement in vaccination decisions that affect their children. Christie has reached out. I met with Chris in August. He is the only candidate who approached us, offered his time, and said he wanted to learn more. His lead policy guy visited me on two separate occasions to open the dialogue, late last year, at the moment Christie had made the decision to run. Christie has gone on the record. He stated his support for vaccination choice early on, during the primary debate. He went on Imus in the Morning this past Thursday and said: "We need to look at all the different things affecting autism in New Jersey because we have the highest rate in the country. Not just the environmental concerns but vaccinations. Parents of children with autism need to be heard, they need a seat at the table to be talking about these issues. I met with a number of these parents, I've spoken to them about the awful time they've had. They need to have somebody who is going to them. And I'm going to listen to their concerns and try to make things better. But clean up the environment is one of the ways. Be more environmentaly sensitive in terms of the other toxins that we put into our environment. And also dealing with the vaccination issue is important..." Christie understands parents' concerns. He is a young parent himself. He sees that parents are desperately worried about very real world problems, such as autism and chronic disease. He sees that parents are being forced to vaccinate when they believe in their hearts that the shots are harming their children. He sees that the epidemic of sick and injured children in New Jersey is the pressing public health crisis of the day. And unlike the other candidates, he has shown us that he's willing to talk about it. To say this is a breath of fresh air is a massive understatement.

CORZINE HAS BEEN BAD FOR NEW JERSEY Speaking plainly, Corzine does not deserve to be re-elected. Here are the reasons I cannot vote for Corzine: He Isn't Listening To His Constituents: Vaccination Choice Last year, he added four new vaccine mandates to the most crowded schedule of any state in the country. And he did it completely outside the legislative process. Corzine pushed the mandates through the Public Health Council, a rubber-stamping formality. That's how NJ became the first state in the country, and the first jurisdiction in the world, to mandate the seasonal flu shot in 2008. Despite the Trenton "Freedom of Choice" rally that drew national press and widespread attention... despite the many thousands of requests from parents begging for vaccination choice... Corzine has categorically refused to support passage of the Conscientious Exemption to Mandatory Immunization bill, A260/S1071. Corzine admitted to us that he gets more calls and letters on this issue than any other except tolls. And perhaps most egregious of all, he promised to support both vaccination choice and removal of the mercury-based vaccine preservative, thimerosal, from our vaccines when he was running for governor. And he never followed through. There's a less kind way to say the same thing.

Corzine Has Abandoned The Special Needs Community These are strong words chosen carefully to deliver a strong message. Zero leadership. New Jersey is Ground Zero when it comes to the autism epidemic in the United States. There has been no official statement of concern, no think tank sessions, no roundtables, no convening of leading scientists, doctors and toxicologists. We're not even sure he's concerned. Corzine has refused to err on the side of caution. His failure to send a strong message of concern about the rising incidence of autism has been a profound disappointment. But he has taken his neglect one terrible step further. He could have just held firm. Completely ignoring the existing and emerging science that links vaccines and their ingredients to the symptoms and hallmarks of autism and chronic illness, Corzine chose instead to add even more vaccines to the schedule, including shots that no other state in the country has dared to mandate. We mandate 36% more shots than the next highest state. Why? Why indeed. Waste and abject failure under his watch. A devastating audit of the Division of Developmental Disabilities revealed a shocking degree of waste and callous indifference to the plight of New Jersey's affected families. It is a form of insanity to re-elect him and expect progress. Corzine has demonstrated little interest in developing innovative answers to the problems facing NJ's parents, both those with and without special needs. I have no reason to believe this would change, if he is elected for another term. We expected the former Wall Street CEO to clean up Trenton. We expected him to do a lot more than deploy his millions in support of his own re-election. Imagine if he had taken $120 million of his own money, the money that he spent on his three campaigns, and instead created real solutions, that real money can buy, to the real problems facing New Jersey? Corzine does not deserve to be re-elected.

A NATIONAL MESSAGE: WHAT HAPPENS IN NEW JERSEY MATTERS TO YOU New Jersey is Ground Zero when it comes to the issue of vaccine mandates. No state in the country, no place in the world, mandates more shots for daycare and school than the Garden State. Help us now. It's time for the country to get on with the task at hand: Finding solutions for the real public health catastrophe in our country: an epidemic of neurological, autoimmune and chronic illness facing our children, including asthma, diabetes, ADHD, allergies, peanut anaphylaxis, seizures, palsies, arthritis, OCD, autism and learning disabilities. One in six American children is learning disabled. Setting Big Government straight, that fake pandemics, massive and expensive vaccine campaigns, and the systematic erosion of personal, health care freedom and parental rights has got to stop now. New Jersey is the most reliable bellwether for the clout and influence of Big Pharma in our country. If we succeed in taking on the pharmaceutical industry here, there is hope for the rest of the nation.

BE VIGILANT AND PARTICIPATE IN THE POLITICAL PROCESS These are historic times. The swine flu pandemic has reshaped the vaccination choice debate. If government can: change the definition of an epidemic to mean something non-virulent, mobilize billions of dollars to fight something that's not remotely deadly, and mandate unproven, insufficently tested vaccines... We must question whether our government has earned the right to withhold choice, whether they have earned the right to tell us what we must put into our bodies. In my opinion, we have but two viable paths to pursue. The first is legal action. The second is our power at the voting booth. Vaccines are meant to prevent disease. They must be as safe as possible. If they are not safe, they should not be mandated. If they are safe, people will take them. So give us choice. And give New Jersey a new governor that will prioritize this issue for us all. We can ill afford more of the same. Vote on Tuesday, Chris Christie for Governor. Louise Kuo Habakus

p.s. We'll have some news to share in the next newsletter. We're aligning and collaborating with likeminded organizations to increase our scope and reach.

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