Rep. Wendi Stearman files three vaccine bills for the 2022 session
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OKLAHOMA CITY - Rep. Wendi Stearman, R-Collinsville, has authored three house bills for the 2022 session related to the COVID-19 vaccines.
HB 4321 would prohibit the Oklahoma State Department of Health, medical facilities and doctors from "bribing" parents to have their children vaccinated.
"No state or private entity should use financial incentives to push the use of an experimental therapeutic such as the COVID-19 vaccine on Oklahomans," Stearman said in a news release. "The choice of whether or not to vaccinate a child should be based solely on medical risk and benefit, not based on artificial financial benefit."
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Her second bill, HB 4322, would prevent the OSDH from using taxpayer dollars to advertise the COVID-19 vaccine.
"For the past year and a half, Oklahomans have been inundated by commercials and signs and mailers, paid with their own tax dollars, badgering them to get ‘vaccinated,’" she said in the release.
"These ‘vaccine’ campaigns are expensive and are not a productive use of state resources."
If passed, any violation of this by the State Department of Health would result in a reduction in the funding allocated for the salaries of those leading the OSDH.
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Stearman's third bill, HB4316, would protect parents or guardians of children and vulnerable adults from having vaccination status considered in the determination of fitness for custody.
"Vaccination status has no bearing on one’s ability to care for children, nor is it relevant to the safety and welfare of a child,” Stearman said in the release. “We have reports across the nation of vaccination status being used as a bludgeon to strip the natural rights of parents. Let us not allow Oklahoma to follow the path of other states in their disregard for the primary purpose of government, which is to protect the rights of citizens."
Thursday was the deadline to file bills for the 2022 second session which begins on Feb. 7.
This article originally appeared on Bartlesville Examiner-Enterprise: Rep. Wendi Stearman files three vaccine bills
