[Congressional Record Volume 169, Number 144 (Thursday, September 7, 2023)]
[Senate]
[Pages S4248-S4252]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
Unanimous Consent Request--S. Res. 332
Mr. PAUL. Mr. President, the Flat Earth Society is champing at the
bit to bring back masks even though the Cochrane analysis has looked at
78 randomized controlled studies and shown that masks didn't stop
transmission, didn't stop hospitalization, and didn't lessen deaths. In
other words, the masks on a population level had no influence over the
spread of COVID. Again, the Flat Earth Society cannot listen and absorb
these facts. They want the masks to come back.
In addition, the Flat Earth Society also wants to mandate three COVID
vaccines for kids despite no evidence that COVID vaccines reduce
transmission, hospitalization, or death for adolescents. Yet, to this
very day, Senate pages are required to get three vaccines in order to
participate in the program.
I rise today out of a desire to protect the health of the young men
and women who serve as Senate pages. I think we can all agree that the
Senate wouldn't function very well without the pages.
The very first page was a 9-year-old boy named Grafton Hanson. He was
appointed by Daniel Webster back in 1829. In those days, the pages
had to refill the inkwells and clean out the spittoons. Things have
changed a little bit around here since then. The work isn't quite as
messy anymore, but it is still a high-pressure job for a high school
student.
From day one, our country's response to the pandemic made the
comfortable more comfortable while the working class had to keep on
working. And now, in the Halls of Congress, a privileged class can
choose whether to get vaccinated while an underclass must abide by
COVID dictates. Think about it. The antiquarians of the Senate are not
required to be vaccinated, but the young, healthy people--at zero risk
for death from COVID--are being forced to be vaccinated three times.
To become a Senate page, you must get a COVID-19 booster shot, but
study after study demonstrates that for young and healthy people, the
risks posed by the vaccine are greater than the risk from COVID. Let me
be clear about that. This is for young, healthy adolescents; the facts
are different.
If you are elderly or infirm or have other risk factors, the risks of
the disease outweigh the risks of the vaccine, but for young, healthy
people, none of them will die from COVID. Almost all of them have
either had a vaccine or had the disease or both, but we are mandating
that they have three vaccines.
Study after study shows that it makes no sense to mandate COVID
vaccinations for teenagers who are healthy and that such a mandate
actually may be dangerous to adolescents. A study published last year
in the Journal of the American Medical Association Cardiology examined
23 million people ages 12 and up across Denmark, Finland, Norway, and
Sweden. It found that after two doses of mRNA vaccine, ``the risk of
myocarditis was higher within 28 days of vaccination.'' So they had a
risk of developing a heart inflammation within 28 days of the
vaccination compared with the group who was unvaccinated and that the
risk increased with each successive dose.
So there is a risk, particularly for the ages between 16 and 24, of
an inflammation of the heart, and it increases with each successive
dose. So if you are going to mandate three vaccines on a group of kids
who have zero risk of dying and the vaccine doesn't prevent
transmission, protects no one, all you are doing is adding a risk to
their health. And for goodness' sake, in a free country, couldn't we
let them make their own medical decisions?
This is exactly why European countries, including Germany, France,
Finland, Sweden, Denmark, and Norway, restrict the use of mRNA vaccines
for COVID. There are rules for young people. Yet the policy for the
Senate pages blindly commands three vaccines for young, healthy people.
A study published in December in the Journal of Medical Ethics found
that per million third doses, booster doses, of COVID vaccine, up to
147 cases of myocarditis may be caused in males ages 18 to 29; up to 80
percent of those diagnosed with vaccine-induced myocarditis or
pericarditis continue to struggle with cardiac inflammation more than 3
months after receiving a second dose.
Yet, remember, this is a group of people who have zero deaths--zero
deaths. There are no deaths of young, healthy people from COVID, and we
are mandating that they take three vaccines. We are supposed to be the
leaders in this country. What science are we looking at? What science
are we obeying? We are reacting in an emotional way. We are promoting
hysteria and leading with the wrong example.
