Lawmakers on Wednesday will consider a bill that would require death certificates to list a deceased person’s recent vaccinations, regardless of whether there is evidence the vaccine contributed to the death.
That data will be made public with at least some personal information redacted.
House Bill 1661 raises concerns about privacy rights and data integrity. This is because the bill does not require establishing a link between the death and the vaccine. And since lawmakers changed the state’s vaccine registry to opt-in and opt-out two years ago, those who have been vaccinated but choose not to register will not have their vaccinations recorded.
None of this deterred John Beaudoin Sr., a New England-based vaccine skeptic, and Rep. Jason Gerhard, a Northfield Republican, from commissioning the bill.
“If 20 children across New Hampshire died within three days of vaccination over a nine-month period, we would never know that with our current system,” Beaudoin said in an email Monday. Ta. “If five people died in five different hospitals in New Hampshire within a three-month period due to inadequate tetanus vaccination, we would never know that with our current system. This additional information will make it easier for researchers to determine whether the vaccine is safe, as no one died immediately after vaccination.”
Lawmakers sent HB 1661 to interim study this year with little debate. On Wednesday, the House Health, Human Services and Aging Affairs Committee is scheduled to vote on whether to recommend reintroduction in the next Congress.
The committee’s vote is non-binding, and lawmakers could revive the bill next year, but Gerhardt is not a member of the Legislature because he is leaving the Legislature to run for Merrimack County sheriff.
If this law is reinstated, its fate is difficult to fathom. Since the introduction of COVID-19 vaccines and vaccination mandates, lawmakers have voted not only to change how vaccines are recorded, but also to make it easier for parents to exempt their children from required vaccinations at school. It’s here.
At least two Democrats on House committees have indicated they will vote Wednesday against the recommendation to repass the bill.
Rep. Joe Shapiro, R-Keene, said Monday that he recognizes a number of problems with the bill, including privacy concerns and the burden the bill’s reporting requirements would place on the Department of Health and Human Services.
“I think it reiterates the outline of some kind of bill that assumes the dangers of vaccines and the malicious intent of the government and the health care system when it comes to vaccines,” Shapiro said. “And I don’t hold that view.”
Rep. Lucy Weber of Walpole shares those concerns, as well as others.
“Given the methodology, we do not believe the information collected under this bill has a useful purpose,” she said Monday. “Even if there is a relationship between a particular death and a particular vaccination, it doesn’t help us understand it. Just because something happened after something else does not help us understand it. It’s not that it happened because of him.”
During a hearing on the bill in January, Rep. Erica Rayon, R-Derry, told Gerhardt and Beaudoin that the bill would require death certificates to indicate whether someone has opted out of the state’s vaccine registry. I asked if they were willing to fix it.
Rayon, who arrived Monday night, said he was awaiting input from other members of the committee before deciding whether to recommend reintroducing the bill.
“This is a very complex issue,” she says. “If someone can give us some direction, we would be happy to listen to it just like we would any other bill.”
The current bill would require all vaccinations given within two years of death to be recorded on the death certificate. For children under 18, all immunizations must be recorded. The measure would require the ministry to make vaccine registries, which currently have limited access, available to thousands of people authorized to fill out death certificates.
The Department of Health and Human Services is required to report deaths four times a year in several categories, ranging from deaths reported within 24 hours after vaccination to deaths occurring one year after vaccination.
Another measure specifically raised privacy concerns.
The department must select four individuals or organizations not affiliated with government or the pharmaceutical industry to analyze death record data. Must sign an agreement to protect the privacy of the person named on the death certificate.
However, during a January legislative hearing, Beaudoin shared information from the Massachusetts death certificate, including first and last name, cause of death, and age. He said he used age and date of death to match the deaths to a database of adverse reactions after vaccination and concluded that the vaccine was linked to the deaths.
However, the Adverse Reports Database run by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that Mr. Beaudouin referenced contains unverified and uninvestigated reports. In at least three places, the CDC warns that “reports alone do not indicate whether the vaccine caused or contributed to the adverse event.”
“The purpose of this bill is to ensure that the public knows the correlation between vaccination and health outcomes, and the public needs and has a right to know that,” he told lawmakers at the time.
The department does not have information on how many people are opting out, so it remains unclear how the state’s new policy of recording vaccinations in the state vaccine registry will impact laws such as HB 1661. .
“Thus, while the number of people included in the registry continues to grow, the data does not provide context on the impact of the policy change,” public health spokeswoman Maddie Miller said in an email.
Individuals only need to opt-in to the registry once, at one location, such as a provider’s office. If you go to other locations, such as a pharmacy, you must opt in for each new location. Miller said the department has been working with immunization providers to review the new registration rules, including outlining what they should cover when explaining the registration rules.
