Dawn Richardson – November 6. 2020
On Oct. 7, 2020, during a hastily scheduled virtual meeting,1 four District of Columbia Council members making up the Health Committee2 amended and unanimously passed a minor consent bill, B23-0171.3
The bill would not only permit children aged 11 years and older to give consent for doctors and other vaccine administrators to give them vaccines without their parents’ knowledge or consent, but would also require insurance companies, vaccine administrators and schools to conceal from parents that the child has been vaccinated.
On Oct. 20, 2020,4 the entire DC Council voted in favor of the bill 12:15 on the first reading in yet another virtual online meeting6 with no public testimony. It was announced that the second reading, which will be the final vote, will take place on Nov. 10, 2020.7
NVIC issued an alert8 through the online NVIC Advocacy Portal when the bill had it’s first public hearing in June of 2019 advising opposition to the bill, which violated parental medical informed consent rights.
Testimony was taken,9 and NVIC submitted testimony against the bill.10
B23-0171 then sat for over a year untouched and unmoved.
In a revealing statement Vincent C. Gray (D-Ward 7), the chair of the DC Health Committee which passed the bill, explained why the bill was all suddenly being revived and pushed through so quickly.
Gray was quoted in The Washington Post as saying,
“the hope of an imminent coronavirus vaccine gave the bill new urgency.”11
Primary sponsor of this bill, DC Council Member Mary Cheh (D-Ward 3), emphasized that coronavirus vaccines were her the main reason why she wants to remove parents from the process of vaccinating children.
Advocating for passage of her bill, she stated:
And given our ongoing pandemic and the incredible work being done to develop a COVID-19 vaccine, it’s more important than ever I think that we reduce any and all barriers to these treatments and this legislation aims to do just that by increasing access to vaccines for minors who choose to get vaccinated but have not been unable to do so.12
If this bill passes, it is clear that minor children will be at risk of being pressured and coerced into getting a COVID-19 vaccine behind their parents’ back once it is available and added by the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) to the childhood vaccine schedule recommended by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC) .