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    • March 26, 2026 › Community News and Views

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    Hundreds of Activists Knock on New York Lawmakers’ Doors to Demand Justice for Vaccine-Injured

    On Tuesday, hundreds of vaccine rights advocates went to Albany, New York, for “Vaccine Rights/Justice for the Vaccine Injured Advocacy Day.” They held scores of meetings with legislators or their staff — quite a change from 2020 to 2023 when we were literally locked out of the buildings.

    by John Gilmore
    mary holland

    On Tuesday, hundreds of vaccine rights advocates went to Albany, New York, for our “Vaccine Rights/Justice for the Vaccine Injured Advocacy Day.”

    We had scores of meetings with legislators or their staff — quite a change from 2020 to 2023 when we were literally locked out of the buildings.

    Many legislators still don’t believe that vaccine injury happens. So rather than try to convince them with facts and figures, we asked some brave people who have suffered outrageous incidents of vaccine injury and injustice to tell their stories directly to the legislators, including:

    • The family of Sa’niya Nelson spoke about the death of their 1-year-old daughter within 11 hours of a well-baby visit where Sa’niya was given a double “catch-up” of 6 shots (12 doses of vaccines).
    • O’Brian Pastrana, a New York City firefighter who can no longer work due to an injury caused by two COVID-19 shots he was forced to take, or lose his job.
    • Emily Colonna, a high school student from Long Island, had a longstanding medical exemption due to a vaccine injury. Her school revoked her exemption. Her parents got her the vaccines the school demanded to keep Emily in school, contrary to her doctor’s orders. Emily was re-injured in exactly the same way as her original injury, which her doctor had tried to prevent from occurring again.
    • Angelo is a young man with Down syndrome and a range of autoimmune disorders for which his physician wrote him a medical exemption. His private school arbitrarily revoked the exemption under pressure from the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. He was expelled in the middle of the school year, with none of the services identified in his Individualized Education Program — even though his school district is required by federal law to provide those services. Almost a year later, for unknown reasons, his medical exemption was restored a short time before his 18th birthday, when the mandatory vaccine laws would no longer apply to him.

    COVID Justice Resolution: Sign the Resolution

    Speakers included, Mary Holland of Children’s Health Defense (CHD), Naomi Wolf of DailyClout, Mark Gorton of MAHA Institute, Jimmy Wagner of the DJT Kings County Republican Club, John Gilmore of Autism Action Network, Michael Kane of Teachers for Choice, Tramell Thompson of TWU Local 100, Katya Plyshevsky of MAHA Action, O’Brian Pastrana of Bravest for Choice, Sujata Gibson, Bobbie Anne Cox, Rabbi Moishe Kahane, Angelo, and the family of Sha’niya Nelson.

    We had meetings with the following Senators or their staff: Robert Ortt, Gustavo Rivera, Stephen Chan, Shelley Mayer, Monica Martinez, Siela Bynoe, Patricia Canzoneri-Fitzpatrick, Peter Oberacker, Anthony Palumbo, April Baskin, Steve Rhoads, Jessica Scarcella-Spanton, James Skoufis, James Sanders Jr., Mario Mattera, Sam Sutton and Samra Brouk, among others.

    And we met with the following Assemblymembers or their staff: Ed Ra, Nader Sayegh, Jaime Williams, David DiPietro, Joseph DeStefano, Aaron Wieder, Noah Burroughs, Phil Steck, Marianne Buttenschon, Alec Brook-Krasny, Michael Novakhov, Maritza Davila, Charles Lavine, Al Taylor, Matt Slater, Charles Fall, George Alvarez, Robert Smullen, Paula Kay, Josh Jensen, Rebecca Kassay, Sarah Clark, John McDonald, Didi Barrett, Lester Chang, William Magnarelli, Al Stirpe, Stacy Pheffer Amato and Paula Kay, among others.

    The rally was livestreamed by CHD.TV:

    Pictures and short video clips from the rally:

    Originally published on Michael Kane’s Teachers for Choice Substack page.

    The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of Children’s Health Defense.

    Do you have a story you’d like to share with the CHD Community? Click here for details.

    John Gilmore

    John Gilmore

    John Gilmore is Executive Director of the Autism Action Network.