[House Hearing, 118 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]


                           BECAUSE I SAID SO:
                    EXAMINING THE SCIENCE AND IMPACT
                       OF COVID-19 VACCINE MANDATES

=======================================================================

                                HEARING

                               BEFORE THE

                   SELECT SUBCOMMITTEE ON THE CORONAVIRUS 
                                 PANDEMIC

                                 OF THE

               COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND ACCOUNTABILITY

                        HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                    ONE HUNDRED EIGHTEENTH CONGRESS

                             FIRST SESSION

                               __________

                             JULY 27, 2023

                               __________

                           Serial No. 118-56

                               __________

  Printed for the use of the Committee on Oversight and Accountability
  
 [GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT] 


                       Available on: govinfo.gov,
                         oversight.house.gov or
                             docs.house.gov
                             
                               __________

                                
                    U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE                    
53-025 PDF                  WASHINGTON : 2023                    
          
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------     
                            
               COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND ACCOUNTABILITY

                    JAMES COMER, Kentucky, Chairman

Jim Jordan, Ohio                     Jamie Raskin, Maryland, Ranking 
Mike Turner, Ohio                        Minority Member
Paul Gosar, Arizona                  Eleanor Holmes Norton, District of 
Virginia Foxx, North Carolina            Columbia
Glenn Grothman, Wisconsin            Stephen F. Lynch, Massachusetts
Gary Palmer, Alabama                 Gerald E. Connolly, Virginia
Clay Higgins, Louisiana              Raja Krishnamoorthi, Illinois
Pete Sessions, Texas                 Ro Khanna, California
Andy Biggs, Arizona                  Kweisi Mfume, Maryland
Nancy Mace, South Carolina           Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, New York
Jake LaTurner, Kansas                Katie Porter, California
Pat Fallon, Texas                    Cori Bush, Missouri
Byron Donalds, Florida               Jimmy Gomez, California
Kelly Armstrong, North Dakota        Shontel Brown, Ohio
Scott Perry, Pennsylvania            Melanie Stansbury, New Mexico
William Timmons, South Carolina      Robert Garcia, California
Tim Burchett, Tennessee              Maxwell Frost, Florida
Marjorie Taylor Greene, Georgia      Summer Lee, Pennsylvania
Lisa McClain, Michigan               Greg Casar, Texas
Lauren Boebert, Colorado             Jasmine Crockett, Texas
Russell Fry, South Carolina          Dan Goldman, New York
Anna Paulina Luna, Florida           Jared Moskowitz, Florida
Chuck Edwards, North Carolina        Vacancy
Nick Langworthy, New York
Eric Burlison, Missouri

                       Mark Marin, Staff Director
             Mitchell Benzine, Subcommittee Staff Director
                        Marie Policastro, Clerk

                      Contact Number: 202-225-5074

                Miles Lichtman, Minority Staff Director
                      Contact Number: 202-225-5051

            Select Subcommittee On The Coronavirus Pandemic

                     Brad Wenstrup, Ohio, Chairman
Nicole Malliotakis, New York         Raul Ruiz, California, Ranking 
Mariannette Miller-Meeks, Iowa           Minority Member
Debbie Lesko, Arizona                Debbie Dingell, Michigan
Michael Cloud, Texas                 Kweisi Mfume, Maryland
John Joyce, Pennsylvania             Deborah Ross, North Carolina
Marjorie Taylor Greene, Georgia      Robert Garcia, California
Ronny Jackson, Texas                 Ami Bera, California
Rich Mccormick, Georgia              Jill Tokuda, Hawaii
                         
                         
                         C  O  N  T  E  N  T  S

                              ----------                              
                                                                   Page

Hearing held on July 27, 2023....................................     1

                               Witnesses

                              ----------                              

Ms. Danielle Runyan, Senior Counsel, First Liberty
Oral Statement...................................................     6
Dr. Kevin Bardosh, Affiliate Assistant Professor, University of 
  Washington
Oral Statement...................................................     8
Ms. Allison Williams, Reporter, Fox Sports
Oral Statement...................................................    10
Dr. John Lynch, Associate Professor of Medicine and Allergy and 
  Infectious Diseases, University of Washington School of 
  Medicine
Oral Statement...................................................    12

Written opening statements and the written statements of the 
  witnesses are available on the U.S. House of Representatives 
  Document Repository at: docs.house.gov.

                           Index of Documents

                              ----------                              


  * Questions for the Record to: Dr. Lynch; submited by Rep. 
  Ruiz.

Documents are available at: docs.house.gov.

 
                           BECAUSE I SAID SO:
                    EXAMINING THE SCIENCE AND IMPACT
                      OF COVID-19 VACCINE MANDATES

                              ----------                              


                        Thursday, July 27, 2023

                        House of Representatives

               Committee on Oversight and Accountability

            Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic

                                           Washington, D.C.

    The Subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 2:21 p.m., in 
room 2154, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Brad R. Wenstrup 
Chairman of the Subcommittee) presiding.
    Present: Representatives Wenstrup, Malliotakis, Miller-
Meeks, Lesko, Cloud, Joyce, Greene, Jackson, McCormick, Ruiz, 
Raskin, Dingell, Ross, Garcia, and Tokuda.
    Dr. Wenstrup. Good afternoon. The Select Subcommittee on 
the Coronavirus Pandemic will come to order. I want to welcome 
everyone. Thank you for being here.
    Without objection, the Chair may declare a recess at any 
time, and it looks like we will need to go back to votes. After 
votes we will return, however.
    So, I now recognize myself for the purpose of making an 
opening statement.
    When the first COVID-19 vaccinations were administered in 
December 2020, it brought about a feeling of hope in a very 
dark and scary time for our country. There was a sense that 
this was a great opportunity to get the country back on track, 
and I shared this optimism. I had hoped the vaccine would allow 
our lives to return to normal or normal as we may know it.
    As a physician, I administered hundreds of COVID-19 
vaccinations in Ohio in the early months of 2021, received the 
vaccine myself. Unfortunately, the rollout of the COVID-19 
vaccine will be forever tarnished by the Administration's 
decision to remove the doctor from the doctor-patient or 
patient-doctor relationship and force COVID vaccines upon 
everyday Americans, the armed forces, and the Federal work 
force. Despite repeatedly promising that they would not, the 
Biden Administration decided to use the power of the executive 
to impose mandatory COVID-19 vaccination on tens of millions of 
Americans, a decision that tarnished trust in public health 
officials and for many, actually may have led to vaccine 
hesitancy, and we have heard that. Americans don't do well when 
we simply say, ``because I said so.'' Americans want to be 
educated, not indoctrinated. That is just who we are.
    Sadly, one of the most impacted sectors was our healthcare 
work force. It is impossible to overstate the horrible irony 
that the very same people who were heralded as heroes in 2020, 
were so quickly cast aside, contributing to a crisis level of 
shortages across the country when it comes to healthcare 
workers. And these were medically educated, compassionate, and 
medically concerned professionals. This was bad policy with a 
bad approach, but it wasn't just healthcare workers. Between 
the Administration's five major vaccine mandates and the 
private sector mandates that followed, it became a choice for 
many Americans: get vaccinated with or without medical 
consultation or lose your livelihood, something our witness, 
Ms. Williams, is all too familiar with.
    Many people had very reasonable concerns about whether the 
vaccine made the most sense for them. They asked questions like 
what if I have already had COVID? Will it affect my unborn 
baby? Am I at elevated risk of adverse effects? What are the 
long-term side effects? Many we couldn't answer. I would 
contend that the COVID-19 vaccine saved perhaps hundreds of 
thousands of lives, especially amongst the most vulnerable, and 
especially in the short-term for the most vulnerable.
    These discussions should have been between a patient and 
their doctor. But instead, the Biden Administration inserted 
itself and defiled the sacred relationship that we as Americans 
have always treasured between the doctor and the patient, who 
knows you, understands you. But there was no discussion with 
the doctor that you know and trust. The government was 
``because I said so,'' was supposed to be good enough. Hardly 
bedside manner. No discussion on side effects, who is at risk, 
treatment options, et cetera. Worse still, the vaccine did not 
prevent the spread of the virus, a fact already evident by the 
time the mandates were imposed.
    Actually, we know from the trials that even vaccinated 
patients could get COVID. No matter how much President Biden or 
others claimed or wish that the vaccine stopped the spread of 
the virus, the science didn't support it. And if the vaccine 
does not prevent you from getting sick, then what is the 
utility in forcing you to get vaccinated? That is a question 
many people asked. It is a legitimate question that they can 
have a conversation with their doctor. What are the pluses? 
What are the minuses? How great a risk am I?
    What the vaccines did do was significantly reduce the 
individual's chances of hospitalization or death. I think that 
is inarguable, and the trials showed that. Again, because it 
did not stop transmissions, this was a choice that should have 
been made between each person and their doctor. To me, one of 
the most tragic consequences of these mandates is the distrust 
that it sowed in vaccines more broadly. Vaccines that we have 
relied on for public health for decades are now in question 
because of the way this was handled, the messaging that went 
out.
    In his paper, ``The Unintended Consequences of COVID-19 
Vaccine Policy,'' our witness, Dr. Bardosh, argues that the 
government's aggressive and inflexible COVID-19 vaccine 
mandates are a case study in how not to uphold ethical norms 
and trust in institutions. And Dr. Bardosh, as I read through 
your paper, I see the comments from leaders around the world, 
not scientific leaders necessarily, not medical doctors, but 
from politicians, not one of them thought it would be a good 
idea to educate the people that they lead on what was going on 
with the vaccine, not one. Thank you for pointing that out, so 
this is important.
    Further, not only did these mandates damage Americans' 
trust in public health and in vaccines and cause people to lose 
their jobs, it also negatively affected our military. A good 
friend of mine, a physician no less, battling breast cancer, 
was unfairly harmed by the Department of Defense's vaccine 
mandate. Her oncologist advised against the vaccine for medical 
concerns. She was pro-vaccine, but her oncologist advised, hold 
off, stay as safe as you can. Her career was negatively 
affected as a result, putting it mildly. Because of the 
mandate, she sought a medical exemption to temporarily delay 
getting the COVID-19 vaccine until she finished with 
chemotherapy. This seems to be a perfectly reasonable request 
from her provider, but apparently the Navy didn't think so.
    And while the Review Board, after much legal wrangling, 
voted to retain her in the Navy, they also substantiated that 
she committed misconduct for refusing the vaccine, and that is 
on her record. That black mark on her record has likely 
hindered her from a well-deserved promotion. I know, I worked 
with her. She wanted to be vaccinated, she did all the right 
things, and she was still harmed by this mandate.
    Besides what may be right or wrong in this case, our 
military recruitment and retention has been negatively 
affected. It is harmful for our Nation. As someone who recently 
retired from the service, this is highly concerning. This 
hearing is an opportunity to conduct an after-action review of 
the COVID-19 vaccine mandates, and, as the Ranking Member has 
requested, help us prepare for future pandemics by evaluating 
the policies that have been put in place. So, I look forward to 
an on-topic discussion today, and I would now like to recognize 
Ranking Member Ruiz for the purpose of making an opening 
statement.
    Dr. Ruiz. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Just last week, the 
Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal 
Government held a hearing with a vocal vaccine skeptic, a known 
purveyor of medical misinformation, amplifying his dangerous 
views for all the world to see. And now here we are, 1 week 
later, holding a hearing with verbiage that continues to 
undermine confidence in lifesaving vaccines and call into 
question the science and policies behind the greatest tool we 
have in public health to protect against infectious diseases.
    So, let me just say this again. If you don't have 
contraindications, COVID-19 vaccines are safe. They are 
effective in reducing risk to getting the virus, therefore more 
will be prevented. It will prevent more people from getting the 
virus. It is also effective in reducing the risk of getting 
really sick and by dying from COVID-19. The COVID-19 vaccine 
saves lives. We know this to be true because 3 years ago, we 
were in the darkest days of this pandemic and without the tools 
we needed to overcome this deadly novel threat. We were able to 
close this chapter of the pandemic, thanks to the Biden 
Administration's leadership in implementing the largest and 
most successful vaccine administration program in history.
    These policies, including vaccine requirements for high-
risk healthcare workers, Federal workers, and our service 
members, allowed us to safely reunite loved ones, reopen 
schools, businesses, and workplaces, enhance our military 
readiness, and reach the end of the public health emergency, 
despite every effort QAnon and Republicans did to generate fear 
and undermine confidence in the vaccine, much like what we will 
most likely hear today in subtle or not subtle ways. So, at the 
end of the day, it was in large part thanks to lifesaving 
COVID-19 vaccines and the Biden Administration's efforts to 
increase supply, access, and uptake that we were able to 
prevent the loss of another 3.2 million American lives, keep 
another 18.5 million people out of the hospital, and save our 
economy over 1 trillion dollars in medical costs.
    We would not have been able to save lives or prevent severe 
illnesses and suffering without the policies in place that not 
only got vaccines out into the communities, into our most 
vulnerable, but also increased vaccination rates across the 
board to ensure a safe and responsible return to a more normal 
American life. So, these public health measures enacted in 
support and in consultation with public health experts, 
doctors, and scientists from the Federal all the way down to 
the local levels have been proven to reduce harm and save 
lives. They were based on science and public health principles, 
not new and not arbitrary.
    In fact, the American Medical Association, American College 
of Physicians, American Academy of Family Physicians, American 
Academy of Pediatricians, and dozens of other distinguished 
medical groups and leaders have gone on the record in support 
of temporary vaccine requirements under the context of, of 
course, a rapidly spreading, deadly virus for their role in 
pulling us through the darkest times of this pandemic, and 
preventing additional loss of life.
    I say all of this because, as a physician, it is important 
to me that we start this hearing off on the right foot and with 
the facts. It is important to me that we are accurate and when 
we discuss how and why these policies, which, by the way, have 
been deemed consistent with the First Amendment for over 100 
years, were developed, supported, and guided by scientists, 
healthcare providers, and medical experts. This is so important 
to me because the American people are watching what we do here 
today. And when we sit from our highest perch in Congress with 
the loudest of megaphones and purposefully and intentionally 
sow doubt and mistrust in lifesaving public health measures, 
the American people pay the price.
    We have seen what happens when we play with fire like this. 
The Brown School of Public Health, Brigham and Women's 
Hospital, the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, and 
Microsoft AI for Health found a growing distrust in vaccines 
has caused more than 300,000 additional preventable COVID-19 
deaths in the United States.
    What we say and how we say it matters. It can build 
confidence, or it can manufacture distrust to deleterious 
effect. We are seeing diseases that we previously had under 
control, like the chickenpox and measles, pop up again across 
the country, and we are seeing an overall decline in trust in 
vaccines throughout the country. According to the American 
Academy of Family Physicians, the rate of childhood for 
vaccination against measles, mumps, and rubella has decreased 
steadily since the 2019-2020 school year, leaving approximately 
250,000 children unprotected against these dangerous diseases. 
A peer-reviewed study published in JAMA Internal Medicine also 
found that the excess death rates from COVID-19 after the 
approval of COVID-19 vaccines was 43 percent higher among 
Republican voters compared to Democratic voters. There are 
polls that are showing that the higher hesitancy rate are 
within the white Republican male population versus any other 
group.
    So, the extreme messaging in manufacturing distrust has a 
higher deleterious effect for those who hear it. We cannot deny 
the role of misinformation in fueling this troubling trend. In 
order to best serve the American people, Democrats, 
Republicans, Independents, everyone, we must correct course and 
we must do it now. The way that we do that is not by holding 
hearings that wink and nod to extreme rhetoric that undermines 
confidence in vaccines. It is not by giving way to the anti-
vaccines bills that are moving through state legislatures all 
across the country.
    And the fact is, no, it is not by calling for a blind trust 
in science either. It is by putting people over politics. It is 
by making sure people have access to accurate and timely 
information about the thoroughly proven safety and 
effectiveness of vaccines. It is by building a strong public 
health work force that can help us get through the next 
pandemic and ensure previously eradicated threats don't come 
back. And it is by making sure that we, as Members of this 
body, do what we can to protect the public's health now and 
into the future. And with that, I yield back.
    Dr. Wenstrup. Thank you, Dr. Ruiz. Our witnesses today are 
Ms. Danielle Runyan. Ms. Runyan is currently senior counsel for 
First Liberty Institute and represents numerous servicemen and 
women harmed by the armed force's vaccine mandate. She also 
serves as a member of the U.S. Air Force, and we thank her for 
her service. Dr. Kevin Bardosh: Dr. Bardosh is a medical 
anthropologist with the University of Washington and the 
Edinburgh Medical School. He is actively researching the global 
impact of COVID-19 policies.
    Ms. Allison Williams: Ms. Williams has been a sports 
reporter since 2006. She worked for ESPN from 2011 until 2021 
when she was forcibly separated for not taking the COVID 
vaccine on both medical and religious grounds. She is currently 
a reporter for FOX Sports.
    And Dr. John Lynch: Dr. Lynch is an infectious disease 
physician and associate medical director at the Harborview 
Medical Center in Seattle, Washington. He is also a professor 
of medicine at the University of Washington.
    Pursuant to Committee on Oversight and Accountability Rule 
9(g), the witnesses will please stand and raise their right 
hands.
    Do you solemnly swear or affirm that the testimony that you 
are about to give is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing 
but the truth, so help you God?
    [A chorus of ayes.]
    Dr. Wenstrup. Please be seated and let the record show that 
the witnesses all answered in the affirmative. The Select 
Subcommittee certainly appreciates you all for being here 
today, and we look forward to your testimony.
    Let me remind the witnesses that we have read your written 
statements, and they will appear in full in the hearing record. 
Please limit your oral statements to 5 minutes. As a reminder, 
please press the button on the microphone in front of you so 
that it is on, and the Members can hear you. When you begin to 
speak, the light in front of you will turn green. After 4 
minutes, the light will turn yellow. When the red light comes 
on, your 5 minutes is expired, and we would ask that you please 
wrap up.
    Reminder that today's hearing is on vaccine policy.
    I now recognize Ms. Runyan to give an opening statement.