Recently, Dr. Vinay Prasad and Dr. Benjamin Knudsen published a
review in the European Journal of Clinical Investigation that examined
29 studies across three continents. Six of the 29 studies showed that
after two doses of mRNA vaccine, more than 1 in 10,000 males between
the ages of 12 and 24 would experience myocarditis.
Think about it. To be a page up here, you send a perfectly healthy
young man or woman up here, and then you give them the risk of a
serious heart inflammation over a disease that is evolving every 3 or 4
months--such that the vaccine is good for about 3 or 4 months, until it
is no longer good--for a disease that was never deadly for children.
Initially, the argument was: Oh, we have to stop the children from
transmitting it to the old people. It doesn't
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work that way. The only thing even the proponents of the vaccine argue
is that the individual vaccinated may have a reduction of
hospitalization and death, but those statistics only hold for at-risk
populations: the elderly, the immunocompromised, the ill. For young,
healthy people, there is no health advantage to being vaccinated, and
there is actually a health disadvantage the more vaccines you give
them.
It is actually medical malpractice to continue to mandate three
vaccines, whether it is in the Senate or in a university, and
unfortunately, the example that is being set here in the Senate is
being followed in other universities around the country of mandating
three vaccines.
A study published recently in the Annals of Internal Medicine found
that regardless of sex, among those ages 5 to 39, myocarditis or
pericarditis occurred in 1 in every 50,000 after a first booster. With
statistics like that, why would we think it is a good idea to insist on
boosters for our young, healthy pages who are in their early teenage
years?
We are taking the rights of the individual, their parents, and their
physicians to make a decision based on their risk factors and their
individual parameters, and we are making a blanket rule that says they
need to get vaccinated. Yet study after study is showing that the risks
of the vaccine exceed the risks of the disease for this particular age
group. It is the height of malpractice to subject young people to the
greater risk of vaccination simply to satisfy mandates designed to
protect bureaucrats from accountability.
Now, I am told that the Democrats will object to this today. The
Democrats will stand up and say they know better than your parents. The
Democrats will stand up and say they know better than these kids'
doctors and that, by golly, if you want to be on the Senate floor, you
have to have three vaccines.
Well, guess what. I have got zero. I am standing right here. I have
got zero vaccines. I had COVID in the first month of the disease. And,
actually, I would have gotten vaccinated, but I got the disease early
on, and then all the evidence pointed toward immunity being gained from
having the disease. So I didn't bother getting the vaccine. Members of
my family got the vaccine. We recommended that my elderly in-laws get
the vaccine. But the thing is, we made that choice.
And so here I sit without a vaccine, and I won't wear a mask because
they don't work either. Yet then we are telling them. In a month, are
we going to be putting them back in masks? The Democrats want everybody
in masks. They want the hysteria to return. Why? Because they don't
think any of us are smart enough to make our own decisions. They want
to make the decision for us. The common man be damned. The working
class be damned. Americans be damned. The Democrats are going to tell
you to wear a mask, and the Democrats are going to tell you how many
vaccines to get.
Well, the vaccine goes out of style. The virus evolves away from the
vaccine within a couple of months. How many mandates are there going to
be? Why not six mandates? Why not 12? Why not mandate the newest
booster that may be more effective than the last booster? Which one are
we mandating? They just have to get three vaccines. But it goes against
the science.
Let's say you even grant the Democrats that there might be some
science on the other side of it. Good. Let the individual make the
decision. Whatever happened to the idea of individual choice? Whatever
happened to the idea of choice with regard to your body and your
medical decisions? The hypocrisy is astounding.
Recently, Drs. Vinay Prasad, Tracy Beth Hoeg, and Ram Duriseti shed
light on some of the science surrounding this, on some of the efforts
to manufacture studies that artificially bolster the case for mandates.
In a letter published this July in the New England Journal of Medicine,
Dr. Prasad and his team question an Israeli study that the FDA and our
government--Democrats--are trying to use to justify forcing people to
take boosters.
