DrJoseph Mercola - September 29, 2021 - Government Policies U.S. State Vaccine Legislation - 1,187 views - 0 Comments - 0 Likes - 0 Reviews
2021 has been a most extraordinary year, and the filing and passage of state-based vaccine legislation in response to the COVID-19 pandemic has proven to be historic as well. Even in spite of the sometimes divisive and hostile political climate, active citizen involvement in the legislative process to protect the human right to exercise informed consent to vaccination was the most successful it has ever been.
The nonprofit educational charity National Vaccine Information Center (NVIC) reports that during the 2021 legislative session, NVIC analyzed, tracked and issued positions on an unprecedented 473 vaccine related bills in 49 states through the NVIC Advocacy Portal. This was the highest number of bills in the history of NVIC’s advocacy program, which was established in 2010, and more than double the bills last year.
NVIC provides well-referenced, accurate information to the public about vaccine science, policy and law but does not make vaccine use recommendations. In 2010, NVIC launched the NVIC Advocacy Portal (NVICAP), a free online vaccine choice advocacy network, for the purpose of securing and defending informed consent protections in vaccine policies and laws.
Over the last 12 years, the NVIC Advocacy Program has analyzed, tracked and issued positions on close to 2,000 vaccine-related bills. NVICAP staff work alongside and share legislative information with many health freedom groups that support NVIC’s four-decade call for the protection of vaccine informed consent rights in America.
The NVIC Advocacy Portal team, including NVIC Advocacy state directors and aligned groups, work with families and enlightened health care professionals to educate legislators and protect vaccine informed consent rights. NVIC issues action alerts and sends them through email, posts them online and shares them through social media and our text alert program.
At the time this report was written, many states still have active vaccine-related bills filed in regular or special sessions; have bills prefiled for next legislative session or are in recess and will come back to work on bills; or have bills that carry over until next session, so it is especially important for everyone who uses the Portal to check in regularly.
Bills referenced in this report are published on the NVIC Advocacy Portal. Registered users can obtain a more detailed bill analysis, including current status, as well as NVIC’s position on the bill and recommended action.
Many bills published on the NVICAP also contain language that falls outside of NVIC’s mission, but analysis and positions published on the Portal are only focused sections of these bills that fall within NVIC’s mission.
Additionally, states and local regions both gained and lost rights this session from executive and local orders, but these orders were not tracked on the Portal attached to grassroots advocacy action items because they were not voted on, so there was no way for citizens to affect the outcome.
There are significant positive take-away points from the initial outcomes of the 2021 legislative session:
• Out of the 30 passed bills that contained COVID-19 related measures, 29 were bills that had positive elements that protected vaccine informed consent rights and only one restricted rights. No state legislatures passed bills with COVID-19 mandates. The only COVID-19 vaccine mandates enacted so far were created by state governors, state or local officials, or by private employers.
• So far, 20 states have passed some form of protective language from COVID-19 vaccine mandates or vaccine passports in some capacity. These states are: Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Arizona, Florida, Iowa, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Missouri, Montana, New Hampshire, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas and Utah. Specific protections are broken out in detail below.
• The 2021 legislative session featured 278 bills worthy of NVIC’s support, which is more than any legislative session since the launching of NVIC’s Advocacy Portal in 2010. This is up from only 18 good bills that NVIC supported in 2016.
This is the first year in which NVIC has supported more vaccine-related bills than we opposed, and the ratio of bills supported to bills opposed is more than 2-to-1. An impressive 29 positive bills supporting vaccine informed consent rights passed.
• Out of the 473 bills filed, NVIC supported 278 bills, opposed 130, and watched 65. Of the 65 bills being watched, there were 52 that included some positive elements.
• Out of the 55 vaccine-related bills that passed, NVIC supported 29 and opposed 14. Out of the 12 bills being watched, seven included some positive elements worthy of support.
The vaccine-related bills for the 2021 session that passed are broken out and described below by category.
NVIC Advocacy has categorized the 55 bills that passed so far in 2021 in the following categories:
COVID-19 |
Censorship |
Vaccine Exemptions and Mandates |
Informed Consent |
Minor Consent |
Vaccine Tracking |
Expanding Vaccine Administrators |
Unnecessary Bills |
Vetoed Bills |
Some bills may be included in multiple categories. The NVIC Advocacy Team provides referenced, accurate vaccine information and talking points for NVICAP users to background legislators. Some of the position statements NVIC posted on the Advocacy Portal in 2021 were listed as bills to “watch.”
Sometimes this is done because our analysis indicated that the bill was well-intentioned, but contained some problems needing amending before we could support. Sharing this information resulted in many positive changes to bills.