Bill Banning Vaccine Mandates Draws Proponents; 62 Groups Form Coalition to Oppose Bill

House Bill 248, a bill that would ban vaccine mandates if passed, has the potential to reverse decades of immunity from life-threatening, but vaccine-preventable diseases such as measles, mumps, hepatitis, meningitis and tuberculosis. The bill is in it’s second hearing in the House Health Committee this week and the Ohio AAP is asking for your help in opposing this legislation! We will be reaching out again shortly for opponent testimony on June 8^th so keep an eye on your inboxes for future communication for those interested. Another easy way to stay informed on our advocacy efforts is through Ohio AAP’s advocacy groups. Consider joining Ohio Champions for Vaccines (OC4V), our new vaccine advocacy group, or Peds On Call, our Pediatrician advocacy group that covers all legislation surrounding child health. The story below outlines the bill and testimony provided on Tuesday May 25th.

Story originally published in The Hannah Report on May 25, 2021.  Copyright 2021 Hannah News Service, Inc.

Proponents of HB248 (Gross) to ban vaccine mandates testified in the House Health Committee Tuesday, with the committee hearing in-person testimony from medical professionals who advocated for bodily autonomy, as well as parents of children who had adverse reactions to vaccines. In total, 149 proponents submitted either written or in-person testimony.

Meanwhile, 62 associations including the Ohio State Medical Association, the Ohio Chamber of Commerce and the Buckeye Association of School Administrators formed the new Ohio Vaccine Coalition in opposition to the bill.

During committee testimony, proponent Autumn Shaef, a nurse practitioner with a Master of Science in Nursing (MSN) degree, said that COVID-19 vaccines should not be allowed to be mandated by employers or other entities, citing safety concerns and individuals’ rights to bodily autonomy. Shaef cited a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) overview of vaccine safety as stating, “no vaccine is actually 100 percent safe or effective for everyone because each person’s body reacts to vaccines differently.” She went on to discuss that she knows three women who were hospitalized within two weeks of taking a COVID-19 vaccine.

“One [was] seen in the emergency department and diagnosed with an enlarged heart — which she did not have before. One was admitted into critical care positive for COVID-19. She was not ill for over a year during the pandemic, until after receiving the vaccine. She was hospitalized for a week, and was able to recover and [was] discharged home. Another, not so lucky. She was in critical care in a coma for over six weeks. She has survived, but is still hospitalized and will never be the same. I cannot, and will not, ignore the risk that I am seeing with my own eyes. The risks appear to be potentially significant,” Shaef said.

Commenting on national safety statistics on COVID-19 vaccines, Schaef said, “Per the CDC, there have been 4,647 reports of death related to COVID-19 vaccines. The same webpage states a review of these cases has not established a causal link to the vaccine. This leads me to question the credibility of the CDC. … Rather than taking a pause, [the] governmental agency has now expanded use to children and may be recommending a booster dose in the fall. This is absolutely unacceptable. What is further unacceptable is mandating someone to take this product into their body.”

Asked by Rep. Allison Russo (D-Upper Arlington) if there is any medication or medical procedure that’s entirely risk-free, Schaef said all medical products and procedures have inherent risk. “The importance of this bill is that most people are given free choice, and if they decline a recommended intervention, there are no adverse consequences to that. The situation with vaccines is different because people may lose their jobs.”

Russo further asked about what medical facilities should do to protect patients if they can’t require employees to get vaccinated. Schaef said many employees will get vaccinated anyway, and vaccinated employees can provide care for unvaccinated patients as a “reasonable accommodation.” She further said that hospitals and businesses can ask patients and customers to sign waivers to protect against liability if a patient or customer contracts COVID-19 on the premises of a hospital or business.

Committee Chairman Scott Lipps (R-Franklin) commented that while there are no risk-free drugs, vaccines are the only drugs exempted from liability.

Rep. Beth Liston (D-Dublin) said that the CDC has stated that the 4,647 reports of death following an individual’s receiving the COVID-19 vaccine are not correlated with the vaccine, and she said 158 million people have been vaccinated nationwide. Schaef said she doesn’t trust that the CDC has adequately established that there’s no causation, adding that no other vaccine has produced a higher number of adverse events and deaths. “We really need these cases to be evaluated to determine if there’s any causation. We can’t automatically rule that out. … I still support people’s right to take this product, but the notion of requiring someone to take this to visit a public place or get an education is unacceptable.”

Proponent Anne Abbott explained that half of her child’s brain had to be removed after an adverse reaction to the MMR vaccine, which caused Rasmussen encephalitis and frequent seizures in her daughter. The case played out in court over seven years, and Abbott eventually won damages after causation was proven.

“In June of 2012, we changed her life because we were coerced into making a medical decision, without all the facts and research, to help keep everyone else ‘safe and protected.’ Unfortunately, we did not keep our own daughter safe and protected then, so now we are fighting to keep her from even more discrimination, exclusion, and medical harm,” Abbott said.

She went on to voice concerns that businesses, colleges and employers might want her daughter to get further vaccinations or to wear a mask, which due to breathing difficulties related to her medical condition, she said her daughter cannot.

Asked by Russo about businesses wanting to protect their employees and customers, thus requiring masks, Abbott said that her daughter cannot wear a mask, nor should she need to disclose her vaccination status.

Also testifying was Dr. Elizabeth Laffay, who said that government officials or individuals’ bosses should not be “in an exam room” with patients making medical decisions.

