The bill, which was approved 12 to 1, requires that the doctor send the vaccination record in such cases to the child’s school, rather than to the parents, and seek compensation directly from the insurance company without involving the parents.
The idea for the legislation was born out of measles outbreaks in the United States last year, but council member Vincent C. Gray (D-Ward 7), who shepherded it to passage as chair of the health committee, said the hope of an imminent coronavirus vaccine gave the bill new urgency.
“One thing that we’ve learned from covid, for example, is that policymakers, lawmakers, need to make science-driven decisions about public-health policy,” Gray said at a breakfast for council members before the legislative meeting Tuesday.
To become law, the bill must pass a second vote of the council and then go to Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D) for her signature.
Council member Trayon White Sr. (D-Ward 8) voted against the legislation. White, who has a 12-year-old son, said he sees 11-year-olds as too young to make independent decisions about their medical care.
“Parents have a fundamental right to direct the upbringing, education and care of their children,” White said, before claiming that vaccines, which are generally safe, are a risk to children’s health. White cited the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program, which has been used by conspiracy theorists to argue that vaccines are dangerous.
“Medical professionals and schools should not be permitted to coerce impressionable minors into procedures capable of causing injury or death behind their parents’ back,” he said.
The bill as originally proposed by council member Mary M. Cheh (D-Ward 3) would have included children of any age. In revisions, the health committee limited it to children 11 and older.
The legislation adds vaccines to the list of medical services that youths in D.C. can access by law without their parents’ involvement, including substance abuse and mental health counseling and birth control prescriptions.
White also expressed concerns about a potential coronavirus vaccine last spring, when he responded to an Instagram comment from a person who raised the history of the notorious Tuskegee experiments, in which Black men with syphilis were left untreated so that doctors could compare their condition to men who were treated.
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