Legislation Details:

UPDATE: 2/12/2024 - H 397 was referred to the Senate Health and Welfare Committee on 2/12/2024. Please contact these committee members and ask them to hold a hearing and vote in favor of H 397.

CONTACT LIST FOR  Senate Health and Welfare Committee

UPDATE: 2/9/2024 - H 397 passed the House 3rd reading by a vote of 56 Ayes, 11 Nays, 3 Absent, on 2/9/2024. 

UPDATE: 2/6/2024 - H 397 was read for a second time and filed for a House 3rd reading on 2/6/2024. 

UPDATE: 2/5/2024 - H 397 was recommended for passage in the House Health and Welfare Committee on 2/5/2024. 

UPDATE: 2/5/2024 - H 397 is scheduled for a hearing in the House Health and Welfare Committee on Monday 2/5/2024 at 9:00 AM in Room EW41. The agenda can be viewed here. Public testimony will be taken from the following link - https://legislature.idaho.gov/sessioninfo/2024/standingcommittees/hhea/#hcode-tab-style2testimony-registration-remote-in-person. 

H 397 was introduced on 1/16/2024 and referred to the House Health and Welfare Committee on 1/17/2024. The sponsor is Representative Magen Blanksma. 

H 397 changes the state vaccine tracking registry to an OPT-IN system. Idaho currently runs an OPT-OUT assumed consent system.

H 397 amends statute 39-4803 regarding the immunization registry to delete and add wording that would change the registry from an assumed consent system to a voluntary consent system:

39-4803 (2): "The name of a child and information relating to the immunization status of that child shall be collected and included in the registry unless if a parent, guardian or other person legally responsible for the care of the child chooses not to have the child included in the registry upon a specified written statement. Such statement may not be part of a general authorization or release. The registry shall contain the following information for each child for whom such statement is given"

39-4803 (3): "The department of health and welfare shall only disclose information relating to an individual child in the registry only to the following upon a specific request"

39-4803 (5): "All information contained in the registry or disclosed from it is confidential and may not be sold and may only be disclosed only as specifically authorized in this section. A person or entity to whom information is disclosed from the registry may not thereafter disclose it to others except in accordance with state and federal laws applicable to the use of protected health information. Any person who discloses or authorizes disclosure of any information contained in the registry, except as authorized in this section, is guilty of a misdemeanor and is liable for civil damages in the amount of one hundred dollars ($100) for each violation."

Upon passage, H 397 will be effective on and after July 1st, 2024.

NVIC SUPPORTS H 397 because it will prohibit the state from using confidential medical information that could be used to exploit or punish an individual who does not wish to take a certain vaccine. NVIC is opposed to all involuntary assumed consent vaccine tracking. Vaccination records are private health information that should be kept between an individual and their health care provider, not a source of information for the government or entity to use for their own means especially to force or harass an individual into taking a vaccine they don't want or need. An improvement on this bill would be to add penalties for entities that fail to adhere to this statute.

https://legislature.idaho.gov/sessioninfo/2024/legislation/H0397/ - text, status, and history of H 397