Should people have the freedom to make their own decisions regarding vaccinations?
Freedom of medical choice is the topic of this fascinating discussion that took place on Tuesday, June 9, between CEO Joe Oltmann and Kevin Jenkins, Executive Director of the Urban Global Health Alliance.
Jenkins was in Denver on Sunday to testify before a House committee during a reading of the controversial Colorado Senate Bill 163. He was gracious enough to take time from his busy schedule to sit down with us and talk through the implications that such legislation would have on our state.
Read a portion of the interview below, or watch it in its entirety here:
OCN: Hi, everyone, this is Joe Oltmann. I'm joined by Kevin Jenkins of the Urban Global Health Alliance. This is a special segment that is going to deal with what is happening here in Colorado. We have a new bill, Senate Bill 163.
KEVIN JENKINS: Yes, it's on the floor (of the House) now; they're debating it as we speak. I think a lot of people from Colorado should be concerned about it. The whole focus of SB 163 is real simple: It's starting to track our kids, sharing our information, not protecting the doctor/patient relationship. It allows for the Colorado Department of Health to add any vaccine to its schedule. That's a serious issue, based on what we know about vaccines. We're not anti-vaccine; we're actually pro-life—actually pro-family, pro our children. And we have issues with those vaccines. So if you want to opt out in some way, you have to (complete) an online module; you have to do an online re-education. So think about that: we're "China" now, you know? We're the other countries that we've been fighting. We talk about democracy, but we're losing ours every day. So it's important.
OCN: So the reason why we're doing this segment is that we've had a number of calls, a number of e-mails. We had the protests that happened on Sunday. So there was a first reading of this bill, SB 163, on Sunday at 10:00. Is that kind of rare?
KEVIN JENKINS: With a bill like this, it should have never happened on a Sunday. On a bill like this, we should have had stakeholder meetings in the community, because everybody's now asking questions like, why are you doing this? Why are you now talking about medical exemptions? "Well, you know, it's not going to happen." "Well, no, don't worry about it. You won't be impacted." But state after state after state after state where you have Democratic legislators—Virginia; Chicago, Illinois; Connecticut; New Jersey—Big Pharma is in those legislative offices negotiating with those legislators to take our medical freedoms away from us, take our right to our body autonomy. They're doing all of that as we speak. And no one understands the damage that's going to be done. So we're right now fighting for constitutional rights. We're right now fighting for our medical rights. Right now, we're fighting for a medical exemption. Right now, we're fighting for our life. And that's serious.
OCN: So the protests that happened on Sunday had about 2,500 or 3,000 people there. I went to the protest to see what it was all about. And I didn't even know anything about vaccines. Obviously, my kids are grown—they're older—but I didn't know anything about vaccines. I didn't know that there was a movement to not vaccine your kids until about a month ago during this whole COVID crisis ... And during this process of learning and reading, we got a chance to spend some time together. (At the rally) you spoke ... and Bobby ...
KEVIN JENKINS: Yes, and Bobby Kennedy spoke. And Theo Wilson. Phenomenal.
OCN: And I want to start by saying that Theo Wilson is active in the Black Lives Matter movement.
KEVIN JENKINS: Absolutely right. He's active in this community.
OCN: One of the things that amazed me about everything that we saw out there at the protest was that it was very bipartisan. I saw people that were very liberal. I thought I saw people that were conservative. I saw people that sat somewhere in the middle. And I saw people of every race. And I walked away from that protest saying to myself, "Okay, I'm going to go do some research about everything that they said at this protest. And I find out it's wrong, then I'm out." But the more research I did, the more concerned that I became. And so I want to be able to ask you those questions. And I want to be able to put this in front of the 800,000 people that we reach in Colorado. And I know we're going to do a couple of follow-up segments on this. We're going to have a conversation with Bobby Kennedy (next week). But I want to ask you a couple of simple questions. First, what do the four largest vaccine "Big Pharma" organizations have in common?
KEVIN JENKINS: Well, they're criminals.
OCN: So explain that.
KEVIN JENKINS: Well, right now the marketplace is about vaccinating our bodies and controlling our bodies. So over the last several decades, there've been enormous (law)suits against these companies for vaccine-damaging our children—actually real serious fraudulent behavior. And if any of us would have ever done that, we'd be in prison. We'd be locked up. So they are indemnified. We can't sue them. So they can poison us, they can do whatever they want to do.
OCN: So, what do you mean we can't sue them?
