Bronx Victory Saves New York & The Country

Last week, a battle was fought in the Bronx and the stakes were high for New York and the country.  Another assault was underway against medical privacy, and as fate would have it, the key front for this battle was of all places – the Bronx of New York.

The New York State legislature is made up of two branches-The Assembly and The Senate. A little over a week ago the New York State Assembly passed the Database Bill. This was despite our demonstrations in Albany, phone calls to legislators, emails, Twitter storms, etc.

This bill required hospitals and doctors to turn over the vaccine records of people, to the government. This would have been a direct attack on medical privacy! It violated confidentiality between doctors and patients. It would also enable government retaliation against adults who chose not to vaccinate, as well as provide data for an international vaccine passport which is in the works. This bill would eventually lead to all medical records being turned over to the government. It is feared that the government would ultimately give private companies access to this private medical information, which could then use that information against employees and potential employees.  We have already seen the horrific retaliation against workers during COVID, and the situation would be much worse if the government and private companies had full access to the medical records of Americans.

We in the New York Group, which is a coalition of different groups and individuals, met to see what we could do to stop this bill from becoming the law in New York State, and ultimately spreading to other states across America, which is a common trend. There was only a week left in the legislative session and a final vote could be done on any day during that week.  Many in our group were very pessimistic about our chances of success given that we had so little time. I have been fighting against this database bill for over a year, doing everything I could to draw public attention to this issue. We in the NY Group managed to defeat this bill last year and we were very excited about that.  Now we were up against the wall with only a week left to try and stop it.

We realized that our only chance was to try to stop the New York State Senate from approving Senate Bill S1531.  The key person we decided to focus on was New York State Senator Gustavo Rivera. He is the chairman of the Senate Health Committee. He is the one who had the power to stop this bill. Unfortunately, Senator Rivera was also one of the sponsors of the bill!

We knew that we had an uphill battle ahead of us. Gustavo Rivera’s office is located in the Bronx of New York.

I was the one who ended up taking the lead on this effort in the Bronx. I decided that we should do rallies in front of River’s building on the Grand Concourse.  I only had from Friday through the weekend to pull this together.  I had to design the final draft of the flyers and have them printed up.  Fortunately, Children's Health Defense (CHD) agreed to cover the cost of printing the flyers. CHD also paid for the digital truck which would be at the rallies. The graphics for the digital truck were also designed by the creative staff at CHD. 

In addition, I was constantly on the phone trying to get our volunteers to lend their support at the rallies which were scheduled to run from Tuesday through Thursday. Others were working on reaching out to our networks and encouraging them to call and email Gustavo Rivera’s office throughout the week about this bill. Given the fact that there were so many moving parts and such a short time to coordinate things, no one knew how it would turn out.

Fortunately, our band of dedicated volunteers did show up! We were able to get the flyers printed up and ready. Also, the digital truck not only arrived on time but managed to park directly in front of Senator Gustavo Rivera’s building!  We set up a table with the Children's Health Defense logo in front of it. We were able to not only hand out flyers but also talk to a lot of people about the bill. They were shocked by the information we provided. None of them had heard anything about this bill even though they lived in Senator Rivera’s district. 

I was amazed that not one person we spoke to in front of the senator’s office building knew anything about it.  Given all of the access to the media that the senator has, especially in the Bronx, how could none of his constituents who we speak to, know anything about a bill that would have such a far-reaching impact on their lives?

Some of the people were so upset by the information, that they promised to not only call the Senator but also to reach out to their networks to do the same. Others took it a step further and went up to the senator's office and gave the staff a piece of their mind! At one point, the Senator’s office refused to see anyone else claiming that there were no office hours during that time. This was even though the sign on the wall said that office hours were from 12 noon to 4:00 PM. The response from the staff was that it was an “old sign!”

As more people went to the Senator’s office, a staff member then said that the senator would not bring the bill to the floor to be voted on this session! It seemed too good to be true! That same staff member refused to put that statement in writing or be videotaped saying it. Nonetheless, a lot of us took that as a very positive sign.

Some of the senator’s staff came outside and saw our huge digital truck in front of their building and our table with volunteers handing out flyers and talking to people. When they reported this to Senator Rivera, we could only imagine his reaction.

I had also reached out to some of the local Bronx news media and a reporter from the Norwood News did show up and interviewed me and some others.  The cable news channel, News 12 The Bronx, also showed up, but they arrived early, before we were set up, and soon left.

One of our volunteers also brought a blowhorn and began energizing the crowd as he started talking about this bill and how it would affect them.  Another volunteer brought a tambourine and began banging it as he chanted to the people. The rallies were great!

Many of us were sitting on pins and needles all through Friday evening waiting to find out what happened as far as the bill. There was the fear that they might sneak this bill in at the last minute and vote on it. We did not get the final confirmation until Saturday morning that the database bill was defeated! It was never even presented to the Senate to be voted on!! This was even more powerful than if a vote was taken and we won. They did not even want to bring this bill up to be voted on! We Won! It was a huge victory! The hard work of so many people had paid off!  New York and the country are safe for now, but this bill could be brought up again in 2024!  We need to mobilize more groups and people in preparation for that possibility.

We have learned over time that many politicians prefer to do things in the dark. They become very upset when light is cast on them and the things they want to get away with.  This victory has also become an inspiration to many in our group. I spoke to people who had not been that active for a while and they told me how shocked they were that we were successful! They had started to give up hope. They now understand what I have been saying for a long time which is: that the power is with the people!

A big thanks to all of those who made this victory possible including: John, Bonnie, Kozi, Michael, Celso, Kevin, Dion, Dani, Stephanie, Aimee, and many others.

Lastly, the New York Group has successfully stopped all bad vaccine bills from passing in the NY State Legislature since 2020! This includes several such bills this year.

Curtis Cost