Testimony extends 2 hours on proposed bill to ban mRNA vaccines for 10 years

BOISE — Senate committee members heard arguments on a bill that would place a 10-year pause on administering mRNA vaccines in Idaho on Monday but did not take a vote.

Sen. Brandon Shippy, R-New Plymouth, brought the bill and presented it with a slate of out-of-state physicians, many of whom have been linked to anti-COVID vaccine groups or identified as spreading misinformation.

Shippy’s bill, SB 1036, calls for a pause on delivery of vaccines or any therapy that uses messenger RNA vaccine technology, which is used in two vaccines against COVID-19.

Shippy named the bill for Doug Cameron, a Hammett rancher who became paralyzed in 2021 following a severe blood clot. Cameron, in speaking in favor of the bill, told committee members Monday he received the Johnson & Johnson vaccine; this shot does not use mRNA technology and is no longer authorized for use in the U.S.

Senate Health and Welfare Committee Chairperson Julie VanOrden, R-Pingree, said the meeting was an “informational hearing,” because the sponsor had said the bill may require changes and was not ready for a vote. Committee members heard about two hours of testimony.

Washington County registered nurse Laura Demaray brought the bill to Shippy, the senator said Monday, and helped him schedule the slate of health care professionals to speak in favor of the bill at the meeting. Demaray also organized a presentation in December to a county board in Washington state with many of the same speakers to try and urge them away from using mRNA vaccines, the Tri-City Herald reported.

One of the presenters was Dr. Peter McCullough, a Dallas-based cardiologist who has testified before Congress regarding his concerns over the COVID-19 vaccines. McCullough was an author of a review of autopsy data regarding COVID-19 vaccines, but the article was later removed by a preprint server — which holds early-stage research papers prior to review — because “the study’s conclusions are not supported by the study methodology,” and indicated that the preprint had violated its screening criteria, according to an article by FactCheck.org.

The majority of people who spoke Monday supported the bill, but most people who signed in to submit testimony opposed it — 45 signed up to oppose the bill and 26 signed up in support.

The bill seeks to place a 10-year moratorium on the administration of “human gene therapy products,” which includes in the definition, “nucleic acids, such as plasmids and in vitro transcribed ribonucleic acid (RNA).”

The broad medical and scientific community does not consider mRNA vaccines a kind of gene therapy, according to Guy Palmer, the regents professor of pathology and infectious disease and senior director of global health at Washington State University.

“It’s conflating two different things,” Palmer told the Idaho Press regarding the bill.

Gene therapy uses a process of gene editing, which is the intentional effort to permanently change the gene of an individual, Palmer said in a phone interview. Gene editing can be used to treat disorders in which a single gene has a defect, such as cystic fibrosis and Huntington’s disease.

Gene therapy does come with some higher risks, Palmer said, but it’s usually tolerated in serious conditions where the disease may be worse than the potential side-effects.

The mRNA vaccines deliver what’s called messenger RNA to a cell, and the RNA teaches the cell to make a protein, which triggers an immune response inside the body.

“They don’t change your genes,” Palmer said. “It’s not just a low risk, it’s zero risk — mRNA vaccines cannot change your genetics.”

Many of the supporters of the bill who spoke Monday argued that the mRNA vaccines have not undergone long-term trials because the first commercially available doses were authorized for use under an emergency authorization. Dr. Christina Parks, of the anti-vaccination group the Children’s Health Defense, argued the technology needed at least 15 to 20 years of studies to demonstrate it doesn’t have long-term negative effects.

The mRNA technology has been around since around the 1970s, but a major breakthrough in providing it to humans without major side effects happened about 15 years ago, Palmer said.

The quick rollout of the Pfizer and Moderna mRNA vaccines was spurred by President Donald Trump’s Operation Warp Speed, which put resources toward accelerating development. The data in the final phase of trials was collected quickly because of the prevalence of COVID-19 at the time, Palmer said, and it didn’t take long to compare data with those who were exposed who had received the vaccine versus those who didn’t.

“This is actually the most-studied vaccine ever developed, contrary to what some people have said,” Palmer said, “just because of the way it was rolled out to millions of people and those individuals were tracked very carefully.”

Data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention showed that in 2021, those who are unvaccinated are five times more likely to contract COVID-19, 10 times more likely to be hospitalized and 11 times more likely to die of the illness.

Local physicians and emergency room providers spoke in opposition to the bill Monday, telling the stories of their patients who had very serious complications or died from COVID-19 before the availability of the vaccine.

“As a trauma nurse during the height of the pandemic, I lived day in and day out in an N95 mask,” Kyle Smith said. “I held the hands of patients struggling to breathe as fear crept into their eyes, as life slipped away from them, and their otherwise healthy lungs failed them.”

Preston resident Lori Petersen said she supported the bill because she developed myocarditis, which is inflammation to the heart muscle, after receiving the COVID-19 vaccine. The CDC has documented rare cases of myocarditis observed after COVID vaccines.

“I have lost everything I’ve ever worked for my entire adult life,” Petersen said.

A number of the doctors said they discuss risks and benefits of vaccines and it should be up to the patient to make the decision.

Dr. David Peterman, a pediatrician who formerly served as CEO of Primary Health Medical Group, said he had young patients who suffered major health issues after contracting COVID-19 before vaccines becoming available; the parents of those children were eager to have their children get vaccinated once they could, he said.

“It’s unconscionable not to allow parents to make the decisions for themselves and their children,” Peterman said.

The bill would also impact research in Idaho, one vaccine researcher said, and potential applications in vaccines for dairy cattle — for instance, a bird flu vaccine that is currently being researched.

The senators did not ask questions or discuss the bill after the two-hour hearing. It’s unclear if another version of the bill will come back later.