KEVIN JENKINS: Well, there's a law—I think it was in 1986—that they're indemnified. We cannot sue them. We cannot sue them for then damaging our child. We can't sue them for anything. And the federal government gave them that power. So if I have a vaccine-damaged child, I can't sue. I can't sue you. I have no recourse whatsoever.
OCN: So the thing that amazed me about the people that we saw at the protest was that they weren't fighting for people who were getting vaccinated to not receive vaccines. They were fighting for this thing called choice. And so, obviously, we can talk about the pharmaceutical companies and their impact. But tell me what the implications are of SB 163 to the mothers and fathers that are out there.
KEVIN JENKINS: Well, I like to keep these kinds of things simple. I mean, it's really about tracking your kids. It's about sharing your information. Now, here's the thing about sharing information. When you're in school, everybody knows you have your vaccine charts—how many vaccines you get. But now there's something more insidious in this. It's tracking your kids, contact tracing—which is something that's going to be brutal to our privacy in this country. So now Big Data and Big Pharma are together. So now that's why this whole tracking thing is so dangerous. And that's why so many parents are concerned—because there's no privacy anymore. Everybody's going to know your business. Everybody's going to know if your kids were vaccinated or not. Already, in schools, you probably have a little bit of that going on, nut this is going to be a whole 'nother level. Then, the other thing that was very insidious about it is talking about taking away your religious exemptions. So this Sunday—which I was really outraged about this—you passed these bills—these mandated bills are being pushed by Big Pharma all over the country—but you don't find it important to have stakeholder meetings in our communities to talk about this.
OCN: Yeah. So talk to me about that. How would someone go about having a stakeholder meeting?
KEVIN JENKINS: Well, what happens is, if you're a legislator of a district and you have a bill like this that's really, really controversial, normally, you would go in as a legislator and have community meetings. You would explain what the bill is really about, and then you would build consensus. And then if the bill needs to be tinkered with, fine. If the bill needs to be tabled, fine. Never happened. But the second thing about it is, on the religious exemption side, they never even had a conversation with the religious community whatsoever.
OCN: With any religious community?
KEVIN JENKINS: None. Let me just tell you how crazy it is. Because of COVID, we haven't been having services. But this Sunday, people started to have services. So those pastors didn't know (the House was meeting on this bill). Those reverends didn't know. Those imams did not know. None of us knew. So the community didn't know, the religious community didn't know, and the disenfranchised community didn't know. So now why is that? And then why would you do it on a Sunday? This is interesting. Why would you do it on a Sunday on the heels of what's happening with COVID, why would you do that?
OCN: Well, and not just COVID. We have a seismic shift happening in our communities on how we handle violence against blacks.
KEVIN JENKINS: Absolutely.
OCN: So we have the Black Lives Matter protests happening, and then you had people that would have attended the Black Lives Matter protest that were attending the protest against SB 163. I'm amazed at the fact that I'm 45 years old, and I've never heard of people opposing vaccines. My kids are vaccinated. I'm vaccinated. And I think about the fact that maybe I was just oblivious to it. I know that when my kids were getting vaccines, I studied them. But now we're talking about actual outcomes of these vaccines. Tell me what you're seeing. Tell me what the correlation is here.
KEVIN JENKINS: Well, let me tell you how I got to this. In January, there was a major fight about producing a mandated vaccine bill in New Jersey. And Assemblyman Jamal Holley got involved in that fight. It was a segregated bill, and he fought that bill. There were about 10,000 parents from all over the country and New Jersey that came to that statehouse and said, "Listen, we want you to listen to us. We don't want that bill passed." And it was a big deal. So after that, we talked about vaccines, and he said, "Listen, you need to dig a little deeper on this. You need to go in there and see this is really a bad situation." But in the black community where he lives, it is even worse. They knew nothing about it. They have no concept of what vaccine damage is, but every child probably in our community has been vaccine-damaged in one way or another. That's pretty interesting. They're staggering numbers. So in getting involved, I realized earlier on that in urban parts of the country, there was no discussion about this, no organized effort to empower parents to get involved in this issue. They saw it as a "white woman's issue."
OCN: I'm glad you brought that up. This was fascinating to me—Your history is not in vaccines. Your history is in ...
KEVIN JENKINS: Community development, economic development, housing development, municipal finance. That's what I do. But my life's work is going to be about this because I realize, as an institutional leader, that we need a real institutional voice. Our organization—our institution—is gonna be focused on three things: education, advocacy, and public policy. What I found out was that we were chasing these Big Pharma bills, so I was like, "Look, we have to stop doing it. We're going to organize differently. We're going to organize from that perspective, and then we're going to politically organize." Because a lot of these legislators are not listening. They're in the pockets of Big Pharma and Big Tech and they're ruining our lives. Right now, America is under assault: constitutional rights, medical rights, religious freedoms, everything. We are under assault in disadvantaged communities. And they don't know how this all ties together.
