Chumley and the other state legislators promoting Vaccine Bills of Rights are just one piece in a large mosaic of vaccine paranoia that is playing out on the state level. In a separate but spiritually similar bill, 16 House Republicans in the Ohio Legislature are seeking to ban “discrimination,” as they called it, against unvaccinated people. And many of these lawmakers aren’t doing it on their own: During the pandemic and the rollout of the COVID vaccines, anti-vaccine activists have made other sorts of alarming progress in their project of bending state politics to their will.“To me, it’s a freedom issue.”
Meanwhile, AFLD’s founder, Dr. Simone Gold, was arrested after a video showed her entering the Capitol during the insurrection on January 6, and faces charges of entering a restricted building, violent entry and disorderly conduct. In a speech outside the White House early that day, she referred to the COVID vaccine as “an experimental biological agent deceptively named a vaccine,” the Intercept reported. The Intercept also reported that in an address at a COVID-denialist church in Tampa Bay, Florida early in January, she told the audience, “Always use the word ‘experiment’ when you talk about this. Always. The socialists win the language wars.” (America’s Frontline Doctors didn’t respond to a request for comment from VICE News prior to publication.) None of the legislation based on AFLD's Bill of Rights has passed so far, and resolutions wouldn’t necessarily be legally binding. It’s also—to put it lightly—unclear how any of these bills square with Jacobson v. Massachusetts, the landmark Supreme Court ruling that affirmed that states can require residents to be vaccinated, which quite clearly means that public employers can make a vaccine mandatory for their employees. And private employers likely can too: The Equal Employment Opportunities Commission confirmed in December that requiring a mandatory vaccine isn’t a violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act, though there still may be other reasons to give exemptions, including for religious beliefs or due to medical issues.
On a more granular level, AFLD’s model legislation also makes a number of other bizarre and misleading claims. It states that “no COVID vaccine is FDA-approved but some are authorized under a temporary Emergency Use Authorization as experimental (investigational) agents only.” While true, this would suggest to a layperson that the vaccines being given to the public don’t have a track record of safety; in fact, EUAs are weighed carefully before being granted in emergency situations. Respected independent public health bodies like Johns Hopkins have said they’re confident the current vaccines have “a very good safety profile” and that no safety steps were skipped before they were made available to the public. (The EUA, as an aside, also means that even the Pentagon cannot make the COVID vaccines mandatory. In at least one branch of the military, vaccine hesitancy seems high: A recent CNN report found that more than 40% of U.S. Marines have declined the shot.)It implies that the coronavirus is a far lesser threat than government overreach, and that “dangerous” or “rushed” vaccines against COVID are soon to be forced into the unwilling arms of the public—a prediction the anti-vaccine movement has been falsely making for years about other vaccines.
“I need help with members of the health committee, because we’re going to face a couple huge bills that are gonna matter,” he said on a Zoom call with HFO’s members. “We’re gonna face a couple bills that this group does not like. And I have to have energy to stop this vaccine shit that’s coming.” Despite those comments, Lipps was allowed to keep his position as chair of the committee. (Lipps also publicly shared when he got his first vaccination shot in late March, writing on Facebook, “I do not believe in mandatory vaccines in ANY situation and will fight for medical freedom and personal choice. Many of you that know me, are aware I have dealt with some personal health struggles and live with some pre-existing conditions. With that, and strong input from my family, I made the decision to get the COVID-19 vaccine.”)Newly passionate anti-vaccine, anti-lockdown politicians aren’t coming to this rhetoric all on their own. They’ve been goaded along by anti-vaccine groups, which are more focused than ever on wooing state politicians and local groups.
“As protests against DeWine’s orders started at the statehouse, the anti-vax groups joined and began to network with other fringe causes and their ranks grew,” Barry said. “I started to notice that a lot of people at the protests (including of course the anti-vaxxers) were hosting somewhat regular gatherings at Blystone Farm in Ohio to coordinate strategy.” And it’s not just Ohio. In September, Oklahoma State Representative Sean Roberts, the chair of the House of Representatives’ public health committee, invited two anti-vax doctors to speak at a hearing on the state response to the pandemic. The pair inveighed against mask-wearing and claimed people of color were at higher risk for COVID due to their melanin, both nonsensical claims. In October, Chris Kapenga, a Republican State Senator in Wisconsin, questioned the efficacy of masks and hospitalization numbers.In the same vein, both anti-vaccine groups and their allies in state government are promoting paranoia about vaccine passports. Texas Governor Greg Abbott and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis both recently signed executive orders against them, and several bullet points in AFDL's proposed Bill of Rights are clearly aimed at them.“When the pandemic hit, they became even more effective.”