UPDATE: 10/26/2023 - HB 539 died on the Table, it failed to be picked up from the table in the House before session ended on 10/26/2023.
UPDATE: 3/22/2023 - HB 539 passed motion to lay on the table on 3/22/2023 by vote of 257 Yes, 123 No.
UPDATE: 3/1/2023 - HB 539 did not receive recommendation to pass by Executive Session on 3/16/2023, by vote of 10 Yes, 10 No.
UPDATE: 3/1/2023 - HB 539 has been scheduled for a hearing the Executive Session on Monday, 3/13/2023 at 9:30 am in the Legislative Office Building Room 205-207.
UPDATE: 2/9/2023 - HB 539 will be voted on in the Executive Session of the House Education Committee on 2/15/2023 at 9:00 am in the Legislative Office Building Room 205-207. No public testimony will be heard.
UPDATE: 1/31/2023 - HB 539 is scheduled for a hearing in the House Education Committee on Tuesday, 2/7/2023 at 1:45 pm in the Legislative Office Building (across the street from the State House), Room 205-207. Oral testimony can be given and written testimony can be submitted. On the NH legislative website, scroll down to the "MEETING RESOURCES" section and follow links to submit testimony. You will have to select the Committee and bill from the form.
HB 539 was introduced on 1/5/2023 and referred to the House Education Committee on 1/11/2023. This bill is sponsored by Representative Jim Kofalt.
HB 539 prohibits a public elementary or secondary school from conducting a vaccination clinic during school hours:
I. No public elementary or secondary school or chartered public school shall conduct a vaccination clinic at any time during school hours, or within 2 hours of the beginning or end of the school day.
II. A parent or guardian of the child shall accompany and be present with their child in order for a child to be immunized at a vaccination clinic held in a public elementary or secondary school or chartered public school outside of the hours specified in paragraph I.
This bill would take effect 60 days after its passage.
NVIC SUPPORTS HB 539 because it prohibits minor consent to vaccination during vaccination clinics in public elementary, secondary, and charter schools, as well as restricts the hours that a vaccination clinic may be conducted at these schools.
- NVIC does not support minor consent to vaccination without a parent or guardian present because vaccines are pharmaceutical products that carry a risk of injury and death. Minor children may not be aware of family and their own personal history of vaccine reactions or personal contraindications to relay to the health care practitioner administering the vaccine.
- As required under the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act, every time a healthcare provider administers a vaccine listed on the Vaccine Injury Table, they must provide a VIS (vaccine information statements) “to the legal representatives of any child or to any other individual to whom such provider intends to administer such vaccine." [42 U.S.C. §300aa-26(d)]. Minor consent to vaccination would be in violation of federal law because the requirement that the VIS is provided to the parent/legal guardian PRIOR to vaccination of a minor child.
- Children and adolescents are vulnerable to peer and authority-figure persuasion. Informed consent includes the full knowledge of the possible risks and benefits. Under the CDC's VIS FAQs, the VIS does NOT qualify as informed consent and is approximately a "10th grade reading level." Children do not have the same level of critical thinking skills and emotional skills required to make a well-informed vaccine benefit-risk decision as compared to an adult. There is scientific evidence that the physical, mental, and emotional development of children, including adolescents, varies and is often not sufficient to enable children to make well-reasoned decisions about risk taking involving their health and well-being. Without the parent or guardian's informed consent, a health care practitioner may not have access to both familial and individual history of the minor to effectively provide informed medical care and could feel entitled to coerce the minor into consenting to vaccination with the rationalization that they believe it is in the minor's "best interest."
|