OCN: So talk to me about the disadvantaged community and the effects of vaccines. And who is actually harmed by the people not getting vaccines? Who's the one at risk?
KEVIN JENKINS: Well, really, none of the unvaccinated kids are a threat to other kids. It's vice versa. The kid that has the vaccine is a threat to the kid that's not vaccinated. And you know what? The Big Pharma News spreads that out there, and people say, "Oh, if you're not vaccinated, you're endangering my kid." There's a big study that just came out—I think his name is Dr. Hooker—but he just did a study about vaccinated kids and unvaccinated kids. And it's phenomenal. I'm just really diving through it. I mean, every day some new information comes out that empowers people to make the right decisions, to protect their child, to protect their family, protect their way of life.
OCN: So no one is harmed. No one that doesn't have the vaccine is harmed by someone who decides not to vaccinate.
KEVIN JENKINS: But it's interesting. Like I said, the kids that have the vaccines can harm the kids that are not vaccinated. Isn't that interesting? But if you flip it, they say, "Oh, those kids are endangering my kids," which is absolutely ridiculous. It's not true.
OCN: So if it doesn't harm people that don't get a vaccine, then why is there a bill in Colorado to push people to have mandated vaccines?
KEVIN JENKINS: That's a business discussion.
OCN: Especially on the heels of the COVID-19 vaccine ...
KEVIN JENKINS: That will never solve anything, obviously. I mean, viruses change all the time and morph into different things every cycle. But think about it with all of the pandemics that you and I lived through. Herd immunity took care of that. We all had the ability to heal ourselves with the proper care, vitamin C, vitamin D, all the therapeutics that help you right now. But I want to get to that question. The reason behind these mandated bills—the reason behind SB 163: It's about body control. We have now become the commodity of the vaccine industry's wealth. So all of those companies that we say are criminals? They are making money off of us every day. So vaccinating your child ... like a multitrillion-dollar industry on our bodies. So, when we say we don't want the vaccines, we're a problem for them. They're saying, "They are crazy people. They are anti-something." No, these are pretty educated and informed people, and they're saying, "No, this is harming my child." So now listen. Imagine 5,000 people show up at your door and say, "Hey, look, this is poisoning my child." You know what the legislators tell them? "Oh, you're wrong." "Well, here's the science." "Well, you're wrong." "Well, here's the data." "Well, you're wrong." Because they are now in the pockets of Big Pharma and Big Tech. That's a fact.
And even in this community, even in Colorado, I've gone to that statehouse maybe six or seven times, and I have had some phenomenal conversations with legislators that are interested and listening. But the one community—I have to say this—the one community that has not been open to this discussion on the legislative side is the Black Caucus. I am offended by that. Because of the damage that's being done to our kids, you should at least give these parents and other organizations that are versed on this the opportunity to have a dialogue with you. So they haven't had that dialogue, and their kids are being harmed the most. Now, that's telling. And then the other thing that frustrates me the most—I'm a Democrat, right? It is the Democrats around this country that are pushing these mandated bills—the Democrats.
OCN: I think that's the part that just amazed me because the more research you do, you see the issue has been predominantly brought up by the liberals—to not get vaccines. But as you go through this process now, you see conservatives on one side, and you see people that are educating themselves. Now, ... I wouldn't say I'm anti-vaccine—I just don't know enough. But I think that people should be given a choice. So I'm not fully all the way to the point where I'm unhappy that I got a vaccine, but I'm also to the place where now I have pause, the more research I do. This is kind of scary.
KEVIN JENKINS: Isn't that interesting? I think that in the last 12 weeks, we got 30 million new friends.
OCN: Because they start talking about the COVID vaccine, how they're going to give—and by the way, they're going to give you a vaccine that they've only been testing for nine months. "We've got your vaccine after nine months, but we have no idea what's going to happen to you after that!"
