Spokane7
26°
Former Congressman Bill Sali has shown up at the House Health & Welfare Committee this morning to testify on SB 1335, the IRIS immunization reminder system bill. Sali is proposing amendments to the bill, which already passed the Senate. He’s contending that the bill - backed by the Idaho Medical Association, the Idaho Legislature’s Health Care Task Force and an array of Idaho medical groups - would actually make participation in the registry mandatory, not voluntary, though the sponsors specifically told the committee that it wouldn’t. The bill makes the immunization tracking system automatic unless parents opt out, rather than requiring them to opt in. “We’re going to be moving to a situation where immunization is still not mandatory, but the participation in the registry is mandatory,” Sali told the committee, which he once chaired when he served in the Legislature. “If you have a mandatory registry, and you require somebody to say I don’t have immunization for my child, at least potentially there’s a problem constitutionally with convicting yourself if the department does take that position that not having immunizations is child abuse or child neglect.”
Sali proposed extensive amendments to the bill - one of which would remove a notification to parents that IRIS participation is voluntary. The others would provide extensive notifications to parents at birth that they don’t have to immunize their children “if they reject on religious or other grounds,” and that they may object “because immunizations would endanger the life or the health of the child.” He added, “That mirrors language that already exists in the Idaho Code.”
Sali spoke out against child immunizations, saying, “I grew up in a time when childhood diseases were something you had as a child, and I had mumps and I had chicken pox and I had measles. I don’t spend any time worrying about whether I’m going to have those diseases. If a parent decides they want to have their child exposed and have that natural immunity that should never be held against them in any way.” Idaho currently ranks 50th among the states and the District of Columbia, trailed only by Montana, in its child-immunization rates.
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BobEly on March 19 at 8:03 a.m.
Bill Sali was an embarassment to Idaho when he was in Congress. Now, he’s just an embarassment to himself.