This study, they said, shows a 90-percent reduction in death if you
take the COVID booster vaccine. And they kind of scratched their heads,
and they said: Well, almost nobody is dying anymore because the virus
has become less dangerous as it has evolved. More people have immunity,
either natural or vaccine immunity. To have a 90-percent reduction in a
death rate that is already very tiny just seems a little bit
unbelievable.
So they looked at the data from the study, and what they found was
that, actually, there was a 90-percent reduction in the booster
category for all diseases: cancer, a variety of--diabetic, heart
attacks, you name it; people died 90 percent less of the time if you
were boosted. It is like: Wow. A booster cures heart disease; it cures
diabetes; it cures cancer. No. It turned out the study was flawed and
that the group that had been boosted died 90 percent less of the time
just because you have got to select it out for a group that was very
healthy versus a group that was less healthy.
The study was flawed, and it took scientists with the courage to
stand up to the New England Journal and say: Look at the data.
The original authors of the data finally released and said: Whoops.
We made a big mistake here. Our study doesn't really prove what we said
it proved.
When the FDA approved boosters for kids, did they show that it
reduced transmission? No. When they approved vaccines for adolescents,
did they show that it reduced hospitalization? No. Did they show that
it reduced deaths? No, because no kids are dying from COVID. You can't
be less than zero deaths.
How did they approve the vaccine at all for adolescents? How did they
approve the booster? They said: If we give them a booster, they make
antibodies.
I confronted Anthony Fauci on this, and I said: Well, I can give you
a hundred vaccines. Every individual I give it to will make antibodies.
That doesn't prove you need it. You need to prove that it does
something.
If you give them three vaccines, will they transmit the disease less?
No evidence of it. Will they be hospitalized less? No evidence of it.
Will they die less often? No evidence. There is no evidence other than
the laboratory tests saying they make antibodies but no evidence that
they need to make more antibodies.
But one thing we know: If you are a young person who has had COVID
recently--even the CDC admits this: If you have had COVID within 3
months and you take a vaccine, you have a profound risk of getting an
overly exuberant immune response and having the myocarditis because you
have had the vaccine in the middle of an immune response that you are
making against the disease.
Yet do you recall anyone at one of these pharmacies that are all
handing out the vaccine and pushing it--have you had any example of
them saying: Well, have you had COVID recently? Maybe you should wait 3
months. No. Nobody is paying any attention to natural immunity. Nobody
is paying any attention to the natural course of the disease. And
nobody is really paying any attention to the danger the vaccine
presents to young people.
This is not a benign situation. This is a situation where the
Democrats are in favor of mandating a vaccine that puts their health at
risk. We are telling kids all across America: You cannot come up here
unless you get what the Democrats tell you is the best thing for your
health. And even though there are some scientists who say that it may
actually imperil your health, you don't get a choice; and you can't be
part of the nationwide Senate program, you can't be part of this elite
group, unless you submit, unless you bend the knee to the Democrats,
unless you say: My body belongs to the Democratic Party; my body will
be injected with whatever the Democrats tell me I need to do because I
don't have control over my medical decisions; the Democratic Party
does.
This is obscene, and the Democratic majority should be embarrassed
that they are here today telling us that American parents and American
families are not smart enough to make their own decisions.
In the letter, Dr. Prasad and his colleagues wrote that the
``[u]nderlying health plays a substantial role in COVID-19-related
mortality'' and ``[i]nclusion of mortality not related to COVID-19 in
all observational . . .
[[Page S4250]]
studies would provide important context.''
So, in other words, it looks like the studies that may have shown any
indication that boosters might help were incorrectly performed, but the
vast majority of the studies have shown no effect on transmission,
hospitalization, or death. They do not exist.
I would love for the Democrats, when they stand up and talk about
forcing kids to do this, if they would present the studies for us that
show why or show that the booster vaccine actually aids in reduction of
transmission, hospitalization, or death of adolescents.
