Proof of routine childhood vaccinations would no longer be required before kids are enrolled in child care, under a bill being considered by New Hampshire lawmakers.
The bill, which passed the New Hampshire House last month, is one of several attempts lawmakers have made to roll back public health measures in recent years.
And yes, I know floating a bill isn't the same as passing one but JFC already.
Republican Rep. Ross Berry of Manchester, one of the sponsors, said the bill is about eliminating a “needless paperwork requirement” that he called burdensome for child care providers. Berry, who runs a child care center, disputed the idea that the bill removes the vaccination requirement itself, as opposed to just the reporting requirements.
But Chan and other officials with the Department of Health and Human Services disagreed. They said that, in their reading, the bill actually does get rid of vaccination requirements for child care enrollment – and even if it didn’t, they argued those requirements would be meaningless without any way of ensuring compliance.
The United Conservative Party's board is urging Premier Danielle Smith to reform COVID vaccine policy because the directors are worried about the safety of mRNA vaccines for kids, the party president says.
"We have serious concerns about them for children," Rob Smith, the UCP president, told CBC News in an interview Friday.
"I would say that the board of directors' position is that if parents are going to get their children vaccinated, they need to be very, very sure that they know what they're doing."
Asked what the change would look like in practice, Rob Smith said it would see AHS "doing a better job of sharing information about the vaccine that they are offering."
He wants AHS to disclose "the science behind the vaccine, and the potential repercussions," as well as the research and the testing methodology behind it.
He said the board has communicated its concerns to the premier, adding "we believe that there will be action coming from the government with respect to AHS's offerings of COVID vaccinations and the ages for which they're recommending."
The party president's comments come as a Calgary wing of the UCP prepares to host a gathering of medical speakers who claim COVID vaccines are dangerous and even deadly, hoping to use that event to help persuade UCP MLAs and Smith to ban mRNA COVID immunizations for children.
"What? What?What?" -- The 14th Doctor
It's not enough to be a good player... you also have to play well. -- Siegbert Tarrasch
Party of small government in North Carolina bans mask use in public for health reasons:
The North Carolina Senate voted along party lines Wednesday to ban anyone from wearing masks in public for health reasons, following an emotional debate about the wisdom of the proposal.
Republican supporters of the ban said it would help police crack down on protesters who wear masks — which some lawmakers called a growing concern, saying demonstrators are abusing Covid-19 pandemic-era norms to wear masks that hide their identities.
Kind of makes me want to get all sorts of airborne diseases and visit.
Coincidentally my son is looking to move there and because of that so is my wife.
Ugh..
I wonder how that would work for him as an EMT...
Smoove_B wrote: ↑Wed May 15, 2024 9:26 pm
Party of small government in North Carolina bans mask use in public for health reasons:
The North Carolina Senate voted along party lines Wednesday to ban anyone from wearing masks in public for health reasons, following an emotional debate about the wisdom of the proposal.
Republican supporters of the ban said it would help police crack down on protesters who wear masks — which some lawmakers called a growing concern, saying demonstrators are abusing Covid-19 pandemic-era norms to wear masks that hide their identities.
Isn't that a mask mandate? I thought they were against those.
They're still apparently committee "work-shopping" the law in NC - despite the suggestion that it's been indefinitely tabled. They probably didn't like the national attention they were getting and will just wait to slip it through when people are distracted by something else.
Word on the street is an Alderman from Chicago's 15th ward has proposed the same thing, using nearly the same language as the N.C. bill - to keep people safe from crime.
Buried in the April 2022 ruling that struck down the Biden administration’s mask mandate was a section that was unusual for a court decision.
The outcome itself was far from surprising. Places all over the country were dropping local mask requirements, and the judge hearing this case — a challenge to the federal mandate to mask on planes and other public transportation — was a conservative Trump appointee, U.S. District Judge Kathryn Kimball Mizelle for the Middle District of Florida. Mizelle ruled that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s mask requirement overstepped the agency’s legal authority.
What was eye-catching was her explanation of why. In her ruling, Mizelle wrote she had consulted the Corpus of Historical American English, an academic search engine that returns examples of how words and phrases are used in select historical texts. Mizelle searched “sanitation,” a crucial word in the 1944 statute that authorizes the CDC to issue disease-prevention rules, and found it generally was used to describe the act of making something clean. “Wearing a mask,” she wrote, “cleans nothing.”
Hmm...searching for historical use of key words for legal purposes?
Searching large linguistic databases is a relatively new approach to judicial analysis called legal corpus linguistics. Although it has gained in popularity over the last decade, it is barely discussed outside of an enthusiastic group of right-wing conservative legal scholars. Which raises the question: How did this niche concept wind up driving such a consequential decision in the country’s health policy?
How indeed.
Just weeks before she issued the ruling, Mizelle had discreetly attended an all-expenses-paid luxury trip from a conservative group whose primary mission is to persuade more federal judges to adopt the use of corpus linguistics. For five days, Mizelle and more than a dozen other federal judges listened to the leading proponents of corpus linguistics in the comfort of The Greenbrier, an ostentatious resort spread out over 11,000 acres of West Virginia hillside.
The newly formed group that picked up the tab, the Judicial Education Institute, received more than $1 million in startup funding from the billionaire libertarian Charles Koch’s network and DonorsTrust, a nonprofit that has funneled millions in anonymous donations to right-wing causes and has been dubbed “the dark money ATM of the conservative movement.”
Wait. So filters aren't used for sanitary purposes and clean nothing? Am I really reading that correctly? You filter blood, you aren't cleaning it? Kidneys, meh. When you filter your oil, you aren't cleaning it? As a proof of concept, she should remove the oil, air, and gas filter from her car and get back to me how clean her engine and it's related parts ends up once she's done this.
You have to understand that overwhelmingly the medical community right now is against masking - despite the knowledge that it helps reduce disease transmission in a clinical setting. Think back to before HIV/AIDS - seeing emergency medical techs put on gloves wasn't common. Apparently COVID-19 still wasn't bad enough and/or the feel/look of wearing a mask at work all day is too much.
But yes, the historical use of "sanitary" from a legal perspective was largely focused on cleanliness. I'm technically a licensed "Sanitarian", though the name was changed in the early 2000s to reflect a more modern approach to the field.
Still playing all of these filters in my head not used for cleaning, like filter in an aquarium or in a water tank or in a vacuum or... air purifier or...
YellowKing wrote:I can't express how much I freaking HATE North Carolina Republicans. They are pure evil.
I feel you there. Just substitute Texas Republicans. In my younger days I leaned Republican before I started paying attention because almost everyone I knew in rural Texas was Republican. I actually started coming around to the Democrats because of then governor Rick Perry. I hate the republican leadership in Texas; pure evil.
Originalism taken to extremes. Someone realized that a significant number of laws were written when America was 'still great', and figured that if they can get enough judges to interpret the law like it's 1950 again, it'll be like 1950 again.
I'm waiting for an article, but apparently the North Carolina legislature has reached some type of compromise on the anti-masking legislation that was proposed. It seems they're allowing people in an active disease state (i.e. you're communicable) to wear masks, but not allowing people to wear masks in public to protect themselves from being exposed. Additionally, they're apparently only allowing cloth or surgical masks - no N95s or half-face respirators.
There's also language requiring that you remove your mask at the request of law enforcement or by the owner or agent of public or private property.
Once again, party of small government.
My trip to the Outer Banks (again) this summer potentially just got more interesting.