                      STATEMENT OF DANIELLE RUNYAN

                             SENIOR COUNSEL

                             FIRST LIBERTY

    Ms. Runyan. Members of the Select Subcommittee on the 
Coronavirus Pandemic, I am Danielle Runyan, senior counsel with 
First Liberty Institute, a nationwide legal organization 
dedicated to defending religious liberty for all. I am also an 
officer in the Air Force Reserve. The testimony I provide is in 
my capacity as counsel for First Liberty, and the views 
expressed are my own. Thank you for the invitation. It is an 
honor and a privilege.
    The COVID-19 pandemic brought some of the darkest days for 
Americans and their families, days I hope we never relive, but 
when another pandemic arises, we need to be prepared to do 
things better. Most importantly, we need to remember that in 
challenging and unprecedented times, we are Americans first, 
and no matter what, America is the land of the free and home of 
the brave. While those words are often said in proud moments 
when we talk about the goodness of the American spirit, it is 
imperative that the plain meaning of those words be honored and 
upheld, no matter what the circumstance. In the words of 
Justice Neil Gorsuch, ``If human nature and history teach us 
anything, it is that civil liberties face grave risks when 
governments proclaim indefinite states of emergency.''
    As the pandemic unfolded, we realized our rights as 
Americans were not being honored. Eighteen months into the 
pandemic and 8 months after vaccines first became available, 
the executive branch implemented coercive mandates aimed at 
removing hard-working citizens who chose to exercise their 
constitutional and statutory rights, from the work force. By 
striking fear into the heart of Americans, many were left 
puzzled. How did we go from incentivizing vaccination with free 
beer and sports tickets to threatening to punish Americans by 
taking away their livelihoods?
    But through the litigation efforts of concerned citizens, 
the Federal employee mandate, the Federal contractor mandate, 
and the OSHA Emergency Temporary Standard were quickly halted 
by Federal courts, but one mandate still remained: the 
military's COVID-19 vaccine mandate. Citing to the health and 
readiness as compelling reasons for requiring vaccination, the 
Department of Defense boldly promoted that coercive and 
punitive actions would be taken against those who refuse the 
vaccine.
    In fact, the chief of naval operations issued a policy that 
threatened religious objectors with the loss of their careers, 
potentially crippling debt and involuntary separation. It also 
provided that the Navy may seek recoupment of applicable 
bonuses, special and incentive pays, and the cost of training 
and education for servicemembers refusing the vaccine. For 
special operations personnel, such as SEALs, this meant that 
the Navy was threatening to force each of them to pay back over 
a million dollars. While those with religious objections did 
not fall into the category of a refuser, they were harshly 
treated as such.
    For this reason, First Liberty Institute proudly represents 
35 brave members of the Navy Special Warfare community to 
include 26 Navy SEALs, as well as a class of over 4,000 Navy 
service members. First Liberty also proudly represents nine 
distinguished Air Force officers. Each has a religious 
objection to the COVID-19 vaccines, and each was discriminated 
against in incomprehensible ways for the mere fact that they 
exercised their religious liberty rights.
    One Navy Surface Warfare officer who we proudly represent 
is Lieutenant Commander Select Levi Beard, who is here with me 
today in his personal capacity. He is a distinguished officer 
selected by the Navy in 2017 to attend postgraduate school and 
to fulfill the role as department head at sea for 3 years after 
graduation. As part of his selection, he accepted a retention 
bonus of $105,000 that was being dispersed over a period of 
years. But when he submitted his religious accommodation 
request, his entire world changed, leading to significant 
anxiety and depression with PTSD-like symptoms that are 
documented in his record. Simply because Levi exercised his 
religious liberty rights, he was consistently harassed by 
leadership, repeatedly counseled on his accommodation request, 
was issued a report of misconduct, and was ultimately faced 
with the prospect of involuntary separation.
    Levi had an excellent record of service but was being 
targeted for adhering to his sincerely held religious beliefs. 
To make matters worse, Levi was unable to become a department 
head as he originally had planned. Because the Navy prevented 
him from satisfying the commitment he made in 2017, he was now 
facing the Navy's recoupment and repayment policy. This means 
that the hundreds of thousands of dollars the Navy spent on 
educating him were required to be repaid, and the recoupment 
process began when Levi did not receive his 2022 installment of 
bonus pay.
    But Levi wasn't the only one suffering this harm. The 
coercion and punishment First Liberty's clients experienced 
range from being kept from receiving traumatic brain injury 
treatment, to being unable to promote, to being forced to live 
in deplorable conditions with showers overflowing with sewage, 
and being grounded from flying, as pilots with medical 
exemptions were allowed a full return to their duties.
    While we are thankful that the NDAA required the DOD to 
rescind its vaccination requirement, unfortunately, the harm 
continues. Those who sought a religious accommodation are now 1 
to 3 years behind their peers as a result of being removed from 
their duties. For this reason, many will be unable to promote 
and are faced with the future prospect of losing their careers. 
Considering over 19,000 service members remained unvaccinated 
as of October 2022, this means we could lose millions in 
already spent training costs and hundreds of thousands of years 
of invaluable institutional knowledge. At a time when young 
Americans have no desire to join the military and those serving 
are telling their children to not join the military, we should 
consider this a significant national security crisis. Thank 
you.
    Dr. Wenstrup. I now recognize Dr. Bardosh for 5 minutes.

                       STATEMENT OF KEVIN BARDOSH

                     AFFILIATE ASSISTANT PROFESSOR

                        UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON

    Dr. Bardosh. Wonderful. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Members 
of the Committee. I have published, as the lead author, two 
widely read academic papers on COVID-19 vaccine mandate 
policies, and I have several more actually in the analysis 
phase. The two published papers are submitted as part of my 
testimony today, and I urge Members to read them. No. 1, ``The 
Unintended Consequences of Covid-19 Vaccine Policy: Why 
Mandates, Passports, and Restrictions May Cause More Harm Than 
Good.'' And No. 2, ``COVID-19 Vaccine Boosters for Young 
Adults: A Risk Benefit Assessment and Ethical Analysis of 
Mandate Policies At Universities.'' The first one is published 
in the British Medical Journal Global Health, and the second 
one is in the Journal of Medical Ethics.
    In the first paper, written in late 2021, I and a group of 
scholars from Johns Hopkins, Oxford, Harvard, and elsewhere 
outlined a set of 12 reasons why the coercive approach to COVID 
vaccination policy, which was done worldwide, not just here in 
the United States, would ultimately be both counterproductive 
and damaging to public health and to society. We base these 
ideas on the existing academic literature at the time with 
nearly 150 citations.
    We divided these 12 reasons into four categories: No. 1, 
behavioral psychology. We drew on theories of reactance and 
entrenchment, cognitive dissidence, stigma and scapegoating, 
which was widespread worldwide, and the nature of trust and 
distrust. The second category outlined the damage to politics 
and law. We outlined the erosion of civil liberties, the 
increase in social polarization, and disunity in global 
governance. The third category discussed issues of 
socioeconomics, how these mandates would increase disparities 
and inequalities, how they would reduce health system capacity 
and, importantly, how they would exclude people from work and 
social life, and ultimately, be damaging to what is called the 
social determinants of health. The fourth category we called 
the integrity of science in public health, and we discussed how 
mandates, by their nature, as a hammer, are actually eroding 
key principles of public health ethics and trust in regulatory 
vaccine oversight.
    I would like to quote directly from our abstract, ``Our 
analysis strongly suggests that mandatory COVID-19 vaccine 
policies have had damaging effects on public trust, vaccine 
confidence, political polarization, human rights, inequities, 
and social well-being.'' We questioned the effectiveness and 
consequences, of course, of vaccine policy in pandemic 
response, and urged the public health community and 
policymakers to return to non-discriminatory, trust-based 
public health approaches.
    We started the results section of this paper with what is 
kind of a shocking statement, actually, when you think about 
it: ``Although studies suggest that current COVID policies are 
likely to increase population vaccination rates to some degree, 
gains were largest in those under 30 years old, a very low-risk 
group, and in countries with below average uptake.'' So, the 
totality of actual data on increases in vaccination rates from 
mandates and passports does not suggest an overwhelmingly 
positive impact. For example, a recent study on indoor vaccine 
passports found no significant impact on COVID-19 vaccine 
uptake, cases, or deaths across all nine U.S. cities that 
implemented this policy.
    Now, the second paper focused on booster mandates at 
American universities for American university students. Let me 
digress for a moment. We received a lot of emails from people 
after the first paper, including concerned students and their 
parents. At first, I was reluctant to write the second paper. 
This work was completely voluntary. It was all free time. I 
have three kids, I am a busy person, and I was even skeptical 
of the findings which we relied on. We based our assumptions on 
publicly available data from CDC and the Pfizer trials. I 
thought, surely the CDC and other professional bodies, people 
who are paid to do this kind of work, have crunched the 
numbers, the adults are in the room. But what I have seen 
during the whole pandemic is a stifling of free academic debate 
in our institutions of higher education, a lack of transparency 
from our government, and our CDC, and a worrying groupthink in 
the liberal class itself. And I am part of this class, and I 
have witnessed this alarming firsthand, and it has been 
difficult. I was surprised also to see how widespread vaccine 
mandates were at universities in North America. While they 
didn't happen in Europe, for the most part, surely, COVID is 
the same in Europe as it is here in North America.
    In our paper, we combined empirical risk benefit assessment 
and what is called ethical analysis. So, we estimated that to 
prevent one COVID hospitalization over a 6-month period between 
31,000 and 42,000 young adults aged 18 to 29, would have to 
receive a third mRNA vaccine. But this would mean that for each 
hospitalization prevented with this booster, at least 18.5 
serious adverse events from mRNA vaccines would occur, 
including one to five booster-associated myopericarditis cases 
in males, which typically require some degree of 
hospitalization.
    Now, our ethical analysis argued that university booster 
mandates are unethical for five reasons. No. 1, they are not 
based on the science. They are not based on an updated Omicron 
era stratified risk-benefit assessment for this age group. 
Let's make policy considering age groups. No. 2, it may result 
in a net harm to healthy young adults. No. 3, the policy was 
not proportionate. Expected harms do not outweigh the public 
health benefits given the modest and transient effectiveness of 
vaccines against transmission. Fourth, they violate something 
called the reciprocity principle in medical ethics because 
serious vaccine-related harms are not reliably compensated for 
due to gaps in American vaccine injury schemes. And finally, it 
may result in what is called social harms, students losing out 
in their educational opportunities for those who do not comply.
    Now, very quickly, let me just end with a personal opinion. 
May I remind everyone here about the higher law, inspired by 
God, on which this country defines liberty. We consider a 
deprivation of bodily autonomy to be fundamentally humiliating 
and associated with a form of mental and physical enslavement. 
Inherent to human nature is the desire to have self-
determination over one's own body and mind.
    Notice that many Americans chose to suffer the deprivations 
of losing their material income rather than to be subjected to 
the humiliations of a forced medical treatment that would have 
denied their own medical privacy, physical agency, and 
psychological freedom. The shock and dismay citizens of this 
country have expressed over these coercive mandate measures 
makes the situation clear for anybody willing to pay attention, 
that they are an affront to the God given order of freedom on 
which American liberty is based. Never mind that they are 
scientifically inconsistent and illogical, the mandates are an 
insult to our American foundation of freedom, and I hope we 
never are reduced to such humiliations again in the future or 
we risk demoralizing an already demoralized people further. 
Thank you.
    Dr. Wenstrup. Thank you. I now recognize Ms. Williams to 
give an opening statement.