Even from within the government, though, some have resisted the ever-
expanding booster mandates. In 2021, the Director and Deputy Director
of the FDA's Office of Vaccine Research and Review--not someone who is
opposed to vaccines, someone who has been involved with the development
and promotion of vaccinations his entire career--resigned, two of these
guys resigned, citing White House pressure to approve third doses for
all adults, writing damning op-eds critical of the FDA's subsequent
decision to do so.
One of these op-eds ran in the Washington Post and was coauthored by
Dr. Paul Offit--once again, not an opponent of vaccines, not an
opponent of the COVID vaccine, a professor of pediatrics and director
of the Vaccine Education Center at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia,
a longtime advocate of vaccines who has been involved in the mainstream
pro-vaccine community--objected.
As a member of the FDA's Vaccine Advisory Committee, Dr. Offit did
not support widespread boosting. He and two former FDA officials wrote
that ``healthy young person[s] with two mRNA vaccine doses is extremely
unlikely to be hospitalized with COVID, so the case for risking any
side effects--such as myocarditis--diminishes substantially.'' Dr.
Offit even advised his own son not to get a booster because he was
already well protected against severe disease.
So here we have advocates of the vaccine, mainstream scientists who
work in the vaccine community, who have been promoting vaccines for the
health of the community. These are not people opposed to vaccines,
saying they would not give a booster to their child; they would not
give a third COVID vaccine because the risks of the vaccine outweigh
the risks of the disease.
This really encapsulates the debate here. Your healthcare is about
you. You are not a statistic. The Democrats somehow feel you are a cog
in their wheel, and you are just supposed to do what everybody does and
do as they say. But really, your healthcare decisions are based on your
risks of getting COVID, your risk of dying, being hospitalized, or
transmitting it. It is about you. That is why you make the decision.
Instead, they want a blanket mandate. And by doing it to the pages here
and forcing them to submit to this, what they are doing is setting a
terrible example for the country.
One editorial put it this way last year:
If being ``boosted'' becomes a prerequisite for
participation in normal life, the vaccine's diminishing
efficacy means the booster campaign will never end.
What does that mean? The virus is evolving. It is like the flu. It is
changing every 3 or 4 months. The vaccine becomes outdated within 3 or
4 months. So if you are at risk, by all means, keep getting the updated
vaccine. We are not even mandating the updated vaccine; we are
mandating a booster and often a booster that is a year or two old and
has no effect at all on the vaccine, even for people who are
susceptible to this. But we need to let the individual kids and their
parents make this decision.
Dr. Marty Makary is a professor at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine.
He wrote in the Wall Street Journal that ``[t]he U.S. government is
pushing COVID-19 vaccine boosters for 16- and 17-year-olds without
supporting clinical data. A large Israeli population study, published
in the New England Journal of Medicine . . . found that the risk of
COVID death in people under 30 with two vaccine shots was zero.''
So there is no science behind this. A large study of the entire
country of Israel, which keeps great records on this, found that kids
that had been vaccinated twice had zero deaths. Germany showed the same
thing--not just a few, not a small number, zero deaths among kids aged
5 to 17.
There is no scientific rationale for mandating three COVID vaccines
for healthy kids. Even the World Health Organization's chief scientist,
Dr. Soumya Swaminathan, said last year that ``there's no evidence right
now'' that suggests healthy children and adolescents need booster
shots. Even the WHO--one of the most pro-vaccine mandate groups you can
find in the world--has said they don't recommend booster shots.
Dr. Martin Kulldorff of Harvard Medical School says that mandating
people who have already had COVID still get vaccinated ``makes zero
sense''--zero sense--``from a scientific point of view, and it makes
zero sense from a public health point of view.''
A study in the Lancet supported this view, stating that ``[c]urrent
evidence does not . . . appear to show a need for boosting in the
general population, in which efficacy against severe disease remains
high.''
