4th NH Testimony on 2/16/23
Honorable Chairpersons, Members and Senators,
My name is Dr. Meryl Nass. I am testifying in favor of HB408.
Children in the Granite State who live in homes where there are foster children are required to have COVID vaccinations, although such experimental, unlicensed vaccines are not required for other New Hampshire children. Apart from the discriminatory nature of this requirement, it does not make sense.
This strange situation came about due to DHHS rulemaking,[1] which requires that homes caring for foster children have all children in the household vaccinated according to the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (or ACIP) recommendations.
The ACIP is a group of about a dozen vaccine scientists appointed by the CDC that is asked to sign off on CDC vaccine recommendations. The ACIP has issued recommendations for 26 vaccines,[2] and at least 15 different vaccines are recommended for healthy children.[3]
There are two groups of consumer products for which manufacturer liability is waived in the US. The first group includes vaccines that are recommended by ACIP for the childhood schedule, and the second group contains vaccines and drugs designated as “covered countermeasures,” which includes essentially all COVID vaccines.
All ACIP-recommended childhood vaccines have no liability attached. The ability to avoid product liability for their vaccines is a huge financial boon for the industry, and so great pressure has been applied to expand the vaccines recommended for the childhood schedule–because once on the childhood schedule, liability is removed for all adult and well as child recipients.
Thus the ACIP recommendations have become commercialized, and should never be adopted as is by the states. But in New Hampshire, they are–but only for the non-fostered children of foster parents. Please fix this anomaly by passing HB408.
[1] https://granitegrok.com/blog/2022/11/yes-virginia-there-is-a-covid-vax-mandate-for-children-in-nh
[2] https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/hcp/acip-recs/index.html
[3] https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/schedules/hcp/imz/child-adolescent.html