                     STATEMENT OF ALLISON WILLIAMS

                                REPORTER

                               FOX SPORTS

    Ms. Williams. Good afternoon, Chairman Wenstrup and Members 
of this Subcommittee. Thank you for the opportunity to testify 
today regarding my experience with the COVID-19 vaccine 
mandates imposed by employers under the influence of the 
Federal Government and the harm they cause to individuals and 
families across the country. Today, I will share my personal 
story and experience, but I do so fully aware that my ordeal is 
not unique. I only hope to carry the message of countless 
Americans whose lives were turned upside down and whose rights 
were trampled on in the name of public safety.
    For a decade, from 2011 to 2021, I lived out my 
professional dream working for ESPN as a reporter and host, 
primarily covering college football and basketball. I was a 
dedicated and valued employee. In fact, I worked nearly every 
weekend of the 2020 football season, which was the height of 
the COVID pandemic before a vaccine was available, traveling to 
games and reporting in a safe and effective manner. As the 
vaccine for COVID-19 became available, ESPN and its parent 
company, The Walt Disney Company, encouraged employees to be 
vaccinated, while their position in support of the vaccines was 
evident.
    On April 1, 2021, Disney sent an email to all employees 
stating that, ``Getting the vaccine is a personal decision for 
each of us.'' That position would prove temporary. A few months 
later, I received a notice from ESPN that effective August 1, 
2021, a COVID vaccine would be required to attend all remote 
events. This includes all games and remote studio shows. There 
would be absolutely no exemptions to this rule. Shortly 
thereafter, Disney extended this mandate to all employees, 
regardless of travel, unless a religious or medical 
accommodation was approved. While this mandate was not entirely 
a surprise, the reality was still hard to fathom and incredibly 
difficult to process.
    As a consequence of this mandate, for the first time in 14 
years, I would not be reporting from the sidelines of college 
football in the fall of 2021. Regardless, I retained hope that 
I could still remain an employee at ESPN and work in my 
capacity as a studio host. This hope hinged on receiving an 
accommodation on either medical or religious grounds. Also 
during this time, my husband and I were working with fertility 
specialists in the hopes of having a second child, an already 
stressful and emotional period, exacerbated by the impending 
uncertainty of my job status.
    I contacted my doctor in July and shared with him my 
concerns regarding the vaccine and my employer's demand I 
receive it to continue working. Given my good health and our 
current calendar for conception, he supported my decision to 
forego the vaccine. He agreed to provide the necessary 
documentation to apply for medical accommodation. I notified my 
reporting manager I would be doing so, and we began the process 
through human resources and legal counsel for ESPN. 
Unfortunately, in my follow-up correspondence with my doctor's 
physician assistant, I was notified due to the large number of 
medical exemption requests received, they were having a clinic-
wide meeting to discuss how best to handle them.
    After said meeting, I was informed that as a clinic, they 
would not be providing any medical exemptions for any patients. 
Instead, I was referred to the American College of Obstetrics 
and Gynecology and the CDC websites, despite my doctor's 
acknowledgement that this medical intervention was unnecessary 
for me as an individual. A blanket approach was taken for all 
patients disregarding our specific needs and risks. I 
subsequently notified ESPN that I would be modifying from a 
medical to a religious accommodation request. I had a valid and 
sincere opposition to this injection in regard to my scheduled 
IVF transfer. I also have valid and sincere religious 
objections to the COVID-19 vaccine.
    The extent and basis of my beliefs were questioned, and 
they were discussed at length with human resources 
representatives from ESPN. The sincerity of my religious 
beliefs was acknowledged, but it was determined I cannot 
continue to be employed without creating an undue burden upon 
the company. I was given 1 week to comply and get the injection 
or be separated from the company. I did not receive the vaccine 
as my beliefs did not change in that week and, therefore, was 
terminated as an employee with ESPN in October 2021. And just 
like that, newly pregnant, I was stripped of my job, my health 
insurance, and having my personal and medical decisions the 
topic of national news.
    It is hard to explain what it is like to have so much taken 
from you for doing what you know in your heart and your mind to 
be the right thing for you and your family. The financial toll 
it took on me and my family and so many like ours was 
significant, and it is still enduring. The lost wages and 
sacrifices made by families like mine, who stood up to the 
overreaching unjustified mandates to preserve their autonomy 
and health can never be fully recovered. But the impact wasn't 
just on our livelihoods. It was on our lives. We were bullied, 
vilified, slandered, and ostracized. Nights were sleepless, 
days consumed by doubt and worry. Thankfully, my resolve 
strengthened with constant prayer, faith in God, and the 
support of loved ones.
    As I, like so many others, tried to come to terms with my 
new reality and reconsider how to provide for my family, our 
own elected government officials shamed us. Anyone who didn't 
obediently follow orders to get in line and roll up their 
sleeves was portrayed as an enemy and a threat, no regard given 
to natural immunity, personal convictions, religious beliefs, 
or individual health, all valid reasons for declining this 
injection. If you were unvaccinated, you were part of the 
problem.
    And that is why today I hope to be part of the solution, to 
make sure this type of tyranny never happens again in this 
great country, that we acknowledge the misguided directives and 
unnecessary harms done to countless Americans, harms caused not 
by the virus, but by the response. If we are truly the land of 
the free, the one thing that should be mandated is that we will 
never trample the civil liberties and bodily autonomy of our 
citizens again. Thank you.
    Dr. Wenstrup. I now recognize Dr. Lynch for 5 minutes of 
questions.

                           (MINORITY WITNESS)

