New Hampshire lawmakers rejected a bill that would have banned vaccine mandates in the state. The bill, HB 1811, specifically repealed “statutory immunization requirements for children.”
According to the legislation, vaccine mandates are an “overreach of governmental authority and are inherently coercive.”
“Mandating that individuals receive any medical intervention without their explicit and informed consent constitutes a violation of fundamental rights and the principles of liberty,” it reads. “Mandates dictating medical choices without consent are unjust and amount to tyranny.”
Instead of mandates, officials are to provide recommendations for vaccines, but are to be considered “only as advisory opinions of the department and shall not be used to deny services or access to any person in the state of New Hampshire.”
Lawmakers voted 192-155 to shoot down the bill, including 34 House Republicans.
Similar bills circulated in the New Hampshire House last year. One piece of legislation, House Bill 357, sought to limit “childhood immunization requirements” and “removes the authority of the commissioner of health and human services to adopt rules requiring immunization for additional childhood diseases.” Another bill, House Bill 679, stated that “no childhood immunization requirement shall require a vaccine that has not been shown in clinical trials to prevent transmission of any disease.”
Under New Hampshire state law, all children are to be vaccinated against “diphtheria, mumps, pertussis, poliomyelitis, rubella, rubeola, tetanus, varicella, Hepatitis B, and Haemophilus influenzae type B (Hib),” a public health code reads. Children cannot enroll in school or child care centers until there is record of their inoculations.