What does that mean? Why do they have efficacy? Why can they fight
it? Because they are young and healthy, and the disease seems to have a
predilection for the elderly. They are young and healthy, but they have
already had COVID. They have immunity. And many of them have all been
vaccinated. But we aren't demanding even just basic vaccination; we are
demanding three vaccines. And what we know is that with each individual
vaccine, the risk for heart inflammation goes up. It is less if they
have one. It is less if they have two. It is even more, though, if you
get to a third.
When we consider the rules for the pages, we ought to ask: Will these
policies be expected to continue indefinitely? COVID is with us
forever. COVID is now the new flu. Fortunately, it has become less
deadly over time. It was quite deadly in 2020, and each successive
evolution of the virus has made it less deadly. The death rate is
dramatically reduced.
Even at its peak, the death rate was about .3 percent, about three
times greater than the seasonal flu. It still meant a million Americans
died either from COVID or with COVID, but it is now lessened in
severity. Are they going to continue to tell us how to make our
healthcare decisions forever? Are Democrats so insistent that they know
better than everyone else that we will be beholden to bending the knee
and asking their permission to live? Are we going to ask permission
whether or not--they will come to us and say: To participate in life,
you have to be vaccinated three times. There is no science to back this
up.
When it comes to vaccines, although they can benefit the vaccinated
person if that person is in a risk category, in Denmark, vaccines were
not shown to have any impact on household viral transmission or
secondary attack rate.
Even the proponents of the mandates will admit, if forced to admit,
the vaccines don't stop transmission. The only thing they can hang
their hat on is there is reduced hospitalization, but that only exists
if you are in a category of increased risk.
Over a certain age, over a certain weight, have some diseases,
immunocompromised, there is some evidence of reduced hospitalization if
you have immunity. But actually, it is less so with each subsequent one
and really hasn't fully accounted for the natural immunity that people
get from having the disease, which still needs to be studied.
Multiple scientific studies have shown, though, that there is a
heightened risk of myocarditis--heart inflation--for children and
teenagers after taking mRNA COVID vaccine. That is why multiple
countries began restricting it for certain age groups. Germany, France,
Denmark, Finland, and Sweden all restricted Moderna's vaccine for young
people. Norway, South America, and the UK all chose to recommend only
one dose of Pfizer due to the risk of cardiovascular side effects for
boostering kids.
But what we are going to find out today is the Democratic Party
doesn't care about the science, doesn't care about choice with regard
to your medical decisions, can't even allow a debate whether you get
one, two, or three vaccines, but it is going to insist that, to be part
of the U.S. Capitol, the U.S. Senate Page Program, you must bend the
knee to the Democratic Party and
[[Page S4251]]
do what they say about your vaccines or you can't be a participant.
Why is the U.S. Senate choosing to ignore risks other countries
acknowledge when mandating these vaccines for young people who are in
peak physical condition?
Public health measures should be backed up with proof that the
benefits outweigh the burdens. There is no evidence of that when it
comes to vaccination and booster mandates, especially for teenagers,
who as a group are less vulnerable to this virus than any Senator.
That is why I ask unanimous consent that the Senate pass my
resolution to end all COVID-related mandates for pages who serve in
this Chamber.
Mr. President, as in legislative session, I ask unanimous consent
that the Senate proceed to S. Res. 332, which is at the desk; further,
that the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, and the
motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon table.
=========================== NOTE ===========================
On page S4251, September 7, 2023, in the left column, the
following appears: I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed
to S. Res. 322
The online Record has been corrected to read: I ask unanimous
consent that the Senate proceed to S. Res. 332
========================= END NOTE =========================
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
The Senator from Maryland.
Mr. CARDIN. Mr. President, reserving the right to object.
Mr. President, I have major concerns about this unanimous consent
request. But let me start first with the process, whether we should be
legislating a policy in regard to the health of our pages. Despite what
the Senator from Kentucky has said, the policies concerning our pages'
health is not set on a partisan basis; it is set based upon the
recommendations of our health professionals. They are not politicians.