                        STATEMENT OF JOHN LYNCH

                  ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR OF MEDICINE AND

                    ALLERGY AND INFECTIOUS DISEASES

              UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON SCHOOL OF MEDICINE

    Dr. Lynch. Good afternoon. Chairman Wenstrup, Ranking 
Member Ruiz, Subcommittee Members, thank you for holding 
today's hearing and inviting me to testify. As an infectious 
disease physician, I have cared for many patients with serious 
illnesses due to COVID-19, worked on programs and protocols to 
prevent COVID-19 transmission to healthcare settings, and seen 
firsthand the extraordinarily positive impact of COVID-19 
vaccines. I greatly appreciate your commitment to hearing from 
physicians like me, who have been on the frontlines of this 
pandemic.
    COVID-19 vaccines provide significant protection against 
severe disease, hospitalization, and death. The bivalent 
boosters increased that protection.
    Vaccination appears to reduce the risk of developing long 
COVID, hybrid immunity. The combination of vaccine-induced 
immunity with post-infection-induced immunity appears to 
provide the greatest protection. COVID-19 vaccines are safe. 
The data backs that up. CDC has conducted extensive monitoring 
of adverse events and continues to find that the risks 
associated with COVID-19 infection are far greater than the 
risks associated with COVID-19 vaccination. COVID-19 
vaccination has tremendous societal benefits, preserving health 
system's capacity, protecting healthcare workers from burnout, 
and facilitating a return to normalcy.
    As COVID-19 vaccines became available, the Federal 
Government instituted vaccine requirements for certain 
populations, including healthcare personnel like myself. 
Requirements have long been in place for other vaccines. In 
fact, in 1905, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld compulsory 
smallpox inoculations. Seasonal influenza vaccine requirements 
for healthcare personnel have been in place for several years. 
Influenza vaccines help ensure healthcare personnel remain 
healthy to perform our essential jobs and to help prevent 
transmission of influenza to patients.
    In hospitals with requirements like my own, including 
vaccination requirement, coverage rates of healthcare personnel 
have consistently been greater than 95 percent. States' school 
entry requirements for vaccines against diseases such as 
measles or pertussis are effective in improving vaccination 
coverage among schoolchildren and have greatly reduced disease 
outbreaks in the United States, keeping us all safer.
    When COVID-19 vaccines were first made available, there 
were compelling reasons to boost vaccination rates quickly, 
which caused many healthcare professional societies to support 
vaccination requirements, particularly for healthcare workers. 
COVID-19 vaccines were a strong tool in preventing transmission 
because prior to the Delta variant, the vaccines offered 
powerful protection against infection. Reducing transmission 
could limit the development of dangerous variants, ease 
pressures on healthcare facilities, and save lives. 
Importantly, most of the population at that time did not have 
any immunity to COVID-19. We were all vulnerable. Much of what 
we know now about the virus and the disease was unknown at that 
time.
    When COVID-19 vaccines became available, my health system 
sought guidance from physicians and scientists, including 
myself, about potential vaccination policies for our health 
systems employees. We worked to ensure that any employee 
providing direct patient care be vaccinated in order to 
preserve our work force and prevent COVID-19 transmission to 
patients. So, our healthcare system decided to require the 
COVID-19 vaccine as a condition of employment.
    There are reports that COVID-19 vaccination mandates for 
various groups have led to high levels of compliance and 
boosted COVID-19 vaccine uptake. Among U.S. adults vaccinated 
from June to September 2021, 35 percent reported that a major 
reason they got vaccinated was to participate in recreational 
activities that required vaccination and 19 percent said their 
employer's requirement was a major reason.
    There has been resistance to COVID-19 vaccine requirements 
and spreading misinformation. It is important to understand 
these perspectives and find ways to improve trust in vaccines 
and in public health. We must improve communications to include 
more of the why, more of the information, and what stands 
behind our recommendations and requirements. Medical 
recommendations and public health policies must evolve with the 
changing pandemic. While our vaccines remain highly effective 
in preventing severe disease, hospitalization and death, they 
are no longer as effective in preventing infection and 
transmission due to new variants. In addition, most, though not 
all, people in the United States have some immunity, we now 
have COVID-19 therapeutics to help prevent serious disease and 
death, the data no longer support Federal COVID-19 vaccine 
requirements.
    Vaccine requirements were not and should not be the only 
tool to boost vaccination rates. Robust communications with the 
general public, recommendations of individual healthcare 
providers to their patients, more equitable access to vaccines, 
and better-funded public health infrastructure are critical to 
boost uptake of COVID-19 boosters and routine vaccinations, 
which declined during the pandemic and have not rebounded. 
Communication about vaccines should be transparent, including 
what we know and what we do not know, easy to understand by all 
populations and delivered by trusted messengers like 
physicians.
    I greatly appreciate the Subcommittee's attention to this 
important issue, and thank you for the opportunity to testify.
    Dr. Wenstrup. Thank you, Dr. Lynch. As I had spoken about 
earlier, we are going to take a break to go vote. I apologize 
for that inconvenience.
    The Select Subcommittee stands in recess, and we will 
return right after votes are complete, so kick back, relax. We 
will see in a little bit. Thanks.
    [Recess.]
    Dr. Wenstrup. The Select Subcommittee will come back to 
order. Thank you for your patience while we ran off to do some 
of our work, and at this time, I would like to recognize myself 
for some questions and some statements leading up to it.
    You know, I think that it is important to understand that 
potential side effects of the vaccine, they are arguable and 
probably still in debate, adverse events. We will be looking at 
our reporting system. Is it effective? How are we getting 
information? Is it accurate? Are we getting it to physicians so 
they can share with their patients, what we are we are seeing, 
and whether it is this pandemic or any other type of issue like 
that that we have to address. I spent some time in public 
health. I was on our board of health in Cincinnati, Ohio. We 
would see things and we had to address them.
    So, we will be looking at all those. And, you know, it 
doesn't help, I would say, you know, in the messaging, which is 
really what a lot of this came down to in many ways. And the 
process, you know, it doesn't help when you have a high-level 
candidate saying about the vaccine. Well, if it comes out under 
Donald Trump, I am not taking it. And then that same person 
gets in office, and then mandates that you take it. You know, I 
only have an undergrad degree in psychology, but, you know, I 
understand human nature. I practiced privately for 26 years. I 
saw thousands and thousands of patients. Part of that is 
figuring out how the best way to reach your patients so they 
have an understanding, a confidence, a trust in you.
    And, Dr. Lynch, I think you addressed that very well. I 
will be honest with you. I think if every person in America 
that was wondering whether they should take this vaccine or not 
had the opportunity to sit with someone like you to go over the 
pluses and the minuses. And I think, you know, at one point you 
said in your opening statement that the vaccine was no longer 
effective at preventing infections once the Delta variant 
arrived. You know, those are the types of conversations that 
patients wanted to have, and they didn't get the opportunity.
    And then listening to you, say, you had a perfectly healthy 
18-year-old male who is concerned about myocarditis and 
pericarditis come to you. I don't think you would say things to 
him like, well, if you don't get the vaccine, you are going to 
die. I don't think you would say that, but I think you would, 
from what I heard from you, go over pluses, minuses, and the 
concerns. That is really what I think is so missing from this, 
and why a mandate was so damaging. So, Dr. Bardosh, you are 
studying whether COVID policies were effective or not. Is that 
correct?
    Dr. Bardosh. Yes, exactly.
    Dr. Wenstrup. And that includes the vaccine mandate, right?
    Dr. Bardosh. Yes, exactly.
    Dr. Wenstrup. OK. So, would you consider yourself an anti-
vaxxer?
    Dr. Bardosh. I think that is a very problematic term. It is 
essentially a way to slur somebody to a stifled debate.
    Dr. Wenstrup. Right. I don't consider myself one, even 
though that term gets thrown around a lot, and I have been 
vaccinated. And I understand that there is a difference between 
the mRNA vaccines and the vaccines that we traditionally have 
all been administered in our lives, especially in our young 
lives. Dr. Bardosh, you wrote a paper titled, ``The Unintended 
Consequences of COVID-19.'' You talked about that COVID-19 
vaccine policy, why mandates, passports, and restrictions may 
cause more harm than good. Is that right? You are the author.
    Dr. Bardosh. Yes, I am the lead author on that paper.
    Dr. Wenstrup. OK. So, let's talk a little bit about some of 
the negative consequences that you studied, and as best you 
can, just try to answer yes or no. It is not always easy, but 
maybe you can do that. Did you find that mandating COVID-19 
vaccines worsened division and political polarization?
    Dr. Bardosh. So, let me just tell a quick little story 
here.
    Dr. Wenstrup. Sure.
    Dr. Bardosh. We wrote that paper right before the freedom 
convoy started in Canada, right? We put it online as those 
trucks were starting to roll to Ottawa, so we certainly were 
feeling the pulse of the political polarization. And I am also 
a Canadian citizen, so I followed that very closely.
    Dr. Wenstrup. Do you find mandates damaged public trust and 
public health and institutions?
    Dr. Bardosh. If I counted how many times people have turned 
to me and said, you know what, I am never going to get a 
vaccine ever again because of those mandates, I would have a 
lot of people to count.
    Dr. Wenstrup. Yes, and that concerns me.
    Dr. Bardosh. Yes, and I engage people on the subway. 
Wherever I go, I ask these questions.
    Dr. Wenstrup. And so, I guess in that same vein, did you 
find that mandates increased COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy or 
vaccine hesitancy in general?
    Dr. Bardosh. So, I think it is important to realize that 
people who are in the sort of pro-mandate camp, often they 
actually don't even have friends who are anti, you know, who 
haven't been vaccinated against COVID. Depending on your social 
circle, you are not even aware that these people exist in the 
country, but it is a significant portion of individuals. And in 
those individuals, let's say, I don't know, for the sake of 
argument, 20 percent, 10 percent, 20 percent, this has 
destroyed the foundation of any trust that they have with our 
public health institutions, and you need to go talk to them to 
understand that.
    Dr. Wenstrup. Thank you. I am also very worried that our 
response to the pandemic in the future may be hindered by some 
of these same harms that exist in this one. It is my view the 
rationale of vaccine mandate is rooted in the notion that 
vaccine prevents the spread of the virus and therefore has a 
significant discernible benefit for third parties. I said from 
the beginning that trials showed and had a significant benefit, 
especially for the most vulnerable, and that if you got the 
vaccine compared to not, in the studies, that you were less 
likely to get very seriously ill or be hospitalized. So, Dr. 
Bardosh, it is your impression that COVID-19 vaccines prevent 
you from getting and spreading COVID-19?
    Dr. Bardosh. I think the full body of evidence suggests 
that there was some transient effectiveness on stopping 
transmission, maybe for a month or two, depending on your viral 
load. I think there is still a lot of uncertainty there, but it 
certainly was not similar to other vaccines that actually 
durably--the word is ``durably'' stopped
    --transmission. I also think there are a lot of 
complications in the science because we had different variants. 
There was massive mutations in the coronavirus that complicates 
the studies that exist.
    Dr. Wenstrup. Do you think that ignoring or putting aside 
infection acquired immunity, natural immunity, may have had 
negative consequences, but we weren't even allowed to talk 
about it?
    Dr. Bardosh. I think that showed the American people that 
the government and our authorities will both basically lie on 
camera. It was obvious. In mid-2021, I watched with dismay as 
the Biden Administration and the CDC said this vaccine will 
stop transmission. I was looking at the data from Israel and 
the U.K. where I have colleagues, and I knew that it wasn't 
going to stop transmission because it wasn't in their data. How 
did Americans not know this? It was clear, and yet we sort of 
had this charade.
    Dr. Wenstrup. So, I want to go to Ms. Williams, if we can. 
You felt you got fired by ESPN for not complying with the 
vaccine mandate. Is that correct?
    Ms. Williams. Yes, I was separated from ESPN for not 
complying with their vaccine mandate.
    Dr. Wenstrup. There is no other reason?
    Ms. Williams. No.
    Dr. Wenstrup. And as you said, you were trying for a baby 
at that time, and was this one of the reasons you were hesitant 
to get the vaccine?
    Ms. Williams. Yes. My initial concerns from a medical 
perspective were in step with me going through fertility 
treatments to conceive a second child. I had conversations with 
my doctor about those concerns, and he supported my decision 
given my limited risk.
    Dr. Wenstrup. And did they give you in writing exactly the 
reasons for which you were fired?
    Ms. Williams. Yes, they used the term ``separated from the 
company'' because I did not receive the COVID-19 vaccine.
    Dr. Wenstrup. Separated without pay, I assume?
    Ms. Williams. Yes.
    Dr. Wenstrup. OK. All right. At that time, Disney and ESPN 
would not have been directly subject to any Federal vaccine 
mandate, would they?
    Ms. Williams. Not to my knowledge at that time.
    Dr. Wenstrup. So, they did that on their own?
    Ms. Williams. You would have to ask them that question.
    Dr. Wenstrup. Well, the mandate was directed toward 
government employees in that realm. Did you get the impression 
that they were following the lead of the government, even 
though they had flexibility as a private company or that they 
were otherwise being pressured? Did you get any impression of 
that whatsoever?
    Ms. Williams. I can't speak to an impression one way or the 
other. I would make note that in April 2021, it was put out to 
all employees that they believed, as a company, that getting a 
vaccine was a personal decision. And something changed between 
then and October of that year when they no longer felt it was a 
personal decision, and instead decided to have a companywide 
mandate to receive the vaccine.
    Dr. Wenstrup. Thank you. I now recognize the Ranking 
Member, Dr. Ruiz, from California for 5 minutes of questions or 
more.
    Dr. Ruiz. Thank you. Let me first start off by saying that, 
indeed, the vaccine helps to prevent transmission, so let me 
break it down. Our immune system has to respond rapidly and 
aggressively to ensure that the virus does not take hold and 
increase to a certain replicated viral load that can cause 
symptoms and make a person infectious to somebody else. When we 
use a vaccine to help boost the innate immunological response, 
then we help strengthen our body's ability to prevent from 
getting sick.
    It doesn't work for everybody. Different people have 
different immunological systems, different strengths. Some of 
the viral load that somebody gets exposed to overwhelms the 
immunological response, and so some people still get infected. 
But what it does do, it significantly reduces the chance that a 
person gets infected, and that person, when they don't have the 
symptoms, when they don't get infected in that long term and 
they are not symptomatic, then the vaccine helped prevent them 
from getting COVID-19. It is just medicine. It is just the way 
it works.
    And so, the overall goal in public health with a vaccine is 
to vaccinate and help boost as many people's immunological 
system to prevent the viral load from increasing to a certain 
symptomatic level so that people don't have to get sick, to 
reduce, and then to transmit the virus. So yes, it does reduce 
transmission, overall, in the general public. And the other 
thing it has done, and, you know, we know this, there are 
studies that show this in science, and there are also real-life 
examples. How did we get here? How were we able to reduce the 
transmission in order for us to safely return to schools, to 
work, to end the public health emergency? Because of the 
vaccine.
    OK. I mean, so for the people that are listening, and to 
the general public, again, for those without contraindication, 
the COVID-19 vaccine is safe. It reduces your chances of 
getting infected, i.e., prevents you from getting infected, 
help prevent you from getting infected, helps and keeps you 
from transmitting it to somebody else, and overall transmission 
goes down, definitely reduces the risk of getting really sick, 
reduces the risk of long COVID and death.
    And the COVID-19 vaccine ushered our Nation out of the 
darkest days of the pandemic. Thanks to the policies that 
President Biden put in place, including commonsense temporary 
vaccination requirements to address a dangerous, rapidly 
spreading deadly virus, more than 230 million Americans got 
vaccinated, 3.2 million deaths were prevented, and 18.5 million 
hospitalizations were averted. Dr. Lynch, what role did 
encouraging vaccination and increasing uptake of the COVID-19 
vaccines, including through requirements, serve in reducing 
fatalities and hospitalizations?
    Dr. Lynch. We definitely saw increases in vaccine uptake 
when requirements were put into place, and studies have 
indicated that many individuals noted those requirements as a 
key factor in their decision to get vaccinated. Vaccines did 
and continue to offer the most powerful, the strongest 
protection we have against hospitalization, death, and likely 
long COVID. So, broader vaccination coverage absolutely helped 
to reduce hospitalization, reduced the risk of overrunning our 
healthcare system across the United States, and saved 
innumerable lives.
    Dr. Ruiz. To help America overcome the pandemic and reduce 
the harm of COVID-19, the Biden Administration implemented 
requirements for certain populations to obtain the safe and 
effective COVID-19 vaccine, these high risks to catch and 
spread virus populations, including those who are serving 
federally funded healthcare facilities as part of our Federal 
work force and as members of our military. And as a result of 
these policies, these communities achieved remarkably 
protective high vaccination rates, including 98 percent 
vaccination among Federal workers, 96 percent among service 
members, and nearly 90 percent among healthcare personnel. Dr. 
Lynch, why were requirements a clinically appropriate tool to 
boost vaccination rates and how have they been used in contexts 
outside of the COVID-19 pandemic to reduce the threat of other 
dangerous diseases in the United States?
    Dr. Lynch. Requirements, in combination with efforts to 
make the vaccine freely and equitably available and robust 
communications about vaccine safety and efficacy, were all and 
continue to be appropriate tools. When vaccines became 
available, most of the population had no immunity, a critical 
important factor, so we needed to increase vaccine uptake as 
quickly as possible to protect as many citizens as possible. 
For years, we have seen influenza vaccine requirements for 
healthcare personnel, school-entry vaccine requirements for 
children function to save and support our communities. These 
have all been highly effective tools in protecting all of us 
from severe infectious diseases.
    Dr. Ruiz. Thank you. You know, we heard a lot, and 
including have read in the announcement of this hearing, that 
implementing vaccine requirements, the Biden Administration 
``disregarded patient-physician relationships,'' and took 
doctors completely out of the conversation, so I want to really 
discuss this. America's leading medical societies, including 
the American Medical Association, the American College of 
