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12/01/2024 04:15 PM
Pennsylvania House of Representatives
https://www.legis.state.pa.us/cfdocs/Legis/CSM/showMemoPublic.cfm?chamber=H&SPick=20230&cosponId=38573
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House Co-Sponsorship Memoranda

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House of Representatives
Session of 2023 - 2024 Regular Session

MEMORANDUM

Posted: December 12, 2022 03:26 PM
From: Representative David H. Zimmerman
To: All House members
Subject: Immunization Freedom Act (Prior HB 958, 21/22)
 
In the near future, I plan to introduce the Immunization Freedom Act.

Recent events have placed vaccinations and disease outbreaks into the forefront of our public
policy discussions. Through my interactions with families, in my district and throughout the state,
the demands of doctors over the rights of parents and patients to receive necessary information
seems to be the driving cause behind the hesitation of some parents to vaccinate. Even those
families who seek to have their children fully immunized, but on an alternative schedule, which
varies even slightly from the Centers for Disease Control face irrational anger and scrutiny from
health care practitioners they are to trust with providing medical advice. No other area of medicine
excludes the parent/patient from the decision-making process like vaccinations do.

Other proposals have circulated for the last few years, but the overriding question the families need
answered is if the family is making progress toward full immunization, why are they being
financially and socially stigmatized for doing it? Why are health care practitioners firing patients
for even minor requests for alterations from the CDC vaccination schedule? My legislation helps
to remove some of the barriers that families who are moving forward on immunization schedules
face. Specifically, my legislation addresses the barriers of increased doctor office visits and co-pays
and a failure to appropriate bill for a nurse to provide the immunizations on the schedule
agreed to by the doctor and the family.

This legislation is the first step in allowing the families and the physicians to work together to craft
a vaccination schedule which recognizes the individual nature of every patient and the needs of
every family.

Please join me in co-sponsoring this legislation.

Previous cosponsors HB 958 (2021-2022): Kauffman, Maloney, Smith, Ryan, Cox, Keefer, James, Rowe and Wheeland
 




Introduced as HB568


Memo Updated: December 12, 2022 03:27 PM