Rep. Chip Roy Introduces Bill Demanding Natural Immunity information from HHS

Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) speaks at a news conference at the U.S. Capitol in Washington on Sept. 22, 2021. Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images

Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) introduced a bill Friday to force federal health agencies to provide more information on natural immunity against COVID-19.

The bill, called the Natural Immunity Transparency Act (pdf), demands Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Xavier Becerra to submit a report to Congress on natural immunity to COVID-19.

“The Biden administration and their public health ‘experts’ have made it abundantly clear that they will prioritize government power over personal freedom every time when it comes to COVID policy,” Roy said in a statement. “They are either unwilling to provide, or negligently not tracking, critical information to the American people on natural immunity acquired from a previous COVID infection while pushing unconstitutional and wrong-headed vaccine mandates with the power of government.”

The bill asks for the number of unvaccinated individuals who recovered from COVID-19, how many of them have died or been hospitalized from the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus that causes the disease, or how many got reinfected or spread the virus to other people.

It also asks for the number of deaths or hospitalizations of fully vaccinated people, and how many breakthrough cases there have been.

Last week, The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) acknowledged that it has no record of people who are naturally immune transmitting the CCP virus.

The Biden administration has issued a series of orders mandating COVID-19 vaccines on federal employees, military service members, health care workers, and employees in private sectors with 100 or more employees—the mandate on private businesses’ employees has been stayed by a federal appeals court.

No mandate recognizes the efficacy of natural immunity—antibodies acquired from infection with COVID-19. Having recovered from COVID-19 able to be used as a reason for medical exemption, with people still facing job termination if they’re not vaccinated.

The debate on whether natural immunity is better than vaccine immunity or not has been heating up.

Steven Templeton, an immunologist and an associate professor of Microbiology and Immunology at Indiana University, said natural immunity is “broader, generally more durable, and more specific to lung reinfection.”

There are several reasons for this, Templeton told EpochTV’s “American Thought Leaders” this week.

One is the route of infection. Natural immunity enables a local response—a tissue-specific immune response that a vaccine injected into somebody’s arm cannot necessarily replicate. It’s a reason why scientists have been trying to develop inhalable vaccines for respiratory viruses, such as a mist vaccine for flu.

According to Templeton, natural immunity also leaves an antigen reservoir, meaning there’s activity that could stimulate the immune system to develop a strong memory. He added that natural immunity can recognize all parts of the virus while most COVID-19 vaccines only stimulate immunity against the spike protein and that natural immunity stimulates stronger immune responses inside and outside of cells, which has not being seen in vaccine immunity.

The CDC and related authorities have continued to claim that the protection from vaccines is better and urge people to get vaccinated, whether they’ve recovered from COVID-19 or not.

In a science brief updated on Oct. 29, the CDC said fully vaccinated people have a low risk of subsequent infection for at least 6 months. “At this time, there is no FDA-authorized or approved test that providers or the public can use to reliably determine whether a person is protected from infection.”

The Epoch Times has contacted HHS and CDC for additional comment but did not receive a response.

Roy introduced the bill with Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.), with Reps. Scott Perry (R-Pa.), Matthew Rosendale (R-Mont.), Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.), Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.), Randy Weber (R-Texas), and Louie Gohmert (R-Texas) co-sponsoring the bill.