Physicians, the American Academy of Family Physicians, the 
American Academy of Pediatrics, and many other doctor groups, 
all expressed strong support for vaccine requirements as a 
temporary critical tool under these circumstances to help 
America overcome the pandemic. And in numerous court cases, 
including the legal challenge to the vaccine requirement for 
large employers, the AMA and other major medical societies 
filed amicus briefs supporting these policies.
    Dr. Lynch, you are the only physician testifying on today's 
panel, so let me ask you, physician to physician, do you agree 
with the allegation that doctors were sidelined and that 
patient-physician relationships were disregarded in the 
discussion surrounding vaccine requirements?
    Dr. Lynch. So, I am a leader and an active member of the 
Infectious Disease Society of America. I know many infectious 
diseases doctors across the United states. I am an active 
faculty member at the University of Washington, a leading 
research institution for infectious diseases where I know many 
of my colleagues work in the same area. This is not the case in 
my experience nor the experience of many of my ID colleagues. 
We do not feel sidelined in those conversations and been active 
participants in all of those conversations.
    At my institution, we were the ones that Biden 
Administration approached for guidance on vaccine policies. At 
an individual level, physicians have been actively involved in 
talking to their patients about vaccines where those 
physicians' appointments were accessible to those individuals 
in the community. However, we do have a serious physician 
shortage, particularly in the ID specialty, and many people 
don't have sufficient access to physicians, again, contributing 
to inequities around access. I agree we can and must do better 
to ensure everyone can access a physician.
    Dr. Ruiz. I appreciate that, and we will work to make sure 
that we increase incentives and work on the doctor work force, 
but I just have one last point to make, so I need to move on. 
So, there seems to be a message that infection-acquired 
immunity precludes the need for many Americans to receive the 
COVID-19 vaccine. In May, the Select Subcommittee held a 
hearing on this topic, and we heard from Dr. Tina Tan, who 
emphasized that hybrid immunity, conferred by both infection 
and vaccination, offered greater protection than infection 
acquired immunity alone. And isn't the point to get the vaccine 
to avoid getting sick and the symptoms or the risk of long 
COVID? So, Dr. Lynch, could you once again explain for us why 
this is the case that even people who have had infection should 
still get the vaccine if there is no contraindications?
    Dr. Lynch. Yes, I agree with you. All data have indicated 
that individuals with prior infection who have survived and 
were vaccination appear to have the strongest protection. So, 
getting vaccinated after having been infected provides that 
hybrid immunity, which appears to be the most potent way.
    Dr. Ruiz. Would you suggest to boost your immune system by 
getting infected rather than getting the vaccine?
    Dr. Lynch. Absolutely not.
    Dr. Ruiz. Would you suggest to avoid getting the infection 
by getting the vaccine?
    Dr. Lynch. I would.
    Dr. Ruiz. Thank you. So, I think what we say matters, and 
how we say it, and whether it is subtle or not so subtle. I do 
think that we should just look at the big picture and 
understand that some individuals shouldn't get the vaccine due 
to contraindication in their own health status, and that 
consultation is with patient and their doctor, but the vast 
majority who have no contraindications can significantly reduce 
the risks of getting long COVID, of getting symptomatic, of 
getting really sick and dying by getting the vaccine. And by 
getting the vaccine, you boost your immune system, you reduce 
the risk of getting the illness and transmitting it to somebody 
else. It worked. That is why we are all here in our Committee 
and the public health emergency declaration is over. Thank you. 
I yield back.
    Dr. Wenstrup. Well, Dr. Lynch, you may be the only 
physician on the panel, but there is five sitting up here right 
now. And as you can tell, probably many of these physicians 
will act as witnesses rather than asking questions as well, as 
we just heard, and I will address that a little bit later. 
Next, I recognize Ms. Malliotakis from New York for 5 minutes.
    Ms. Malliotakis. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you all for 
being here. We greatly appreciate your testimony.
    I come from New York City, and New York really took the 
prize when it came to putting in place arbitrary policies. You 
mentioned extended states of emergency. I think we had one of 
the last to be lifted, arbitrary mandates, vaccine passports, 
religious, and other freedoms that were suppressed in the name 
of public health. And look, I am vaccinated, I held a clinic 
for those who want to do it, but I have a problem with the 
government dictating to people that they need to do this or 
else lose their livelihoods. And I thank Ms. Williams for being 
here, and I think that was very brave of what you did to leave 
your job at the time that you did to take a stand.
    Now, here in New York City, city employees were fired 
because they did not get the mandated coronavirus vaccine by 
the February deadline. Over 1,500 city employees were fired as 
a result of the mandate, and thousands of city workers who 
applied for medical or religious exemption, they were left in 
bureaucratic limbo, waiting to find out if their waivers had 
been accepted or denied. Fast forward. Obviously, there were 
many lawsuits and, thankfully, a state judge ruled that the 
mandate for municipal workers was enacted illegally, and those 
employees who were fired had to be immediately reinstated with 
backpay. That has not still happened, by the way. And I think 
that is important to note because I still have constituents who 
apparently the mayor doesn't want to adhere to what the judge 
said.
    So, I would like to know, both from a legal counsel 
perspective, and then from just the impact that this has had on 
society in mistrust of government, and, Ms. Runyan and Mr. 
Bardosh, if you can please comment.
    Ms. Runyan. Thank you for your question. So, as I said in 
my opening statement, we represent over 4,000 Navy SEALs with 
respect to their religious accommodation requests that they had 
submitted to the Navy. And the fact that the Navy, the DOD has 
a process for reviewing accommodation requests, and that that 
was not adhered to, specifically, the Religious Freedom 
Restoration Act, is something that the Department of Defense 
acknowledges is a process that they need to follow, and they 
didn't. That is extremely concerning. That is what we are 
challenging in the lawsuit, and that is why we won the 
preliminary injunction that we received back in January 2022.
    Ms. Malliotakis. Are there any actions we can take as 
Members of Congress to hold these municipal, in this case, the 
Federal, accountable for not adhering to what the judges have 
said, or what, quite frankly, we as Congress have said when we 
said that this needed to be lifted, this mandate on our 
military?
    Ms. Runyan. Absolutely. I think that, you know, we use the 
judicial process to do what we needed to do to get imminent 
relief. But I think, ultimately, Congress can institute 
legislation that can make sure that these things don't happen 
again, and if they do, that it is not incumbent upon the 
individuals who are being harmed to have to correct the errors.
    Ms. Malliotakis. Yes. Dr. Bardosh, can you please talk to 
some of the impacts this has had on those families that have 
been fired, they have lost their livelihood, and is this 
happening in other cities, or is New York City still the one 
that is kind of hanging out there, not doing the right thing by 
the city workers, who dedicated so much of their life to 
service of our city?
    Dr. Bardosh. Yes. So, I would like to say something about 
the public health community, which is quite shocking to me, you 
know. If you go to a public health department in the country, 
the term ``equity and equality'' and sort of ``inclusion'' is 
plastered all over the department, all over the papers that are 
written there, and yet during COVID, you know, certain types of 
people were considered, you know, more equal than others. And I 
think it is important to recognize that individuals who lost 
their jobs severely suffered, right? We are talking about lost 
income, lost savings, not being able to pay your mortgage or 
your rent, having marital stress, stress on your children.
    And we know from what is called the social determinants of 
health, which is, again, a main concept or principle in public 
health, right, what are the social determinants of health, 
everything that determines, right? Your life, your income, your 
status, right, your happiness, your psychological well-being. 
And we know that these things, for example, you are fired from 
your job, that can have long-term implications not only for 
you, but for your children, right? And yet we have these 
individuals in the country who lost their jobs because they 
didn't comply with these vaccination requirements. How many 
people lost their jobs? There is actually no study telling us, 
estimating how many people lost their jobs. Despite the fact 
that billions and billions of dollars has gone into researching 
vaccine hesitancy and misinformation, et cetera, yet we don't 
know how many people the mandates harmed and how they were 
harmed.
    So actually, I have a project where we are estimating how 
many people were harmed, and I was hoping that we would have 
that data here today, but we don't. And probably in about a 
month's time, we will have a number for you, and I would like 
to share that with you.
    Ms. Malliotakis. Well, we appreciate that, and thank you 
for your time. And we will continue to advocate for those city 
employees of New York that were fired to make sure that they 
are rehired, and also for our military men and women who were 
wrongfully subjected to a lot of things, and, as you mentioned, 
to not be able to get your benefits as healthcare because of 
this was outrageous. Thank you.
    Dr. Wenstrup. Now I recognize Mrs. Dingell from Michigan 
for 5 minutes of questions.
    Mrs. Dingell. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. What I am worried 
about is that the world is experiencing the largest global 
decline in decades in the number of children receiving basic 
immunizations, and there was a time that, I mean, thankfully 
not my generation, though. I remember lining up for that sugar 
cube, that there are still people alive that had polio, and 
polio is coming back, measles is coming back. And 
misinformation about vaccine safety has fueled distrust of 
long-trusted, safe, and effective vaccines. There is a lot of 
misinformation out there, so I want to make sure that we 
amplify what is accurate and what is life-saving.
    And I am going to tell you something, there is nobody here 
that is more afraid of any kind of injection, shot, or vaccine 
than me. I had Guillain-Barre from a swine flu shot, and I will 
never forget what it was like to be paralyzed. People have 
said, you don't have a flu shot, you can't come, and I am not 
getting a flu shot because I am never going to have what 
happened again, and I was scared to death to get the COVID 
vaccine. But I talked to people, I talked to a ton of people, 
and the infectious disease doctors that I have talked to, some 
were in Michigan, but I was lucky enough to be able to talk to 
20 of them because I was scared. And they all said to me, your 
bigger threat is getting COVID than not getting this. So, I 
researched it, and what they told me was that this was 
developed a set way, it doesn't have a live virus. You will be 
safer if you get this COVID vaccine.
    If we are going to talk about vaccine safety, then our 
conversation should be, and I respect all of my colleagues on 
this panel, and I have said to them I am worried people aren't 
getting their vaccinations. They are on the ground; they are 
facing rising vaccine hesitancy. They are seeing people not get 
their measles, their polio, et cetera. So, I am going to go to 
Dr. Lynch and say, as the practicing physician on this panel, I 
would like to ask you to describe the positive impact COVID-19 
vaccines have had on your patients.
    Dr. Lynch. The impact has been massive. We went from a 
position of great fear in 2020 to some feeling of response, 
both at the health system level, healthcare worker level, but 
also among my patients. We all, if we are careful, think about 
the fear that we are experiencing in 2020, the mount of 
unknown, and the COVID-19 vaccines were the first tool we had 
to combat both infection but also the most severe consequences 
of that infection, namely severe disease, putting you in a 
hospital, and dying from that infection.
    Mrs. Dingell. Republicans, including Members of the 
Subcommittee, have said that the COVID-19 vaccine is unsafe. 
For example, they have suggested that the mRNA vaccines were 
rushed and, therefore, pose a risk to people's health when the 
truth is that the approval process was thorough and vigorous, 
and that the mRNA technology has been in development for more 
than 15 years, which I heard from the 20 doctors I talked to 
before I did get this.
    Dr. Lynch, your written testimony states very clearly that 
the risks associated with COVID-19 infection are far greater 
than the risks associated with the COVID-19 vaccination, which 
I heard from many of your peers. Can you debunk some of the 
more egregious trends of COVID-19 vaccine misinformation and 
confirm that COVID-19 vaccines are safe?
    Dr. Lynch. Absolutely. The safety of the COVID-19 vaccines 
is indisputable. It has been given to hundreds of millions of 
people, and, in fact, some of the data bases that Dr. Bardosh 
referenced, in Israel, in U.K. have demonstrated that at the 
country level as well as data from the United States and many 
other countries, these are the most powerful and safest tools 
and far, far exceed, in terms of safety profile versus the 
actual act of getting infected and all of the downsides of 
that, ranging from serious disease, death, long COVID, and even 
some of the more feared complications in children, like the 
multisystem inflammatory syndrome.
    Mrs. Dingell. So, in the United States, vaccination rates 
for preventable diseases, like polio and measles, have not 
bounced back to pre-pandemic rates because of misinformation. 
Declining vaccination rates are driving dangerous outbreaks of 
infectious diseases. In the last year, there have been 
outbreaks of measles in Ohio and Michigan and polio in New 
York. Last summer I wrote to the Health and Human Services 
because we were experiencing an mpox outbreak in my home state, 
Michigan. Dr. Lynch, how is vaccine misinformation harming the 
public health, and then I am going to throw in one last 
question. Are flu shots dangerous? Because I had Guillain-
Barre. Should nobody get a flu shot?
    Dr. Lynch. So, I'll answer the first question, 
misinformation from any source weakens vaccine confidence, 
which can lead to more people to not being vaccinated. Not 
enough people are getting COVID-19 boosters, which means we are 
not as protected from COVID-19 hospitalizations and deaths and 
the impact on health systems. Declining vaccine rates from 
diseases like measles, pertussis, and polio are causing 
outbreaks that are not only dangerous from a public health 
perspective, but have profound economic consequences for our 
society and the families involved. And, yes, I think that 
everyone should get a flu vaccine every year.
    Mrs. Dingell. Except for people that have had Guillain-
Barre. Thank you, and I yield back, Mr. Chair.
    Dr. Wenstrup. Now I recognize Dr. Miller-Meeks from Iowa 
for 5 minutes of questions.
    Dr. Miller-Meeks. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I thank the 
witnesses for testifying before the Select Subcommittee today.
    The coronavirus pandemic changed many aspects of day-to-day 
life, especially when it comes to healthcare decisions. And I 
say this as a physician, 24-year military veteran who did 
healthcare both as a nurse and as a physician, and then a 
former director of the Iowa Department of Public Health. What 
most noticeably changed to me was the doctor-patient 
relationship.
    As a physician with decades of experience in delivering 
care to patients of all ages and in various healthcare 
settings, I not only recognize but I value the fact that the 
medical needs of patients can rarely, if ever, be broad 
brushed. Individual needs vary drastically. This can be due to 
allergies, comorbidities, and tolerances, and other aspects of 
cultural things we don't even understand, and that requires a 
robust doctor-patient relationship. It is why I was so appalled 
by the multitude of COVID-19 vaccine mandates imposed by 
Federal, state, and local governments throughout the pandemic.
    COVID-19 vaccine mandates completely removed the doctor 
from the doctor's office, from interactions with their patient, 
and, instead, empowered unelected bureaucrats to make medical 
decisions for millions of Americans with no regard for 
individual health needs. Now, to be clear, I was vaccinated. I 
gave vaccines in all 24 of my counties and held vaccine clinics 
and workplace clinics, participated in them throughout the 
pandemic. But I would never condone, and I did not at that time 
condone, encouraging, forcing someone to receive a treatment, 
vaccine, surgery, or any other medical service without first 
giving them the opportunity to discuss with their physician 
and, if they desire, to decline the service.
    COVID-19 vaccine mandates had damaging effects, not just on 
the doctor-patient relationship, but on our economy, our 
military readiness, our trust in public health, judgmental 
behaviors, anxiety, distress amongst family members, and 
others. I am grateful that the Republicans have taken the 
initiative to evaluate the effectiveness or ineffectiveness of 
these mandates.
    Dr. Bardosh, your paper in the British Medical Journal of 
Global Health discusses the unintended consequences of the 
COVID-19 vaccine mandates. The Biden Administration imposed 
several, including the DOD mandate for military service 
members, executive order mandate for Federal employees and 
contractors, the OSHA mandate for employers with 100 or more 
important employees, the CMS mandate for healthcare workers at 
facilities that participate in Medicare and Medicaid, and the 
HHS Head Start program COVID-19 vaccine mandate for which we 
know young children are at the least risk. Can you highlight 
the ramifications of these mandates, such as no jab/no job 
policies, vaccine passports, and social lock downs for the 
unvaccinated?
    Dr. Bardosh. That is a big question. Let me just say this. 
There is no doubt in my mind that these mandate policies are 
going to be responsible for the increase in distrust the next 
time there is a pandemic and the mobilization of resistance to 
a future vaccine in the future pandemic. And I think it is 
really shocking and kind of a little bit sad that my colleagues 
in, you know, in the public health community who are pro-
mandate don't understand this.
    You know, I considered, prior to the pandemic, myself, a 
Democrat, I was a Bernie Sanders supporter, and just sort of 
ostracized from a progressive camp has been very illuminating, 
we can say. And I just think, in general, in this country, we 
really need to try to understand each other across the aisle a 
little bit more, and when we talk about political polarization, 
what is that? It is that the two sides grow further and further 
apart from each other, and they speak different languages.
    And I just think it is obvious people, who have a lack of 
trust now because of these mandates, are going to distrust the 
government more the next time around. And it is very likely 
that the next pandemic has a higher fatality rate, and then 
what are we going to do? We are going to start quarantining 
people, locking them up like they did in Australia or Austria, 
having these sort of differentiated lockdowns? If you are not 
vaccinated, you need to stay in this sort of quarantine camps. 
For how long?
    If COVID had a higher fatality rate, we might have started 
going down that road here in this country. I mean, we need to 
be prepared for that and think, well, what happens to civil 
liberties if there is a 10-percent death rate, a 5-percent 
death rate? There is some serious thinking that needs to go on 
in this country, so thank you.
    Dr. Miller-Meeks. Thank you for that. I didn't expect a 
comment on your political affiliations, but I am concerned 
about the loss in trust in the public health system, our local 
public health, people were phenomenal throughout the pandemic. 
And that trust is going to be hard to regain and has led to an 
increase in anti-vaccination movement, especially for childhood 
immunizations, so thank you so much. I yield back. And the 
