Members of Congress are seeking to pass legislation enabling the federal government to track Americans’ vaccination status, infringing upon their privacy.
H.R. 550, the Immunization Infrastructure Modernization Act of 2021, is sponsored by Representative Ann Kuster (D-N.H.; 17-percent Freedom Index score) and cosponsored by 14 representatives. As The New American previously reported, the bill passed the House by a 294-130 vote on November 30, 2021.
The bill is currently pending in the Senate, having been sent to the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions.
If enacted, H.R. 550 would spend $400 million for “immunization system data modernization and expansion,” and to “[expand] CDC and [state and local] Public Health Department Capabilities.” Specifically, the bill would require the Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) to create national standards for vaccine database records — it authorizes the use of grants to pressure state and local officials to adopt these standards. Additionally, the bill requires that states make their databases accessible to the federal government, “non-governmental entities,” and “other persons.”
These state vaccine databases — called immunization information systems (IIS) — that the federal government would have access to and that would be expanded under H.R. 550, “remind patients when they are due for a recommended vaccine,” among other functions. The bill includes other provisions that empower the federal government and infringe upon Americans’ privacy, and it allows the HHS to use fascist-style public-private partnerships to implement the bill’s provisions.
H.R. 550 represents a serious erosion of medical privacy and yet another socialist, unconstitutional enlargement of federal power. First and foremost, the U.S. Constitution does not delegate any public health-related powers to the federal government. The only powers that Congress has are specifically enumerated in Article I, Section 8. Under the 10th Amendment, these powers are reserved to the states and the people.
The bill also opens the door to a federal vaccine database and, by extension, the coercion and punishment of those who do not abide by the government’s wishes. Although the bill’s sponsors and supporters claim that the bill has “guardrails” against government tracking, Biden’s own HHS secretary, Xavier Becerra, has claimed that it is “absolutely the government’s business” to know who has received the COVID shot.
As Dr. Ben Carson, a neurosurgeon and former Trump administration official, warned:
Governments have a tendency to grow, to infiltrate, and to control…. And this is a prime example of what government growth would do, having this database, first of all, subjecting people to the COVID [jab]. But it’ll secondarily be used for other things as well.
Additionally, Dr. Ron Paul, a former congressman, has noted that “The government could also use these records to deny care to people not following federal health care ‘recommendations,’” similar to how unvaccinated individuals are increasingly being discriminated against.
If the United States is to remain a free country and prevent further federal intrusion into Americans’ everyday lives, it is imperative that this growing tyranny be stopped right in its tracks. The U.S. Senate would be wise to reject H.R. 550 and any other bill that infringes upon medical privacy and expands federal power.
To urge your U.S. senators to reject the Immunization Infrastructure Modernization Act (H.R. 550), visit The John Birch Society’s legislative alert here.
