Fedeli, Lorenzin urge Zaia to rethink (3)

(ANSA) - Rome, September 6 - Education Minister Valeria Fedeli and Health Minister Beatrice Lorenzin on Wednesday wrote to Veneto Governor Luca Zaia to urge him to rethink his government's moratorium until 2019 on presenting vaccines documentation for school admission. Earlier in the day Paolo Romani and Renato Brunetta, the Lower House and Senate whips for Silvio Berlusconi's centre-right Forza Italia (FI) party, appealed to Zaia to comply with central government's legislation making vaccines obligatory for school admission. "Each additional stall in vaccine coverage represents serious harm to our community, above all the weakest individuals," the whips said in a joint statement.
    Rightwing populist Northern League (LN) leader Matteo Salvini said he backed the stance of Veneto's LN governor Zaia and rejected the move by the whips from three-time premier Berlusconi's FI, long his ally. Saying that the two FI whips should "deal with other issues", Salvini said "Zaia is getting praise from many associations: vaccinating (one's children) must be a free choice, not a Soviet obligation". Salvini said "I wouldn't like Italy to have been chosen as a guinea pig by pharmaceutical companies". Zaia has said that his regional government has broken no rules after it granted parents a moratorium until 2019 to present vaccines documentation for school admission. The government is considering challenging the move, which effectively undermines its legislation. "We went and carefully read the national law and my directors saw that it's written inside - a moratorium is possible," Zaia said in an interview published in Wednesday's edition of La Repubblica. He added that his executive has launched an appeal to "defend its own law on vaccines, which has existed for 10 years and works".