They are not making partisan decisions. They are making their
recommendations based upon what they believe is in the best interests
of the health of the people who work in this institution, including our
Senate pages.
So I am concerned about the unanimous consent request because it
would legislate areas that should be left to the administration based
upon the recommendations of our health professionals.
Secondly, as I look at the legislation that the unanimous consent
would adopt, it goes well beyond COVID-19 vaccines. It goes to wearing
a mask, having a legislative prohibition about requiring a page to wear
a mask.
That is pretty broad. We don't know what is coming. We don't know
what our requirements are going to be and needs to deal with public
health in this institution. Again, that should be left to the health
professionals. We shouldn't be micromanaging what the health
professionals tell us is in the best interests of the people who work
in this institution.
Let just me point out that COVID-19 cases are rising all over. We
know that. We don't know what is going to be the best countermeasures
in order to deal with that, but we do know that vaccinations, testing,
and masking are effective countermeasures to reduce the spread of
COVID-19 and other respiratory diseases.
I recognize that Senator Paul has put into his comments studies that
he has quoted. The overwhelming evidence that has been presented by the
health professionals globally, including here in the United States, is
that vaccinations, testing, and masking are effective.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record
the listing of those types of studies that would counter what Senator
Paul has said.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:
COVID-19 Studies Regarding Countermeasure Effectiveness for Adolescents
COVID-19 Vaccination Protects Children and Adolescents (The
Lancet, Sept 2022), https://www.thelancet.com/journals/
laninf/article/PIIS1473-30992200575-8/fulltext
Effectiveness of mRNA COVID-19 Vaccines in Adolescents Over
6 Months (Pediatrics, Nov 2022), https://
pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/3594567/
Vaccine effectiveness against hospitalization among
adolescent and pediatric SARS-CoV-2 cases between May 2021
and January 2022 in Ontario, Canada: A retrospective cohort
study (PLoS One, 2023) https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/
articles/PMC10065234/
Effectiveness of BNT162b2 COVID-19 vaccination in Children
and Adolescents (Pediatrics, April 2023), https://
publications.aap.org/pediatrics/article/151/5/e2022060894/
191035/Effectiveness-of-BNT162b2-COVID-19-Vaccination-
in?autologincheck=redirected
Safety of COVID-19 Vaccination in United States Children
Ages 5 to 11 Years. Pediatrics. 2022 Jul 14. https://doi.org/
10.1542/peds.2022-057313.
An evidence review of face masks against COVID-19 (Proc
Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2021) doi: 10.1073/pnas.2014564118.
PMID: 33431650; PMCID: PMC7848583.
Association of Country-wide Coronavirus Mortality with
Demographics, Testing, Lockdowns, and Public Wearing of Masks
(Am J Trop Med Hyg. 2020) doi: 10.4269/ajtmh.20-1015. Epub
2020 Oct 26. PMID: 33124541; PMCID: PMC7695060.
Effectiveness Associated With BNT162b2 Vaccine Against
Emergency Department and Urgent Care Encounters for Delta and
Omicron SARS-CoV-2 Infection Among Adolescents Aged 12 to 17
Years (Aug 2022), https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35921109/.
Effectiveness of mRNA-1273 bivalent (Original and Omicron
BA.4/BA.5) COVID-19 2 vaccine in preventing hospitalizations
for COVID-19, medically attended SARS-CoV-2 3 infections, and
hospital death in the United States, https://www.medrxiv.org/
content/10.1101/2023.05.25.23290456v1.full.pdf
Vaccine Effectiveness, School Reopening, and Risk of
Omicron Infection Among Adolescents Aged 12-17 Years (Journal
of Adolescent Health, January 2023), https://
www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1054139X22006437.
Science Brief: Community Use of Masks to Control the Spread
of SARS-CoV-2 (CDC 2021 ), https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/
2019-ncov/science/science-briefs/masking-science-
sarscov2.html.