other question I have, I will send to the Committee to be 
responded to in writing.
    Dr. Wenstrup. Thank you. I now recognize Ms. Ross from 
North Carolina for 5 minutes of questions.
    Ms. Ross. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. It sometimes 
feels like we talk about the COVID-19 vaccine requirements as 
if they were the first vaccine requirements to ever exist in 
this country. Vaccination requirements, including in the 
military, have had a long and storied history. All the way back 
to 1777, General George Washington required his continental 
troops to be inoculated against smallpox. General Washington 
wrote at the time, ``Necessity not only authorizes, but seems 
to require the measure.'' I think General Washington had a 
point back then, and I think his point is valid today.
    And, again, none of this is new. Before COVID-19, the 
military already required a long list of immunizations, 
including shots to protect against polio, influenza, hepatitis 
B, and the measles, and the list of legal precedents supporting 
vaccine requirements is long as well. In 1901, a smallpox 
epidemic swept through the Northeast and Massachusetts, 
required all adults to receive smallpox inoculations or pay a 
$5 fine. A resident sued, arguing that the requirement would 
violate his due process rights under the 14th Amendment, and in 
Jacobson v. Massachusetts, the Supreme Court rejected those 
arguments, holding instead that the state's power to protect 
the public health of its residents prevailed over the 
individual's right to refuse vaccination.
    Again, in 1922, the Supreme Court held that cities could 
require students to get smallpox vaccines before attending 
public or private schools. And then, of course, in 2021, the 
Supreme Court allowed Indiana University to require 
vaccinations as a condition of attendance, a decision that was 
authored by Justice Amy Coney Barrett, not exactly a liberal. 
So, I don't see much of an issue here as to whether vaccine 
requirements are constitutional, with some exceptions, and we 
will talk about those in a minute, but almost 120 years of 
precedent demonstrates that they clearly are in the main.
    Dr. Lynch, could you put vaccine requirements into context 
for us? There is no question that COVID-19 was the highest-
profile example of vaccine requirements in modern history, but 
how have vaccine requirements been implemented in other areas 
with respect to other diseases?
    Dr. Lynch. We, in fact, have a long history of requiring 
vaccinations in the United States in different populations. Two 
additional examples to your own include influenza vaccine 
requirements for healthcare workers, which I have already 
spoken about, are highly effective in getting vaccine uptake 
and protecting both patients and healthcare workers, and 
school-entry vaccine requirements for children. We also have a 
long history, just to be clear, of looking at exemptions for 
both medical and religious perspectives for individuals with 
those challenges. I believe this balance has worked very well 
in all of those programs.
    Ms. Ross. And how have these vaccine requirements 
traditionally accommodated medical and religious exemptions?
    Dr. Lynch. There have been good documentation of 
appropriate medical exemptions for different vaccines. These 
are laid out by various public health authorities, including 
the CDC and international bodies, and those can be easily 
documented by both physicians and other healthcare staff. And 
in terms of religious documentation, there has been a clear 
precedence around sincerely held religious beliefs and 
maximizing the potential for accommodations for healthcare 
workers and other individuals in those populations.
    Ms. Ross. As a physician, do you find that there is any 
clinical reason for you to be concerned that the safe and 
effective COVID-19 vaccine was previously required during the 
pandemic, just as other vaccines have historically been 
required, to keep people safe and to protect our public health?
    Dr. Lynch. I have no concerns.
    Ms. Ross. Thank you, and I yield back.
    Dr. Wenstrup. I now recognize Mrs. Lesko from Arizona for 5 
minutes of questions.
    Mrs. Lesko. Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you to all of 
you for being here as witnesses.
    I wish Representative Dingell was still here because I 
found her conversation interesting. She said that she would not 
take a flu vaccine again and that she talked to multiple 
doctors and decided to get the COVID vaccine. The thing is she 
had a choice, right? She had a choice, and that is the 
difference. So many other people, it was a mandate, and that is 
what is wrong. I support people having a choice. If they want 
to get a vaccine, get a vaccine. If they don't want to get a 
vaccine, they should not be forced by our government to get a 
vaccine.
    Dr. Bardosh, I have met with constituents who have lost 
children to vaccine injuries without any acknowledgement, 
sympathy, or recourse from the government that encouraged and 
forcibly imposed the COVID-19 vaccines on them. My staff and I 
have worked with a former constituent since he was injured by a 
COVID-19 vaccine. It has been medically confirmed by a very 
reputable medical institution that he contracted Guillain-Barre 
syndrome from the vaccine. He spent over 3 months paralyzed in 
the hospital. He is still in the recovery phase of his injury. 
To date, he still needs IVIG--intravenous immunoglobulin 
infusions--every 14 days, a process which takes approximately 4 
hours each time. He also needs rituximab infusion every 6 
months, and rituximab is a chemotherapy drug that kills off the 
antibodies in his system.
    He has lost his career due to his injury, and as a result, 
he and his wife have been hit by severe financial hardships. He 
has had his CICP claim, which is the government compensation 
claim, open for 18 months. They have had his medical records 
for over a year, and he has heard nothing from our Federal 
Government on when he can expect a resolution. It is very 
worrisome that people are not being adequately compensated for 
injuries resulting from the COVID-19 vaccine as they would for 
other vaccines. Dr. Bardosh, do you think this lack of recourse 
has implications for public health more broadly?
    Dr. Bardosh. First of all, that sounds like a very tragic 
story.
    Mrs. Lesko. It is.
    Dr. Bardosh. And those stories are not unique to one 
individual, unfortunately. I think it is hard for the public 
health community to acknowledge side effects like that, but 
they really need to. And it is clear that the vaccine injury 
system in the country is broken, not only in this country, but 
also in Canada and elsewhere that I am familiar with, and, yes, 
it is obviously something that is very alarming, and there 
needs to be a concerted effort. I am not sure what the process 
can be but to reevaluate these injury court systems.
    And I have had people reach out to me, who also have been 
injured, and they have said, ``look, I have been dragged 
through the mud in the bureaucratic red tape,'' and even I have 
confirmation from my doctors that, actually, there is a 
causative link here. Which does happen, right? And, yes, there 
is sort of an inhumanity to the bureaucracy that I think really 
needs to be looked at.
    Mrs. Lesko. Thank you. And for those that are listening, 
the CICP is the government's Countermeasures Injury 
Compensation Program that is supposed to compensate people for 
adverse effects from COVID-19 vaccine, and that is what he has 
tried to get for over 18 months and has not even gotten an 
answer.
    Dr. Bardosh, in your May 2022 paper, you wrote, ``Our 
analysis strongly suggest that mandatory COVID-19 vaccine 
policies have had damaging effects on public trust, vaccine 
confidence, political polarization, human rights, inequities, 
and social well-being.'' Do you know if people in countries 
that have properly acknowledged and been compensated for their 
vaccine injuries have less overall vaccine hesitancy and more 
trust in their public officials?
    Dr. Bardosh. That is a really good question. I would need 
some time to really be able to answer that because I have not 
looked at the data in sufficient detail, but, I mean, my 
intuitive response is yes. Certainly, if you look at, for 
example, the Nordic countries--Sweden, Denmark, et cetera--they 
had a narcolepsy problem with their H1N1 vaccine back in 2009, 
and they overhauled their vaccine safety system to build trust. 
And as far as I am aware, their vaccination rate is higher than 
the United States for COVID.
    So, I think acknowledging these safety signals does build 
trust, and, actually, a study comes to mind where they actually 
looked at this issue, right? So, the problem is, if you 
acknowledge a safety signal, it does decrease trust because 
people say, oh, my goodness, this vaccine is not safe, but over 
the long term, it builds trust. And so, what we are doing here, 
right now on what we have done with mandates, in my opinion, is 
we have sacrificed long-term trust for short-term gain, and I 
just think that was a bad decision.
    Mrs. Lesko. Thank you, and my time has expired, and I yield 
back.
    Dr. Wenstrup. I now recognize Ms. Tokuda from Hawaii for 5 
minutes of questions.
    Ms. Tokuda. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would like to focus 
my time on the benefit of our Nation's COVID-19 vaccines and 
policies in protecting our national security and enhancing our 
military readiness. My Republican colleagues have suggested 
that vaccine requirements undermined military preparedness, 
but, in fact, the opposite is true. Increasing vaccination 
rates in the military, including through vaccination 
requirements, helped to ensure that our service members were 
better protected against the spread and harm of COVID-19. These 
policies worked in combination with other policies. Vaccine 
requirements resulted in a 96-percent vaccination rate amongst 
service members, and, most importantly, thanks to these 
policies, we have not lost a single service member to COVID-19 
since November 2022.
    In the early days of the COVID pandemic, outbreaks of this 
highly transmissible virus threatened our Nation's service 
members and their ability to carry out missions of critical 
importance to our national security, ensure our readiness to 
respond to threats. The USS Theodore Roosevelt, for example, 
experienced an outbreak in the early days of the pandemic that 
caused nearly 20 percent of crew members to become infected and 
resulted in the crew's evacuation to Guam for 2 months, an 
aircraft carrier out of commission for 2 months is not military 
readiness. Around the same time, an outbreak aboard the USS 
KIDD, a Navy destroyer, caused its crew to abandon their 
counter-narcotic operations in the East Pacific, forcing the 
vessel to turn back to San Diego so that crew members could 
receive medical care. Again, failure to complete a mission is 
not readiness.
    Without lifesaving COVID-19 vaccines, requirements, and 
other mitigation strategies, outbreaks such as these could have 
been far more commonplace and dangerous, a threat to both the 
health of our service members and national security, disrupting 
military operations, undercutting our Nation's ability to 
maintain a strong and ready military force.
    Dr. Lynch, yes or no. Would we have likely seen more of 
these mass infections, like those on the USS Theodore Roosevelt 
and the USS KIDD, had we not required vaccination amongst our 
service members?
    Dr. Lynch. Yes.
    Ms. Tokuda. Thank you. Another ``yes'' or ``no'' question. 
It has been alleged that recruits were hesitant to join our 
military due to vaccine requirements. Do you think that the 
extensive misinformation campaign that undermined confidence in 
the COVID-19 vaccination contributed to this likely and alleged 
hesitancy?
    Dr. Lynch. Yes.
    Ms. Tokuda. Yes or no, Dr. Lynch. From your perspective as 
an infectious disease expert, was COVID-19 vaccine requirements 
essential to ensure national security and military readiness by 
preventing dangerous outbreaks from occurring like the ones 
that we saw on the USS Theodore Roosevelt and the USS KIDD?
    Dr. Lynch. Yes.
    Ms. Tokuda. Thank you, Dr. Lynch. I would like to elaborate 
a bit more on the historical context brought up by the 
gentlelady from North Carolina at this time.
    For hundreds of years our military has recognized the 
importance of immunization to military readiness, dating all 
the way back to the Revolutionary War. Smallpox ravaged the 
Continental Army during the early days of the war, including 
the failed invasion of Quebec. Members of the Continental 
Congress, including John Adams, identified smallpox as the 
cause of that defeat. Widespread fear of smallpox in the ranks 
also deterred new recruits from joining the Continental Army.
    Recognizing the threat smallpox posed, George Washington 
ordered smallpox inoculations among the Continental Army in 
1777. He acknowledged that this order may pose some 
inconveniences, but that it would ensure troops were prepared 
for combat, and it did. Soldiers reported illness rates were 
cut by nearly two-thirds, which helped inspire a fresh wave of 
new recruits to join. Later that year, the Continental Army 
scored a decisive victory at the Battle of Saratoga, and 
another wave of inoculations at Valley Forge that winter helped 
ensure the Army was ready for future campaigns.
    Washington's decision to require inoculations helped win 
our Nation's independence. Today, we have a multitude of 
vaccines that safely and effectively prevent illness and keep 
our troops ready for combat. As of 2020, mandatory vaccinations 
for our military personnel include hepatitis B, MMR, Tdap, 
polio, meningococcal, and influenza. This is nothing new, yet 
my Republican colleagues would like the American people to 
believe that recruitment and retention issues in our military 
are results of COVID-19 vaccine requirements. We know, whether 
it is DEI initiatives, access to reproductive care, critical 
race theory, or other DOD policies, my Republican colleagues 
continue to bring culture wars and misinformation campaigns 
into our military, but the evidence could not be clearer.
    COVID-19 vaccines are safe, they are effective, and 
significantly reduce the spread of the virus. They save lives. 
The truth is that if Republican leaders who politicize COVID-19 
vaccine recurrence helped drive recruitment and retention 
issues. They undermine the operational readiness of our 
military. They hurt our national security. My time is up, Mr. 
Chair, and I yield back.
    Dr. Wenstrup. I now recognize Dr. Joyce from Pennsylvania 
for 5 minutes.
    Dr. Joyce. Thank you, Chairman Wenstrup, for holding 
today's hearing, and thank you for the witnesses. Thank you for 
offering your time, your expertise, and your testimony before 
this Committee.
    Today's hearing entitled, ``Because I Said So: Examining 
the Science and Impact of COVID-19 Vaccine Mandates,'' could 
not be any more fitting, especially since it was the government 
who demanded that individuals get the vaccine or else. Even 
worse, it wasn't an empty threat. People lost their jobs, our 
children's education and growth was stifled, and our military 
and healthcare workers were terminated simply because they 
refused a government-mandated vaccination. That is what we are 
examining. That is what we are talking about today, the mandate 
component of it.
    There is a line between providing information, 
recommendations, and administering vaccinations to those who 
choose so, and the other side of the line is a forcible and 
coercive blanket mandate that the Federal Government imposed 
during a pandemic that many Americans were forced into losing 
their jobs. This Committee has continued to expose the flaws 
and neglect that took place during the pandemic. It has been 
our responsibility to ask the difficult questions, questions 
that deserve answers. It is clear that the American people's 
trust in public officials has been harmed by failed policies 
and flawed mandates.
    Dr. Bardosh, in your paper, you mentioned that political 
leaders singled out the unvaccinated and blamed them for the 
continuation of the pandemic. In fact, in July 2021, during the 
onset of the Delta variant wave, CDC Director Rochelle Walensky 
said that it was ``becoming a pandemic of the unvaccinated.'' 
Is this the sort of blame, Dr. Bardosh, that you were referring 
to in your paper?
    Dr. Bardosh. Yes, it is a scapegoating response.
    Dr. Joyce. Dr. Bardosh, I am going to make this simpler. Do 
you believe that this sort of language is harmful when we look 
for public officials in charge to scapegoat?
    Dr. Bardosh. I think, you know, the HIV/AIDS community has 
done a lot of research on stigma and scapegoating, right? And, 
you know, decades of research has shown that stigma as a public 
health strategy is counterproductive. I will leave it at that.
    Dr. Joyce. Dr. Bardosh, let's amplify some of the points 
from your publications. There was a collaborative effort that 
you published with researchers and physicians from Johns 
Hopkins, Harvard, and Oxford, yes or no?
    Dr. Bardosh. Yes.
    Dr. Joyce. Did the COVID vaccine mandates from your 
research, from your publication with others, erode civil 
liberties?
    Dr. Bardosh. Yes, it did.
    Dr. Joyce. Did the COVID vaccine mandates fracture trust in 
public health officials?
    Dr. Bardosh. Yes, it did.
    Dr. Joyce. Did the COVID vaccine mandates create financial 
stress to individuals and families who lost their jobs to the 
COVID mandates?
    Dr. Bardosh. Absolutely.
    Dr. Joyce. And Dr. Bardosh, do you feel that the decrease 
in individuals receiving routine pediatric immunizations for 
their children, do you feel that is due to the mandates of the 
COVID vaccine?
    Dr. Bardosh. Yes, I do.
    Dr. Joyce. And, finally, and I thank you for your brevity. 
Dr. Bardosh, do you feel that the COVID-19 vaccine mandates 
have harmed America?
    Dr. Bardosh. Yes, I do.
    Dr. Joyce. I think the message that you conveyed to this 
Committee is important. We have looked and discussed origins, 
we have looked and discussed impact, and that is what the 
obligation of this Select Subcommittee is. It is our obligation 
to understand the COVID-19 vaccine, its effect on mandates. I 
thank each and every one of you for your testimony today, and, 
Chairman Wenstrup, I yield back.
    Dr. Wenstrup. Thank you. I now recognize the Ranking Member 
of the Full Committee, Mr. Raskin from Maryland, for 5 minutes.
    Mr. Raskin. Mr. Chairman, thank you very kindly for the 
time. I confess, arriving late, which is perhaps the 
explanation, I am a bit puzzled about what is going on here 
because the COVID-19 cost us nearly a million-and-a-half people 
in the country.
    It was calamitous to the public health and a terrible shock 
to the economy and society. President Biden's vaccine program, 
according to the Commonwealth Fund, saved 3 million lives and 
18 million hospitalizations for serious effects from COVID-19. 
And so, I am just surprised that the tenor of this hearing is 
to attack, I think, the very selective cases in which there 
were vaccine mandates, for example, for public health workers, 
for people in the military, and a handful of other populations 
like that.
    I suppose the first question is, is it constitutional, and 
I think my colleague from North Carolina dealt with that. I 
mean, if you just go to the website for your local school 
system and look and see what shots your kids have to get before 
you enroll them in kindergarten or seventh grade or third 
grade, I just looked at ours: tetanus diphtheria, tetanus, 
pertussis, measles, mumps, rubella, chickenpox, polio. I am 
happy to yield for 3 or 4 seconds. Is anybody making the claim 
that these are unconstitutional?
    [No response.]
    Mr. Raskin. OK, because none of them have ever been struck 
down on constitutional grounds. So, we are not talking about a 
violation of due process liberty or even what is left of it 
after the Supreme Court's decision striking down Roe v. Wade 
and Planned Parenthood v. Casey. I mean, that, of course was, 
you know, a catastrophe for the idea of due process privacy and 
liberty interests against government mandates, but I have not 
heard an argument that it is unconstitutional, is it good for 
the public health. It is hard to see how it couldn't be good 
for the public health, for example, to have public health 
workers vaccinated or people in the armed forces who already 
have to get all of these other shots also to get another shot 
for COVID-19.
    So, my last colleague asked the question, well, surely the 
image of mandates went way beyond what the reality of the 
mandates were given, that they were geared to very specific 
subsets of the population. But I think a bigger question is, 
did all of the anti-COVID-19 propaganda undermine people's 
faith in public health, in public health authorities?
    I mean, when Donald Trump urged everybody to get 
hydroxychloroquine or floated the idea of just injecting 
yourself with bleach, or just said that, magically, COVID-19 