KEVIN JENKINS: And that goes to show you how evil it is, though. That goes to show you they don't care. They really don't care about you; they really don't care about your children. They care about their bottom line. And you have a group of people in this country like Bill Gates and his friends that are operating like God. I mean, we have lost 60 million jobs. Never mind about the mental issues. Never mind about the brokenness of our children. Never mind the lack of hope. Just because you're opening up the government or allowing us to go outside. Think about that. I hire you to be my governor, and you're telling me what I can't do. All of their assumptions were wrong. We now know that everything they said was basically a lie. Thank God for the great scientists of the world that have been challenging this, right? They still kept it in place. That's why you know it's evil. That's why you know what the design is. That's why SB 163, on a Sunday, on the heels of all of the things that we're going through, they come and convene their legislative body and committee to do that.
OCN: Why is that the most important thing in Colorado we're having discussions about?
KEVIN JENKINS: Thank you!
OCN: I mean, that really is what it comes down to. How did that get preferential treatment over a lot of the other things that we're having discussions about in our community?
KEVIN JENKINS: Not about jobs, not about the damage that's been done in these nursing homes, not about the facts.
OCN: And what amazed me is that the more I talk to you, the more I talk to Bobby Kennedy, the more I talk to Theo, the more I feel like we as a community can at least get behind the fundamentals of why this bill may not be in the best interest of the people. And the fact that it's coming now seems like a convenient time? But it doesn't seem like it's convenient for the people.
KEVIN JENKINS: It's all part of a national rollout for Big Pharma. Big Pharma has been doing this for some time. And thank God that these parents and these organizations and these people have been pushing back. But where they find the biggest resistance is at the legislative level. At the local level. As a legislator, you should be listening to your constituents, but that's not the case anymore. Our government has been hijacked. I mean, way beyond what we thought many years ago, maybe 20 years ago. Big Pharma and Big Tech own our government, and we have to push back because they're almost at your door now. I want everybody at home to know that you're next! Don't think this is some white woman issue, some privilege issue. This is a human issue. This is serious.
OCN: You said something else that just shook me a little bit. And that is that they are experimenting in my community. They're experimenting on blacks. They're experimenting on poor people. And it shook me a little bit to think maybe I should have done more research.
KEVIN JENKINS: I've got a book for you called Medical Apartheid. Listen. Tuskegee—what's happening in our black communities right now? Health care disparities? All of those things ... the racial wealth gap ... I mean, it's serious. But think about this now: Industry. These two industries are now going to have even further control over our bodies. I call it slavery by another name. Right? I can navigate that conversation. But just think about black boys and autism. Over three percent nationwide. 7.5 percent in Union County, Jamal Holley's district.
OCN: Okay, so what would you say to the people that say the vaccines don't cause autism?
KEVIN JENKINS: That's ridiculous. It's been proven. Listen, remember, there was just a case recently with the Supreme Court. CDC was never able to bring in documents that showed otherwise. The Supreme Court said, "Wait a minute, you can no longer say that." And we've seen the damage. Look, you can go into black neighborhoods, you watch these young black kids, you can see if you pay attention. Now that I'm paying attention, you can see where they're vaccine-damaged. But here's the other thing that I call a genocide. Ten percent in Newark! So forget about "crime." That's the biggest crime. That's genocide. So the next four generations of our community—our black men—are about to be wiped out. I see the damage every day. You see it in your schools. You see it everywhere.
And one of the reasons why we started this institution (Urban Global Health Alliance) was not to just talk about that part of it, but to be able to educate, be able to inform, be able to empower them, to be able to make the right decisions when it comes to those kinds of issues. And I don't think any government should tell me what I need to do with my child. Guess what? The reproductive argument we've had over the last 50 years? That's what that was about. The LGBT community? That's what that was about. I could go on and on and on. So what makes this different? You know why? Because we are the commodity to their wealth.
OCN: Yeah. And that's a scary thought. And again, I want to be the arbiter of reality. Even if I—and I think this is why I wanted to do this show—even the fascination that I have with vaccines or no vaccines. And I lean now towards "just educating yourself" that maybe there are some good vaccines. Now it's just
trying to figure out what the good ones are.
KEVIN JENKINS: Yeah, but you know what they do? If you say you don't want to vaccinate your kid, you become anti-something. You become the problem. You become the danger. That vaccine list—that maybe when I was younger—I might have gotten two shots? I think it's about 78 now. I mean, they're giving babies HPV vaccines when they're born. ... I mean, are you kidding me?
OCN: Well, I mean, I think we're just not questioning it. And I think that one of the things we have to ask ourselves is, "Did they wake up and have a conscience all of a sudden?" So we decide when we actually trust the government. It doesn't matter which side of the political aisle you are. You either say, "I trust them today," or "I trust them tomorrow," and we make a decision that they grew conscience when it comes to this, but they didn't when it comes to this. We trust them here, but we can't trust them here.