She further said information and discussion has been suppressed about COVID-19 vaccines, saying, “In order to make an informed decision, you need to have facts. In our current culture, we have not been afforded all of the facts. Scientific discussion is being censored to a level that it is not being allowed. We have been heavily directed by misleading propaganda, [such as] bold statements about how these injections can stop spread and prevent infection in the injected individual though this has not been proven and there is real time evidence to the contrary. We have been largely kept from seeing all of the consequences that these injections have been clearly, though quietly, associated with including neurological damage, convulsions, illness, death, continued spread and contraction of the disease. According to [the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System] (VAERS), a passive and notoriously underutilized reporting system, there had been nearly 4,000 deaths and 11,000 hospitalizations through April 30. … Having this information as readily as being told everything is ‘safe and effective’ would and should weigh heavily into an individual’s own risk assessment during decision making.”

Laffay further described the healthy practices she engages in, and said, “It might make sense for me to decide to rely on my own immunity. … Maybe you are a patient who is immunocompromised for an uncontrollable reason and consequently unable to rely on your own immune system as readily. Your risk benefit ratio looks completely different than mine and you may choose to decide, knowing all of the facts, that an injection is less of a risk for your own situation than the illness and therefore choose the injection. As a patient, you have that right.”

Furthermore, Laffay said the U.S. Constitution and the Ohio Constitution were based on protecting the rights of individuals, rather than the rights of certain populations, and she noted that it is the duty of legislators to defend those documents.

Asked by Russo if the fear of vaccines contributed to the high number of VAERS reports, Laffay said the system is “vastly underutilized” and “very tedious” to use. She said her direct superior “had no idea it existed,” and a study conducted prior to 2021 found that less than 1 percent of all adverse vaccine reactions were reported.

Also testifying was infectious disease physician Sunil Bhat, who offered three arguments against public identification of vaccination status, first stating that, “there is no mandatory intervention placed on the citizenry in regards to the top causes of death — this includes diabetes, heart disease and influenza.” Bhat added that herd immunity can be achieved through both inoculation and recovery from the disease, and he voiced concerns with denying vaccinated status to individuals who are immune due to recovery from the disease.

Liston asked about the broader medical community opinions on vaccination, and Bhat said his colleagues have widely varying views. Liston cited many health care professional associations who are opposed to the bill, and Bhat cited the need for patient autonomy.

Russo said the bill would prohibit health care centers from mandating vaccinations for their employees, and Bhat said that health care workers in COVID-19 units are “50 percent less likely” to contract the disease because of extensive personal protective equipment.

In a follow-up about whether the vaccine provides better immunity against variants of the virus than natural immunity from recovery, Bhat said he hadn’t seen studies of reinfected patients, but the vaccinations have robust effects in protecting against variants.

Rep. Al Cutrona (R-Canfield) said he works in the medical field, and “about a third” of his patient intake is from nursing homes. He asked if there would be problems with a carve-out in the bill for health care workers, and Bhat cited privacy issues, adding that most medical workers want to be vaccinated.

The committee also heard from Erika Smith, an English language Ph.D., who voiced worries that unvaccinated individuals will be discriminated against, making comparisons to slavery and the Black civil rights movement.

Saying that she is the descendent of slaves, Smith stated, “Any student of history clearly sees the distinct parallels between segregation due to race and segregation due to vaccine status. Inherent in this discriminatory practice, is the understanding that what is happening with COVID, or whatever the next fear-driven narrative connected to illness is, will become the next battle for civil rights. Government sanctioned discrimination, based on skin color, is no different than government sanctioned discrimination based on vaccine status. The unvaccinated will become second-class citizens just like Blacks once were.”

Later Tuesday, groups opposed to the bill announced the formation of the Ohio Vaccine Coalition, which includes health care groups, business groups, education groups, hospitals and others.

In a news release, the group wrote that the bill’s preventing vaccine mandates would “destroy our current public health framework that prevents outbreaks of potentially lethal diseases .…” The group noted that the bill would apply to all vaccines, and it said the bill “has the potential to reverse decades of immunity from life-threatening, but vaccine-preventable diseases.” Concerns for businesses were also raised, noting that they would not be allowed to mandate vaccines for their employees.

“As current Ohio law allows for individuals to decline vaccinations for medical, religious, or reasons of conscience, known as the philosophical exemption, we question the need for HB248. This overly broad proposal would further strip away accountability and compassion for our fellow Ohioans, and cause severe disruption to our state’s health, economy and way of life,” the group wrote.

In addition, Russo and Liston released a joint statement criticizing the proponent testimony. Russo argued that it will hurt health care and deny businesses the freedom to only serve vaccinated individuals, writing, “In reality, this legislation is based on fear and misinformation and would hinder the ability of our hospitals and long-term care facilities to protect our most vulnerable citizens from contagious and deadly diseases.

Supporters call it a ‘medical freedom’ bill, but as written, this legislation denies the freedom of businesses and employers to protect their workers and customers from diseases we know can be primarily prevented with vaccines.”

Liston, a physician, meanwhile wrote, “This is a dangerous bill that will lead to death. Not only would it prevent schools, businesses and communities from putting safety measures in place related to COVID-19, it would impact the health of our children. This bill applies to all vaccines — polio, measles, meningitis, etc. If it becomes law, we will see worsening measles outbreaks, meningitis in the dorms, and children once again suffering from polio.”

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