was going to disappear overnight, or saying, don't worry, you 
know, the Chinese Government is doing a great job, they are 
doing a magnificent job, and on 36 different occasions praising 
the work of the Chinese Government. You can check it out 
online, sir, and I would be very happy to send you all of the 
tweets and the statements that President Trump made praising 
President Xi and his magnificent work on COVID-19. I think that 
probably had a lot more to do with undermining people's 
confidence in public health.
    But, Dr. Lynch, let me ask you. Do people have a free 
exercise religious right, not to follow a vaccine mandate, you 
know, as a public health worker or in the military, for 
example, or any secular law that they think burdens their 
religious freedom?
    Dr. Lynch. I am not a legal scholar, but I can speak to 
their process. And that is that when I look at this in our own 
system, and people would submit religious requests for 
accommodation, there was no question as to sincerely held 
religious beliefs, and think that is a common approach. The 
question really is, can I make you as safe as someone who is 
vaccinated, and the answer in healthcare settings and, I think, 
in many other settings is no.
    Mr. Raskin. And I think it is an excellent way of thinking 
about it because the Supreme Court, Justice Scalia, in the 
lead, has consistently rejected the idea that you have a free 
exercise right to opt out of, for example, marijuana laws if 
you are Rastafarian or peyote laws if you are a Native-American 
Indian and part of that religion. Your religious free exercise 
rights don't give you the right to opt out of a generally 
applicable universal secular law that is not adopted for the 
purposes of religious coercion or intimidation.
    But we have made a voluntary accommodation for people 
saying if you really don't want to do this in the school 
context in a number of states, then you don't have to do it, 
but of course we see major outbreaks of diseases among the 
Amish, for example, or Orthodox Jews in New York and certain 
populations when they refuse to engage in certain vaccines. So, 
I think that we are in the right place here, which is we invest 
in the vaccines, we get out real education against all the 
propaganda as much as we can, and then we give people a 
voluntary right to opt out where we think we can afford to do 
that, and they benefit from everybody else's herd immunity, as 
we hope all of us will. I yield back to you, Mr. Chairman. 
Thank you, kindly.
    Dr. Wenstrup. I now recognize Mrs. Greene from Georgia for 
5 minutes of questions.
    Ms. Greene. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. As we are talking 
about mandates today, I would like to read an email from one of 
my constituents, and this is what vaccine mandates did to her. 
``Hello. I am a retired RN who was forced to choose between 
being fired or receive mandated vaccination. I was too young to 
retire, so I had to be vaccinated. Shortly afterward, I 
developed stroke-like symptoms and was rushed to the hospital. 
Testing showed no stroke. I have been hospitalized 7 times 
since and no stroke on testing. I went to the Mayo Clinic in 
Florida and met with the top-notch neurologists there. He spent 
2 hours with me, and during the visit he asked which vaccine I 
received. When I told him the Pfizer vaccine, he was not 
surprised by my symptoms.
    ``I went from being a charge nurse running the floor, being 
on a code team, to a person who cannot remember how to take a 
shower, who walks like a drunkard, and slurs her words. I 
cannot remember people from church or how to get to the grocery 
store around the corner from me. This has taken such a toll on 
my family as well. I caught my husband of 34 years crying 
because he misses me, the me I once was. I cannot stay focused 
and tend to ramble off subject and then cannot remember what 
topic was being talked about. I have applied for disability and 
have to wait at least a year until I might receive it. I feel 
so useless, but I have the love and support of my family and 
friends. There are so many more people like me out there. I 
want you to be our voice,'' and today, I will gladly be her 
voice.
    [Chart.]
    Ms. Greene. Let's talk about what mandates have done. This 
is the VAERS reporting system and how many deaths were reported 
to VAERS by year. The blue is all non-COVID vaccine deaths. The 
red is reports of deaths related to the COVID-19 vaccine. This 
is 2021, this is 2022. The total reports following COVID-19 
vaccination by year. As you can see, the first year that the 
FDA gave the Emergency Use Authorization, it was 10,596. It 
rapidly increased in 2021 to 700,194. 2022, 206,673.
    And what happened? Mandates went away during 2022 and are 
still being forced in some places, but are much less, but in 
2023 the numbers are 44,680 so far. This was dramatic. In 2020, 
the same year that the FDA gave the Emergency Use 
Authorization, COVID was the No. 2 highest-reported vaccine 
injuries and deaths on VAERS, but easily it went to No. 1 in 
2021 and obviously No. 1 in 2022.
    Let's talk about the things that have been reported. 
Characteristics on the reports: death 17,432, permanent 
disability 17,142, hospitalization 81,931, emergency room and 
office visits 310,040, serious adverse events 107,722. What 
else has happened? Let's compare the VAERS COVID and flu 
vaccine reported deaths by days to the onset of all ages. Days 
of onset, COVID vaccine rapidly reported, that death happens 
immediately after the vaccine. Flu vaccine, much lower rate. If 
anyone is wondering why there is vaccine hesitancy, look no 
further than the VAERS reporting system because many of these 
people's stories were taken off of social media and censored. 
These people were called conspiracy theorists when they talked 
about this happening to their family or their friends.
    Reports on menstrual and hemorrhages by year. If anyone 
wants to understand what this has done to women, and, Ms. 
Williams, I have great sympathy for you being let go by ESPN 
for refusing a COVID vaccine, and you should have never been 
fired for that, but you were right. You were right to listen to 
your doctor. There have been serious reports of changes in 
women's menstrual cycle and hemorrhages. Here is 2020. Again, 
that is the same year that emergency use was given for the 
COVID-19 vaccine.
    Reports of miscarriage. Ms. Williams, you were right again. 
Miscarriages increased drastically, but yet no one seems to 
want to listen to these women. It is shocking. Myocarditis and 
pericarditis reported, 2021 and 2022, hardly ever reported 
before COVID-19 vaccine mandates. Does anyone want to know why 
people don't want to join the military until the mandates were 
taken away? That is it right there. This is not a conspiracy 
theory. Let's talk about heart attacks reported within days of 
the onset. Heart attacks, this is the highest amount right 
within the first day to the second day of receiving the COVID-
19 vaccine. What did the Pfizer execs know? They did not test 
if the COVID-19 vaccine would prevent transmission before 
release.
    Mr. Chairman, I just need just a little more time. Dr. Birx 
said she knew the COVID vaccine would not protect against 
infection, but yet mandates were forced, but what about people 
and their stories? Here is the comedian Nick Nemeroff, dead at 
age 32. He said, ``I will not get the third shot. I will not. 
Pfizer me once, no shame. Pfizer me twice, shame on COVID. 
Pfizer me three times, shame on you. You want me to get a third 
shot? What is next? The fifth? No, thank you.'' Then he died, 
aged 32.
    What about all the athletes? Shane Warne. ``Get your double 
vaccine, get on with it, learn to live with it.'' Australian 
cricket legend Shane Warne dies in his sleep. What about the 
young kids? Teen equestrian star, Cienna Knowles, hospitalized 
with blood clots after Pfizer vaccine. The stories go on and on 
and on, but I will leave you with this.
    From February 21 to March 2020, Millennials experienced the 
equivalent of a Vietnam War, a Vietnam War, with more than 
60,000 excess deaths. The Vietnam War took 12 years to kill the 
same number of healthy young people. We have just seen die in 
only 12 months. Mr. Chairman, I yield back. Thank you.
    Dr. Wenstrup. I now recognize Mr. Garcia from California 
for 5 minutes of questions.
    Mr. Garcia. Thank you. Well, that was a lot. I want to just 
first start by saying that we know that the VAERS system should 
not be used, is an unverified way of actually looking at the 
numbers. And so, to continue to bring that up as actually a 
functional way of looking at the impacts of the pandemic is 
quite irresponsible. And I think that the comments we just 
heard, I think, speak to a lot of the other comments that we 
have been hearing in these hearings, and that is that there is 
a complete dismantling and the importance of what vaccinations 
actually have done in this country and how many lives we have 
actually saved.
    The track record on the House Republican side as it relates 
to this issue and the pandemic has been quite shameful. We know 
that COVID vaccines have saved lives, period. Every reputable 
doctor, this has widely been peer-reviewed, and we know that 
they have saved lives, and not just the COVID vaccine, other 
types of vaccines as well. And as we have said earlier, as it 
was mentioned by the Ranking Member, the House majority invited 
RFK, who, as we all know, is a conspiracy theorist and a 
vaccine denier, as a leading voice around issues around 
vaccines and the pandemic here to the House. We know that his 
opinions have already been discredited and they are dangerous, 
and yet he is somehow someone that is uplifted by the House 
majority on this issue. But beyond that, we know that RFK has 
made also racist and antisemitic statements, falsely claiming 
that COVID was deliberately engineered as ``an ethnic bioweapon 
targeted to attack Caucasians and black people, and that 
Chinese and Jewish people are more immune to COVID.'' So, these 
are the experts that the House majority continue to listen to 
and was invited, of course, to appear to a House Committee.
    [Chart]
    Mr. Garcia. Now, this isn't the first or most dangerous 
antisemitic trope that we have heard. In January 2022, he also 
said the vaccine requirements are worse than the persecution of 
Jews, like Anne Frank, during the Holocaust, which killed 9 
million people, including 6 million Jews. And we shouldn't be 
surprised at this. Of course, we have heard continuous 
antisemitic comments from the House majority. We have seen this 
tweet behind us before. And this person, of course, sits on 
this very Committee who just actually gave some very 
irresponsible facts to our witnesses and the Committee as well. 
But just like RFK and other conspiracy theorists, Members of 
this Committee continue and continue to attack vaccines. 
Vaccines save lives. The pandemic cost us 1.3 plus million 
Americans. It is the single, largest, most devastating loss of 
life event that we have had in the modern era.
    Ms. Greene. Mr. Chairman?
    Mr. Garcia. It is the most significant loss of life we have 
had in the modern era.
    Dr. Wenstrup. Yes. Ms. Greene, please pause for a second.
    Ms. Greene. I would like to make a point of order and ask 
the Members to be reminded of the rules of decorum, Mr. 
Chairman.
    Mr. Garcia. And what rules are those?
    Dr. Wenstrup. The gentleman from California will suspend. 
The issues we are debating are important ones, and Members feel 
deeply about them. You do. Everyone here does, everyone. While 
vigorous disagreement is part of the legislative process, 
Members are reminded that we must adhere to established 
standards of decorum and debate. It is a violation of House 
rules and the rules of this Committee to engage in 
personalities regarding other Members or to question the 
motives of a colleague. Remarks of that type are not permitted 
by the rules and are not in keeping with the best traditions of 
our Committee. The Chair will enforce these rules of decorum at 
all times and urges all Members to be mindful of the remarks.
    Mr. Garcia. Mr. Chairman, what rule did I----
    Dr. Wenstrup. Does the gentlelady from Georgia have 
anything further or comment?
    Ms. Greene. No.
    Mr. Garcia. Mr. Chairman, I am not sure----
    Dr. Wenstrup. The gentleman may proceed.
    Mr. Garcia. Thank you. I am not sure what rule I broke. I 
actually didn't call anyone out by name and did not actually 
disparage anyone. I showed an actual tweet that one of the 
Committee Members actually tweeted. It is a public statement in 
the public record, so this is actually not disparaging anyone, 
unless the Committee Member wants to retract what was set up 
here. We can read it if we would like. It says, ``Vaccinated 
employees get a vaccination logo just like the Nazis forced 
Jewish people to wear a gold star. Vaccine passports and mask 
mandates create discrimination against unvaxxed people who 
trust their immune systems to a virus that is 99 percent 
survivable.'' So, that is actually a public statement. I am not 
sure if that is an attack on anyone. I mean, I disagree with 
it, but that is what was said. Let me go ahead and continue.
    We also know that studies have found that COVID death rates 
were 11 percent higher in states, and this is an important 
point, with Republican-controlled governments and 26 percent 
higher in areas where voters lean more conservative. In fact, 
of the 15 U.S. states with the highest age-adjusted death 
rates, 13 of them were led by Republican Governors during the 
pandemic. And I say this because vaccine hesitancy and causing 
and pushing folks to not get vaccinated actually leads to 
higher death, and that is a fact.
    I want to talk about Ron DeSantis, the Governor of Florida, 
who is running for President. He, of course, bragged early on 
about pushing against vaccine mandates, boasted about his 
record, but we also know that the latest medical journal just 
last month attributed over 16,000 needless deaths to his 
failure to get Floridians vaccinated. They also fell behind the 
national average throughout 2021 as Governor DeSantis 
increasingly caved to vaccine skepticism, and the constituents 
paid that price. According to a report in The New York Times, 
``Of the 23,000 Floridians who died, 9,000 were younger than 
65, despite the Governor's insistence at the time that an 
entire vulnerable population was basically vaccinated.''
    Dr. Lynch, is it fair to say that vaccine requirements, 
along with robust public outreach and access to free 
vaccinations, result in actually higher vaccination rates?
    Dr. Lynch. Absolutely.
    Mr. Garcia. And in areas with higher vaccination rates, 
have we seen lower age-adjusted rates of hospitalization and 
death due to the pandemic?
    Dr. Lynch. Yes.
    Mr. Garcia. So, it seems fair to conclude that these 
measures saved some number of lives. Is that correct?
    Dr. Lynch. Correct.
    Mr. Garcia. And is it also true that discouraging vaccines 
and telling folks to not get vaccinated can actually lead to 
more death?
    Dr. Lynch. Yes.
    Mr. Garcia. Thank you. I yield back.
    Dr. Wenstrup. I now recognize Dr. Jackson from Texas for 5 
minutes of questions.
    Dr. Jackson. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you to our 
witnesses for being here today.
    I want to start by saying that I am not against vaccines, 
and I don't believe the vast majority or any of my Republican 
colleagues are either that I know of. I got the COVID-19 
vaccine. Throughout this pandemic, I encouraged my family 
members, my friends, my constituents to speak with their doctor 
about whether the vaccine was right for them. However, I am 100 
percent against unconstitutional vaccine mandates.
    As a physician, one of my most significant issues with the 
COVID-19 vaccine mandates was the interference with the pre-
established patient provider relationship. The Biden 
Administration determined that they would implement a one-size-
fits-all mandate and invalidate any decision between an 
individual and their doctor, the doctor who knows them and 
their medical history best. The bottom line is your vaccination 
status is between you and your doctor, and Washington D.C. 
should have nothing to do with that.
    Various groups of Americans were negatively impacted by 
this one-size-fits-all vaccine mandate and were forced to 
choose between their jobs, their religious beliefs, and their 
health and the vaccine. One of these groups was pregnant women 
and women trying to get pregnant. This was an expedited 
vaccine, initially being used under Emergency Use 
Authorization, developed using new mRNA technology with 
essentially zero information on long-term effects. There were 
no studies, none, and no information available on potential 
risk to a developing fetus and no information on fertility. 
Yet, despite this, pregnant women and women trying to get 
pregnant were not provided an exemption to these totalitarian 
vaccine mandates.
    Many of these women were young and otherwise healthy with 
no significant risk from the virus. The CDC and the WHO, for 
political reasons and not scientific reasons, also disregarded 
this unique population and this lack of important data and 
pushed for pregnant women to get vaccinated. Even benign, over-
the-counter drug medications, always say you should check with 
your doctor first if you are pregnant. We just heard one of our 
witnesses today, Ms. Williams, tell part of her story and how 
she had to make this difficult decision between her job, her 
concerns about her soon to be pregnancy, and taking the 
vaccine. Ms. Williams, you stated that you had a conversation 
with your doctor, is that correct?
    Ms. Williams. Yes, I did.
    Dr. Jackson. And you stated that he supported your decision 
to forgo the vaccine. Is that also correct?
    Ms. Williams. He did, yes.
    Dr. Jackson. I suspect that there were initially many such 
conversations. However, I have talked to multiple physicians 
over the last few years. I just met with 30 or 40 of them that 
were addressing this very issue. I think that there were a lot 
of conversations that started like that very soon in the 
process, but very soon, providers discovered that if they had 
these discussions and made these recommendations against the 
vaccine, that they were suddenly at risk of losing their jobs.
    Hospital CEOs, mostly non-physicians, came after doctors 
and nurses that didn't parrot the government's vaccine talking 
points, and state medical boards threatened to take licenses 
away, and national boards threatened to remove certifications. 
This is why it has eroded the doctor-patient relationship. This 
is why we have no trust in our public health sector anymore, 
and we are going to have to do everything we can to build this 
back. But I really am concerned that this is going to be an 
uphill climb, and it is rhetoric like we hear on the left and 
rhetoric like we heard on this other side of the aisle all day 
long that led to the distrust of the public health system, and 
has now led to any vaccine hesitancy that happens to be out 
there. And with that, Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
    Dr. Wenstrup. I now recognize Dr. McCormick from Georgia 
for 5 minutes of questions.
    Dr. McCormick. Thank you, Mr. Chair. So, I know all of you 
have expertise in different ways. I know Dr. Lynch. I have read 
through your resume. It is very impressive. You are an internal 
medicine physician. Obviously, you have a lot of experience in 
infectious disease. You are an instructor, a professor, and I 
am sure you have seen patients during this pandemic. How many 
thousands of patients would you say you have seen for COVID 
during this pandemic?
    Dr. Lynch. I can't quantitate how many patients I have seen 
with COVID-19. I started working on the COVID-19 response in 
January 2020 with the first diagnosed case in North America, 
and I have been working on it essentially full time for the 
first 3 years on policies, protocols, as well as rotating on 
the infectious disease consult service.
    Dr. McCormick. But you have seen patients, right?
    Dr. Lynch. Starting February 2020, yes.
    Dr. McCormick. And I, too. I am an ER doc that was 
campaigning during this, but also working full time in the ER 
as a night shift doctor seeing thousands of patients. I did my 
medical school at Morehouse School of Medicine, student body 
president, and then was at Emory. Pretty good program for 
emergency medicine, taught by some of the finest professors 
very similar to yourself, very well experienced. Would you say 
that I am an expert after seeing thousands of patients and 
keeping up to date reading articles after article and having 
the same kind of instruction? Would you say I, too, am an 
expert based on what I just told you?
    Dr. Lynch. I have no doubt you have great expertise in 
emergency medicine.
    Dr. McCormick. Thank you, and probably in COVID, too, as 
much as most people, right?
    Dr. Lynch. I can't speak to that.
    Dr. McCormick. Well, so you can't speak to what I just 
said. I read your bio, and I am calling you an expert, unless 
