(MENAFN- EIN Presswire)
Screenshot of slide presented at WA State Board of Health Meeting
Informed Choice Washington (ICWA) logo
In a unanimous vote, the WA State Board of Health rejected a petition that would have prohibited them from mandating experimental products.
ICWA is dismayed and alarmed that the BOH believes their vote preserves an option for themselves and for future boards to be able to mandate experimental products on children.” — Bernadette Pajer
KIRKLAND, WA, UNITED STATES, January 14, 2022 /EINPresswire.com / -- The Washington State Board of Health (BOH) voted on Wednesday to deny Informed Choice Washington's (ICWA) petition request that they adopt a new, permanent rule prohibiting adding to the day care or school requirements any Emergency Use Authorized (EUA) product or any licensed product formulation which has not yet completed Phase 3 clinical trials.
EUA products, and products which have not completed long term Phase 3 clinical trials are experimental.
ICWA's Public Policy Director Bernadette Pajer said,“The petition should have been perceived by the board as an acknowledgement of existing laws and regulations. EUA and federal clinical trial regulations, as well as the Board of Health's own Criteria for Inclusion , do not allow for mandating such products. Instead of acknowledging that they did not have the authority to mandate experimental products and promising that they would not do so, board members said they wanted to preserve what they do not have, that is the option of mandating them.”
All WA BOH members are hand selected by the governor.
At the meeting, BOH member Dr. Pendergrass said,“I do not want to be in the setting where I am preventing some future event from occurring.” He also stated that historically, there is a precedent for mandating EUA shots because the polio vaccine was required for school in the 1950's just after the vaccines were developed. However, EUA's did not exist until 2004, when they were created under the Project BioShield Act (Public Law No. 108-276).
Additionally, the government rapidly halted rollout of the first polio vaccine because it led to more than 40,000 cases of polio, hundreds of children were paralyzed, and ten died. Later polio vaccines were found to be contaminated with simian virus (SV40), which may increase risk of certain types of cancer.
Pajer said,“ICWA is dismayed and alarmed that the BOH believes their vote preserves an option for themselves and for future boards to be able to mandate experimental products on children. They have never had such a right or authority and their vote changes nothing. Mandating such products violates federal protective regulations and human rights declarations. It is not for them, or for anyone other than parents, to decide whether to take the risk of any product, and this decision must be made free of coercion and undue influence.”
The meeting was held via Zoom and aired on TVW.org . More than 7,500 requests were made to give oral comment.
The BOH staff have not yet uploaded all of the written public comments submitted. The first batch contained more than 3,500 pages.
The BOH said the public may send their comments and concerns to .
Bernadette Pajer
Informed Choice WA
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