A medical freedom advocate has described Washington state’s effort to change the definition of vaccine to allow novel injections into the state’s universal childhood vaccine purchase program as “another opportunity to enrich public health and pharmaceutical companies without liability or adequate product testing.”
The existing language that the product must be approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) remains the same.
The term “immunization” is not defined in the statute.
The bill’s purpose is to redefine vaccines, which would then allow for the Washington Vaccine Association (WVA) to purchase nirsevimab, a respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) monoclonal antibody injection, in bulk.
Nirsevimab is sold under the brand name Beyfortus. It was approved by the FDA in July 2023.
Lisa Templeton, with Informed Choice Washington—an organization advocating for medical freedom and vaccine transparency—told The Epoch Times via email that by changing the definition of vaccine, the WVA is opening the door to funding “new technologies, including monoclonal antibodies.”
Each year, Ms. Templeton said, the WVA determines its budget and then “uses those figures in conjunction with the vaccine product prices to determine assessments,” or “how much they will charge the private insurers per dose the following year.”
Vaccine Prices and Profits
According to the CDC pediatric vaccine price list, the discounted contract rate for nirsevimab is $395 per dose, which is 74 percent higher than the next most-expensive product, Abrysvo, a new version of the traditional RSV vaccine given to pregnant women.“Many of the routinely given pediatric products are under $50,” she said. “Only two besides nirsevimab are over $200.”
The DOH then distributes the products to the state health care providers at no cost to give to all their pediatric patients, she said.
“Even though DOH pays a little more to CDC than it received from WVA’s assessments, it receives other funds to make up the difference,” she said. “DOH receives only 47 percent of its vaccine purchase revenue from WVA. The other 53 percent comes from federal and state programs.”
The WVA keeps the amount it deems reasonable for administration costs, she said, adding that the organization’s administrative costs are approximately 2 percent.
The WVA predicts its budget will increase in 2025 and 2026, which includes payments to WVA administrators for travel, conferences, consultants, and hospitality, according to the meeting packet.
“They forecast the admin costs in 2024 will be $2.19 million and in 2026 $2.33 million,” she said.
In 2023, she said, administration costs were $2.08 million.
In addition, she said, the WVA expects to remit $129.6 million in 2025 to the DOH, a 53 percent increase over 2023.
“All of the above is made possible by virtue of the administration of millions of doses of pharmaceutical injections into children’s bodies,” Ms. Templeton said. ”Due to the 1986 National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act, all manufacturers and administrators of the products on the CDC-recommended pediatric schedule are shielded from liability for harms they cause.”
She added that, despite needing the change in language, the WVA has already begun funding nirsevimab in advance of the bill’s passage.
“WVA representatives have publicly stated that over 8,500 doses had already been administered before January 11, 2024, and that they had reserved $14.3 million for the product,” she said. “These activities violate the current statutory authority of the WVA.”
It also brings up the question of whether the WVA was outside its authority in funding the mRNA COVID-19 jab, considering that it didn’t meet the organization’s statutory definition of a vaccine, she said.
‘We’ve Been Lied to Before’
In a January hearing on the bill’s identical companion in the state House, Jim Morishima, legal counsel for the Health Care and Wellness Committee, said there are three sources of funding for the childhood vaccine program: federal funding under the Vaccines for Children program; funds administered by the state Health Care Authority; and assessments on health carriers and third-party administrators (TPAs).Funds from the health carriers and the TPAs are collected by the WVA, a public-private nonprofit corporation set up by the state in 2010 to purchase vaccines in bulk for the state Department of Health to distribute at no cost to providers for all their patients under age 19.
State House Rep. Paul Harris, a Republican sponsor of the bill, said Washington was one of two states—the other being New Hampshire—that has restrictive language preventing its Department of Health from purchasing the immunizations to use for children, but the bill would change that.
In December 2023, the White House announced that it would make available 230,000 doses of the monoclonal antibody manufactured jointly by AstraZeneca and Sanofi.
“This announcement comes on top of the 77,000 additional doses of Beyfortus that were released last month following the Administration’s continued efforts urging manufacturers to expedite availability,” the White House stated.
Many spoke in favor of the state bill at the January House hearing, heralding vaccines and immunizations as the mechanisms by which the human race has advanced, leaving behind disease.
Those who spoke against the bill questioned its intent.
Natalie Chavez, a concerned citizen who spoke during the hearing, said the bill is driven by lawmakers and the CDC’s eagerness to introduce nirsevimab into the childhood vaccine schedule, which means the drug will be injected into infants under 8 months old.
Though the legislation is being influenced by that one drug, changing the language “will open the floodgates to all future pediatric monoclonal antibodies and other new technologies,” Ms. Chavez said.
“We’ve been lied to before,” she added. “There are already numerous shots on the childhood vaccine schedule. The public is already very concerned about traditional vaccines because, after all, vibrant health does not come from taking an inadequately tested, liability-free pharmaceutical product.”
“Many of us fear that with financial stakes this high, the bodies of our little babies are given secondary consideration,” Ms. Chavez said.
Bob Runnells, a director of Informed Choice Washington, said in the hearing that the use of monoclonal antibody shots for infants “is unprecedented” and has no long-term studies.
‘Very Few’ Infants Die From RSV
Dr. Meryl Nass—an internal medicine physician who has faced censorship, as well as charges of spreading disinformation—gave a September 2023 presentation on RSV in infants for an episode of “Doctors & Scientists,” hosted by Children’s Health Defense.“By the age of 2, 97 percent of all babies have been infected with an RSV virus,” she said.
The infants then get partial immunity from the first virus, leaving the next episode to be less severe, she said, adding that “very few” infants die from RSV.
When trying to perform a risk-benefit assessment of how beneficial a vaccine is, one must examine how many people die from RSV.
“In 12 years there were only 1,001 death certificates that listed RSV on them in the entire United States,” she said. “So, that’s less than 100 people dying from an RSV-associated death per year, and of them, as I said, only 17 babies per year thought to be due to RSV, and of all of these 1,001, a little under half—468—actually died from RSV, so that is under 40 people per year in the United States, according to the gold standard, which is the death certificate.”
‘Significant Risks’
Brian Hooker, a biochemical engineer and senior director of science for Children’s Health Defense, began studying epidemiology and vaccine injuries after his son suffered serious adverse effects following vaccination in 1999 at 15 months old.Before his son’s injury, Mr. Hooker was like many others, he said, who recited the usual praises of vaccines as “safe and effective.”
“It’s what everybody says, but we are so poorly informed as to what the truth is,” he told The Epoch Times.
On nirsevimab, he said it’s just another unnecessary chemical to put in a child “with significant risks.”
“These things are processed with detergent, so you’re adding polysorbate 80 to the system, which pokes holes in the blood-brain barrier,” he said. “So, anything hidden in the circulatory system at the time, like aluminum or mercury from a vaccine, has a direct pathway to the brain.”
The drug also carries the risk of causing the disease it’s meant to prevent, with 31.8 percent of those injected having contracted RSV, Mr. Hooker said.
In testing, instead of saline, the placebo used was another antibody called Synagis with its own “side-effect profile,” which he described as “cheating.”
“You’re basically raising the floor in terms of acceptable adverse reactions,” Mr. Hooker explained. “The placebo control isn’t a real placebo.”
Children today are being injected with three times as many vaccinations as they were in 1983, NVIC states.
“Enough is enough,” Mr. Hooker said. “These kids are being bombarded with too many drugs and biologics.”
The proposed state law in Washington has passed both chambers of the Legislature and is expected to receive the governor’s signature. Its emergency clause will cause it to take effect immediately.