we can just play semantics and ignore what I just said. I am 
telling you, I saw thousands of patients as an ER doctor. I was 
trained by Emory, a very good program by instructors just like 
you, and you can't even admit that I am an expert?
    Dr. Lynch. I am sorry. I haven't reviewed your expertise.
    Dr. McCormick. So, either you don't believe me or just, OK, 
that is fine. So, let's just say that I am an expert, for 
argument's sake. There are experts out there besides yourself 
and other people who believe like you do, correct?
    Dr. Lynch. Yes.
    Dr. McCormick. OK. Thank you. What I am trying to make a 
point here is, I don't deny that you have your opinion or even 
that it could be right in certain people's minds. But I think, 
just like in everything else, when there is a debate, the thing 
that drives me crazy about this whole COVID pandemic discussion 
is that people who have very good education, very good 
experiences, legitimate background in epidemiology and 
infectious disease, in actually seeing patients, may have a 
difference of opinion. The problem is when the government 
decides who they believe, and they start stacking the deck, and 
they start censoring people that disagree with them, we have 
the real problem.
    And this is what I experienced as an expert, whether I call 
myself that, or anybody else recognize that or not. That is 
what I did for a living. I got paid to see COVID patients from 
the beginning of the pandemic, all the way through December 28 
of this last year. That is what I did for a living, and I read 
all the literature, both sides, by the way. I tried to be very 
well rounded. What drives me crazy is the fact that if somebody 
disagrees with me, though, and they have a different opinion, 
they could censor me.
    Now I am not an anti-vaxxer at all. I am one of the first 
people in America to get the vaccination, two of them. But yet, 
it is funny that I watched my most liberal colleagues who wear 
three masks, double gloved, and do all the other precautions 
that they take because they are scared to death of this 
disease, will not get the booster, and knowing what I know 
about this disease process, and the fact that when you are 
exposed or you get a vaccination, you build immunity, and you 
get re-exposed over and over again. I would say, and probably 
you would agree with me, there aren't too many people in this 
world or at least in America that I know of that haven't been 
exposed to this multiple times by now. Is that correct?
    Dr. Lynch. Yes, it is hard to tell. There are probably a 
substantial portion of people who have for reasons that are 
unclear, remain antibody negative, as you have probably seen in 
the paper published recently.
    Dr. McCormick. I have. Matter of fact, I came back with a 
negative test. I probably have a T-cell response. It was not 
just picking up on the same kind of test for whatever reason, 
but I know I have been exposed to it thousands of times, both 
on the campaign trail and as an ER doctor. And so, I must have 
some immunity because I haven't really gotten sick, either I 
just don't react to it like a normal person does, but that is 
really inconsequential, I guess.
    My point being that this whole debate over whether it be 
the military and young, healthy people, or vaccination status 
and who has been immune, once people have been exposed multiple 
times, and they are either sick or not sick, but they have some 
sort of immunity, obviously, or they just don't react to the 
disease, and they are told they can't travel, they can't have a 
dissenting point of view, and they can't have a relationship 
with their doctor that decides their fate.
    We have a problem. This is what a lot of experts are 
saying, not just doctors, but people who have had these 
experiences where if I don't do what you tell me to do, if what 
the government says is the moral standard of healthcare, which 
the government, by the way, in my honest opinion, this is 
everything anti-American I have ever seen, which is where we 
said the government gets to decide something more than anybody 
with an inalienable right to make their own decisions. This is 
the problem I have with the argument that people keep on saying 
that we are going to believe one expert over another expert, 
and that we are not going to have any ability to actually make 
a conclusion other than what you come to if the government 
decides to take your opinion. And this is where we have the 
real problem. This is where we are having the real debate. It 
was interesting, you did say I was going to get a little extra 
just for seeing patients during COVID. No. OK. Well, I thought 
that was the agreement.
    But let me just conclude with this then. I thought it was 
interesting that one of my colleagues mentioned John Adams, and 
the experimental inoculation they are doing during that 
epidemic, if you will. And I know one of his daughters got very 
ill, if I am not mistaken, almost died and had some permanent 
residual issues. And Abigail, one of my favorite first ladies, 
lamented over that and struggled with that, and that is OK, but 
she made a decision.
    We all make a decision. It is as American as putting your 
kids in the back of a wagon and going west where you may 
freeze, starve, or get killed, and that is why California 
exists right now. We make decisions all the time that are 
dangerous, but it is our decision. And the fact that we 
wouldn't let somebody travel or have a job or have an 
objection, I find is un-American, and with that, I yield.
    Dr. Wenstrup. Thank you, and thank you all. Dr. Bardosh, I 
know you have to catch a flight.
    Dr. Bardosh. Yes, I do.
    Dr. Wenstrup. And so, we are just going to go to closing 
statements. And so, if you have to leave, feel free to leave, 
but I do appreciate you being here. I do appreciate your work. 
We will continue to follow your work because I think it has 
been very helpful as is everyone's input today, but we won't 
take it as a sign of rudeness. If you need to go, please go.
    Dr. Bardosh. Thank you.
    Dr. Wenstrup. Thank you. I would now like to yield to 
Ranking Member Ruiz for a closing statement.
    Dr. Ruiz. Yes, thank you, Mr. Chairman. Before we close out 
today's hearing, I just want to reiterate a few things again 
for the record and for the viewers.
    First, let me just say again that for those without 
contraindications, COVID-19 vaccines are safe. They are 
effective in reducing the risk of getting the virus or giving 
the virus to someone else, and it has reduced the risk of 
hospitalizations as well as death, and that is because of 
lifesaving vaccines that we were able to save 3.2 million 
American lives, prevent 18.5 million people hospitalizations, 
save the country over $1 trillion in medical costs, reunite 
loved ones, reopen schools and businesses, and protect members 
of our Nation's military.
    Second, I want to reiterate that vaccine requirements were 
temporarily put in place during the COVID-19 pandemic emergency 
declaration to combat a public health emergency when a 
dangerous, deadly virus was rapidly spreading and killing 
thousands of people a day. Despite my colleagues' claims, these 
policies weren't just made up by a bunch of politicians or 
arbitrary, without science or history. No, they were well 
reasoned policies that were crafted using the science of how 
vaccines work and have been known to work for over 100 years.
    When we look back on our Nation's experiences battling 
highly transmissible, deadly diseases like smallpox, polio, 
measles, and mumps, we relied on high vaccination rates to 
protect people from severe illnesses and death. So, when COVID-
19 rolled around, a deadly novel, highly transmissible airborne 
virus, we once again looked to a solution that we knew would 
offer the strongest protection at the lowest possible risk of 
severe illness, long COVID, death, transmission, which is 
vaccines.
    And finally, I want to reiterate that there is a strong 
legal foundation for vaccine requirements. Again, despite my 
colleague's claims to the contrary, we know that these kinds of 
commonsense requirements have been viewed as consistent with 
the First Amendment for over 100 years. Legal precedent tells 
us that neutral and general applicable laws do not violate the 
free exercise of religion under the First Amendment. And we 
know that COVID-19 policies, including vaccine requirements 
have met this standard time and time again.
    So, it is my hope that we can move forward in this Select 
Subcommittee to focus on solutions that will save people's 
lives in the next pandemic, solutions that ensuring people have 
access to the accurate data they need to make informed 
decisions about their health, and continuing to manufacture 
distrust in the public health will do nothing to repair the 
damage that has already been done by the misinformation being 
spread online, the platforms that have been given to those with 
dangerous views or the conspiratorial accusations without proof 
that have been lobbed at our Nation's public health officials.
    The way that we can move forward is by identifying common 
sense solutions that will save lives and reduce harm when the 
next pandemic arrives on our doorsteps. And so, I just want to 
say, too, that my absence was due to votes and other unforeseen 
circumstances. I appreciate all of you for being here. And I 
also want to say I urge my colleagues to join me in working 
toward these forward-looking solutions, and I yield back.
    Dr. Wenstrup. I thank the Ranking Member and I have no 
doubt that something took precedence and I understand your 
devotion to this issue. And I have said it many times, to me, 
something that should have united our country became something 
that divided us terribly. It was a political year. It was a 
Presidential year. This hearing today, however, was about the 
mandates, the consequences of the mandates, and going in that 
direction.
    I am a soldier. When you are looking at solving problems, 
you have to look at the battlefield and understand it and know 
what is out there, and you can't ignore things that have 
created public distrust or whatever. I thought there was no 
greater example than a video that was released when Dr. Fauci 
was going door-to-door to try and get people vaccinated. And 
this young man stood on his porch, and he probably had 
socioeconomic conditions that might make him more vulnerable. 
And he flat out told him, no, leave. He wasn't convincing. It 
didn't do the job. I said from the very beginning, and I said 
this in both administrations, America needs to hear from the 
doctors treating COVID patients. And not just them, because 
there are so many things that our policies did that we have to 
take a look at.
    And, Dr. Lynch, you talked a lot about the vaccine, and 
that is what you were here to do today, and I understand that, 
but there are a lot of people who didn't go to the doctor, 
didn't get their cancer diagnosed, and I will talk about those 
things in just a minute, but if we don't admit to failed ideas, 
we will never be better. And, you know, I listened to my friend 
in his opening statement, Dr. Ruiz, and he flat out said, I 
have to check the record, that the vaccine prevents 
transmission, but then he went on to say, it lowers the chance 
of transmission. So, how you say things matter, and, you know, 
we can say it is safe.
    Do we know 10 years from now, what this vaccine is going to 
do? No, no, and, frankly, I don't want to wait to deal with 
something like Agent Orange 30 years later. We need to look at 
this now. I don't know, I tried to understand what really long 
COVID is. I keep hearing that definition, and I don't 
necessarily understand what that is, but I have a lot of people 
wondering, do I have a problem because I got COVID or because I 
got the vaccine. They don't know. And frankly, I don't think we 
know. So, let's be honest about those types of things, and let 
the American public know that we are looking at everything, 
that it is not this way and only this way.
    You know, we talk about the doctor-patient relationship and 
how important that is. Every drug ad you see on TV, which I 
have problems with those, but every drug ad you see on TV says 
the side effects. Make sure you know, as a matter of fact, you 
can't run that ad without telling every single side effect that 
has been reported. And then they say, talk to your doctor about 
this drug. We didn't do that. We didn't do that.
    People that lost jobs were harmed. You know, I agree with 
Mrs. Dingell about childhood vaccines. We all do. There are 
five doctors here on this side of the aisle. They are accused 
of trying to tell people not to get vaccines, and every single 
one of them has said that it is not what we are saying, but 
what we haven't done as a country is explain the difference 
between this new technology, this new vaccine, and the other 
vaccines. Mrs. Dingell had the benefit of seeing a doctor. She 
had the wherewithal. There is a doctor here for all of us to 
see in the House of Representatives. She can see a doctor at 
home. Not everyone has that wherewithal very easily, especially 
during a pandemic, and she had the conversation. And, you know, 
believe me, I feel for her, that has had to have been 
extremely, extremely disturbing to get Guillain-Barre. 
Fortunately, she recovered from it. But we can't just say, 
well, she had a side effect. We can talk about that, but we are 
not talking about other side effects that people are reporting. 
It is important.
    And, Dr. Lynch, I don't disagree with you for 1 minute that 
our numbers got better with more people getting vaccinated. I 
don't disagree with you, not at all. But it was mentioned 
today, the way we went about it, there was a short-term gain, 
but long-term harm, very long-term harm, and we have to take a 
look at what we have done. I got vaccinated, Pfizer, both 
doses. Six months later, I got COVID. The only reason I knew is 
I couldn't smell garlic salt. I was told I needed a booster to 
travel. I said I would like to check my T-cells and antibodies. 
The lab here couldn't do the T-cells. I got my antibodies. 
Strong number was 40. My number was 821. Should I get a 
booster? That is a legitimate question. I don't want a 
hyperimmune response.
    Dr. Fauci, you know, a lot of things are coming out, things 
he said previously. I see the video of him, 2004, and he is in 
an interview. And they said, so should people who have had the 
flu get the flu shot? He emphatically said, no, no, no, they 
have got more immunity than anybody. They are protected. 
America sees that. How do you explain the difference here? We 
didn't discuss the differences between those other diseases--
polio, measles, mumps, rubella--compared to COVID-19. Well, 
first, we didn't know much about COVID-19. But as we knew 
things, I never saw one public service announcement explaining 
the difference between those vaccines and this vaccine or those 
diseases and this disease, not one, not one.
    We didn't look at the psychological effects, the physical 
effects, the financial ruin that some people got for getting 
fired. We had non-infected people that then lost their 
healthcare, denied their medical care. They weren't infected, 
they weren't transmitting, but they were told to go home, you 
are fired, no benefits. Tell me that makes sense. How is that 
logical? I have said for a while the vaccine is a big help, no 
doubt about it. But also we knew from the trials, that people 
that got vaccinated still got COVID. We also know that vaccines 
produce variants. I thought, as a country, we should have put 
greater emphasis going forward on treatments, treatments for 
this problem.
    I want to share with you a ruling in January 2022 by the 
Supreme Court, and, Ms. Williams, I think this one is for you. 
The Supreme Court struck down the Biden Administration mandate 
that large businesses require their employees to either 
revaccinated or tested once a week for the coronavirus. In a 
six to three order, the justices blocked an Occupational Safety 
and Health Administration Emergency Rule for businesses with 
more than 100 employees, one that would have impacted more than 
80 million workers. That is from the Supreme Court.
    Let me just say, I want to thank our witnesses today. I 
really appreciate you all being here. Helpful discussion, and 
your testifying today is impactful, and it does help guide us 
as we try to prepare for the future. But we did this hearing 
today not to demonize the COVID-19 vaccine, but to examine the 
Federal Government's mandate so that we can investigate the 
effectiveness of a policy that required Americans receive a 
novel vaccine, regardless of their health status, regardless of 
prior infection. That didn't make sense to a lot of people and 
rightfully so. As we heard today it was much more than a choice 
between a novel vaccine and a job, it became a choice between a 
vaccine and a livelihood, between a vaccine and a child, 
between military readiness, our very own national security, and 
political agendas, agendas that I don't even understand why 
they were political.
    We heard today how a coercive approach to vaccines not only 
led to an increase in distrust in public officials, but also 
decrease in the likelihood of many from receiving the vaccine 
or other vaccines that they should be getting. We witnessed 
government officials vilify and ostracize those who did not 
accept their blanket approach to individual health concerns. 
And as we continue our after-action review of the COVID-19 
pandemic, we must look at Federal policies that were 
implemented and decide if they were effective, and whether we 
would recommend such policies in the future, and what the 
environment of the Nation is at that time and how we go about 
our approach.
    Was stripping Americans of their individual freedoms of 
their bodily autonomy worth it? Did it help end the pandemic, 
or did it create more lasting harm, as I referred to before and 
divide Americans further? Did it force Americans who were not 
at serious risk for COVID, instead take a vaccine that could 
potentially have adverse effects that they don't know? They 
don't know where they will be in 5 years or 10 years. We have 
evidence that mandates made Americans even more suspicious of 
public health authorities and more became suspicious of other 
vaccines.
    I was all for the Emergency Use Authorization. People were 
dying, and we started to realize pretty quickly what people 
were dying. We understood their health, their comorbidities, 
why they were more vulnerable because of their age. We 
prioritized those that were at greatest risk, which we should 
have done. That was right. We were promised that the vaccine 
would stop transmission, only to find out that wasn't 
completely true, and America noticed. They noticed that 
``because I said so'' is not a good enough reason for the 
government to mandate a vaccine for millions.
    The Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic has 
been charged with examining pandemic era policies including 
vaccine mandates, not to create more distrust, but so that 
public health might be worthy of the public's trust in the 
future. Only when we have gathered the facts can we make 
informed recommendations for the next pandemic, and create a 
playbook to help protect Americans' health, and cutting your 
doctor out of the equation is not doing that. We have seen the 
effects and the divisions that stem from the mandates, you saw 
it right here on this panel.
    If we truly care about America's health, and truly care 
about individual liberties, which our founders believe 
paramount to this great Nation, we need to do better during the 
next pandemic, and maybe next time there will be respect and 
information rather than indoctrination and demonization. We 
have a unique opportunity here as a part of this Select 
Subcommittee to learn from our public policy, our mistakes so 
that better and more effective ones can be implemented in the 
future. This hearing is a significant step in doing that. The 
government shouldn't get away with ``because I told you so.'' 
It is not the American way. Americans aren't built like that. 
It shouldn't mandate a novel vaccine at the expense of your 
livelihood or your future child.
    I want to thank you all for being here today, and I want to 
assure you, Dr. Lynch, we want to continue to work with the 
medical community to go forward for what is best for America 
because this is going to happen again, and you know what? Next 
time it may affect children more than adults, we don't know. 
But I do want to tell Ms. Runyan and Ms. Williams that we are 
here for you to not only to protect your rights, but to protect 
your health.
    With that, without objection, all Members will have 5 
legislative days within which to submit materials and to submit 
additional written questions for the witnesses, which will be 
forwarded to the witnesses for their response.
    Dr. Wenstrup. And if there is no further business, without 
objection, the Select Subcommittee stands adjourned.
    [Whereupon, at 5:09 p.m., the select Subcommittee was 
adjourned.]

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