Vaccine wars continue to rage across the nation, as Kennedy Derangement Syndrome fuels irrational oppositional actions by state lawmakers. The latest iteration of this knee-jerk resistance is a bevy of Michigan bills proposed in retaliation for the recent Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) recommendation that parents make individual decisions about administering the hepatitis B vaccine series to infants. The bills’ sponsors claim they are “empowering parents,” but the converse is achieved.
Empowering Which Parents?
The bills pressure parents to vaccinate their infants based on state health department vaccine policies that differ from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommendations. Representative Phil Skaggs (D – East Grand Rapids) revealed the deceptive nature of the bills’ proponents’ slogan, “Empowering Parents, Protecting Communities,” when he stated that parents “have the right to know if they’re sending their student to a school where their family feels safe from contagious diseases.” The supposed parental empowerment is not about parental choice regarding vaccines, but about intimidatory school rules and vaccination rate surveys designed to coerce them into compliance in the name of empowering those who have already vaccinated their children.
This flies in the face of poll data on parental trust. US health agencies lost public trust during the COVID-19 pandemic, and parents have long favored their personal physicians over public bodies or national associations. Medical Economics reported that a multi-year study showed “professional medical organizations experienced a 26-point drop in public confidence between 2020 and 2022, with no significant rebound recorded by 2024.” The article concluded:
“Researchers say the findings should prompt a shift in how public health guidance is delivered. With federal institutions still grappling with reputational damage, trusted local figures — especially physicians — may be best positioned to lead communication around emerging health threats.”
Ironically, the recent ACIP decision does precisely that – it refers parents to their family physicians to decide whether to administer a three-shot series of hepatitis B vaccines to their newborns. Hepatitis is spread through blood and bodily fluids, and is not likely to be transmitted by schoolchildren like measles or flu.
Michigan Legislation of Intimidation
Yet Michigan has launched a series of bills that would require all schools to release immunization status reports on students (HB 5344); all child care centers to release similar reports (HB 5346); a “childhood immunization registry” (HB 5346); all parents to sign a form on their child’s vaccination status (HB 5347); a statewide registry and forms for students seeking an exemption (HB 5348 and 5349); local health officer reports (HB 5350); vaccination recommendations by the Michigan state advisory committee in lieu of the CDC (HB 5351 and 5352); insurance companies must still cover state immunization recommendations even if CDC does not (HB 5353); and expands authority to issue “standing orders: for mass drug roll-outs (HB 5354).
This is a fearsome array of measures to “empower parents” by empowering the state. Health and Human Services Secretary Kennedy and ACIP empowered parents to confer with the doctors they trust; this is a reactionary statist power grab of parental choice.
Isaac Newton’s Third Law of Motion holds that to every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. This obtains in politics as in physics, through the vaccine wars – Kennedy’s common sense fuels radical Orwellian countermeasures that intrude between parents and their healthcare providers through strongarming.
Conservatives Defend Liberties
Republican legislator Brad Paquette pushed back, stating, “We need to really work to rebuild trust in the medical community, and we need to support that, but then also support people that choose not to get certain vaccines for their children.” Sarah Radtke, from the Michigan Chapter of Children’s Health Defense, agreed, claiming the slate of bills will “shift control from parents and doctors to the state by forcing all parents into a one-size-fits-all bureaucratic pathway to claim exemption rights.”
George Orwell’s famous novel, 1984, envisioned a futuristic government that resembled these Michigan legislators. In the dystopian tale, official slogans include “Freedom is Slavery” and “Ignorance is Strength.” This concept of “doublethink” – the ability to hold two contradictory ideas in one’s mind simultaneously – is alive and thriving among Democratic Michigan legislators who tout signs reading “Empowering Parents, Protecting Communities,” while empowering the state and creating division in Michigan communities.
These bills clearly favor government compulsion above parental liberties. Fortunately, the Michigan House is majority Republican and likely to truly empower parents by defeating this frenzied phalanx of fearmongering lawfare.
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