The proposed “Immunization Freedom Act” would require doctors to let parents set their children’s immunization schedules. Pediatricians say it would interfere with their job and put kids at risk for getting potentially deadly infections. https://t.co/hhQs5fJjDb
— WITF news (@witfnews) May 14, 2021
Pennsylvania Capital Star wrote on May 5:
In a party line 15-10 vote, the House Health Committee approved the proposal, titled the “Immunization Freedom Act”, sponsored by Rep. David Zimmerman, R-Lancaster.
The bill would require doctors to continue to provide care to children as long as their parents consent to one vaccine a year. Such a rate would quickly fall behind CDC guidance, which suggests babies are inoculated against seven diseases, some requiring multiple booster shots, in their first 15 months alone.
Doctors who violate the law would be subject to “administrative penalties imposed before the health care practitioner’s Commonwealth licensing agency or board for unprofessional conduct,” according to the bill.
In a public memorandum dated February 25, 2021, Zimmerman wrote:
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.
On May 13, WITF reported that “The state’s hospital lobby, insurance lobby and pediatricians’ group all oppose the measure, and Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf’s office said Wolf ‘has concerns’ with the bill, a sign he could veto it.”