Mr. CARDIN. Mr. President, schools throughout and the Nation
implement public health requirements to keep students, teachers, and
their communities safe. Let me remind my colleagues, the pages are in
the Page School. They should be treated no differently, as far as the
protection of their health, than other students around the Nation and
those responsible for their safekeeping.
We need to follow science. We need to follow what science tells us we
should do. We shouldn't respond to the political whim or the political
pressures. We should let science make the judgments that keep our
people safe, particularly our Senate pages.
There is no credible evidence that supports a prohibition on
requiring COVID-19 vaccinations, testing, or masking. In contrast,
overwhelming evidence indicates that they are important tools in
helping to deal with these issues.
I will mention one other issue just in passing because I know we are
going to get to debate on the floor soon about the spending programs
for our country and how we are dealing with the costs. Well, there are
a lot of healthcare costs that we would like to get contained. Every
time we don't deal with the spread of an illness or a disease, it adds
to the costs to the taxpayers of this country.
The Senate has a duty of care with respect to the pages. Their well-
being is our responsibility. For those reasons, I object.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Objection is heard.
The Senator from Kentucky.
Mr. PAUL. Mr. President, the argument has been made that we should
leave these decisions up to a doctor. Well, the thing is that in
America we don't appoint like a doctor as dictator. We don't appoint
one doctor. You get a choice. You get to choose your doctor. If you
don't like your doctor's advice, you think your doctor's advice is
invalid, such as it is in this case, you go to another doctor.
In a free country, the decisions are made by individuals, and each
individual will assess their risk.
Now, the argument has been made that there is overwhelming evidence
on the record. That is just, frankly, untrue. There is no evidence--and
I don't say that lightly--zero--there are zero studies in any of the
scientific literature that show that a booster for adolescents reduces
transmission, hospitalization, or death--zero.
They only approved the booster to allow you to make the choice of
using it by saying that you make antibodies. Making antibodies proves
that vaccines work, which no one disputes. Vaccines work to induce the
production of antibodies. But the question is, If you have already had
COVID, do you need three vaccines if you are a 15-year-old kid? The
answer in all the literature is, you don't need that vaccine.
What we found today--he says: Oh, this isn't partisan. Certainly, it
is partisan. Do you see any Republicans over here objecting? The
Republicans unanimously support getting rid of this mandate. The
Democrats are objecting because the Democrats don't think that
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individual Americans are smart enough to make their own decisions. The
Democrats don't think that these kids and their parents and their
doctors can make their decision. They don't believe in choice when it
comes to medical decision making. They believe that they know better.
But in this case, it isn't just a matter of taking something that is
ineffective; it is mandating a vaccine that threatens the health and
well-being of these kids--not just a vaccine, mandating three vaccines
with no mention of even whether the kids have already had COVID, which
is essentially another inoculation.
So this is a disappointing day, but this is consistent with what we
have seen time and again, whether it is having a nationwide emergency
mandating that you wear masks in school, masks on planes, vaccines
here, vaccines there. This is a desire by the majority party to control
your life, to control your medical decision making because they know
better.
They want to beg off and say this is about the science. I recited 15
different studies for them. They didn't recite one study because no
study exists saying that three vaccines for kids reduces
hospitalization, transmission, or death. There is no science. Large,
nationwide studies of this problem have gotten a dozen countries to say
we shouldn't be giving three vaccines to kids. Half of Europe won't
allow you to do it. They won't allow the mandates.
The argument is made, oh, well, we have to do what everybody is doing
in schools. Even the colleges--90 percent of the colleges aren't
requiring this. This was a bad mandate from the beginning. Most of the
colleges have woken up and understand now, one, that this is America
and you ought to be able to make your own medical decisions, but, two,
that the science points towards booster vaccine mandates actually being
a threat to the health and well-being of adolescents.
I am very disappointed, but I think this illustrates where we are in
America, where one party thinks they are smarter than every American,
smarter than every individual, and they will make your medical
decisions for you.
I rest my case.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Hawaii.