Suzanne Waltman, Founder and President of Michigan for Vaccine Choice (MVP)
in front of the Michigan State Capitol building in 2019.
Michigan for Vaccine Choice (MVC), a charitable organization dedicated to providing vaccine education and protecting the right to make voluntary vaccine decisions in the state of Michigan, has made a $10,000 donation to NVIC in response news about NVIC’s sudden loss of a longtime major benefactor. MVC President Suzanne Waltman, who founded MVC in 1994 and has successfully held the line in Michigan for 30 years to ensure that Michigan residents have the legal right to exercise religious and philosophical exemption to vaccination, notified NVIC last month that her group wanted to help NVIC during our time of need.
Sue and her colleagues at MVC are among state vaccine choice leaders who work with NVIC staff through the NVIC Advocacy Portal to secure and defend informed consent rights in the states. The MVC website states that “We are dedicated to preserving vaccine choice for each generation” and Sue’s motto is “you can’t drug your way to health.”
Through many years of reported infectious disease outbreaks in Michigan that have triggered calls for more vaccination, including during the COVID pandemic response, Sue has publicly defended vaccine freedom of choice. In 2022, a Michigan news outlet noted that she had “fought against vaccine mandates” for years.
In 2019 during a reported measles outbreak in southeast Michigan, she said:
“Can we just take a breath and look at what we are talking about? Forty-one cases out of 9 million people in Michigan. Is that really a cause for concern? There are probably other things we should get more concerned about.”
“For three decades, Sue Waltman and Michigan for Vaccine Choice have educated Michigan legislators to do the right thing and protect the informed consent rights of families in that state. Michigan would have lost the religious and philosophical exemption to vaccination long ago if Sue and her team had not been on the ground doing the work that needed to be done to prevent that from happening,” said NVIC Co-founder and President Barbara Loe Fisher. “The staff and volunteers at NVIC extend our heartfelt thanks to MVC for making such a generous donation to NVIC, which will be used to defend vaccine freedom of choice in every state.”
