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