Joel Smith

As someone who has worked in healthcare in New Hampshire for years now, including at vaccination clinics such as those that this bill seeks to stop, I can testify that limiting access to these clinics will have an incredibly negative effect on the health of our communities, our loved ones, our state, and especially our kids. The vaccine clinics that this bill is seeking to block are one of the key ways that the kids in our communities get the option to receive their vaccines. By putting up barriers to these free clinics like this bill seeks to do, it will make it so that parents need to put in extra time off work or after school to get their kids access to these often lifesaving vaccinations. Additionally, this bill will lead to lower rates of vaccination due to the many unnecessary barriers it puts up around access to vaccination. We know from extensive research over the course of many decades (such as the research published in the journal article by Martoma et al last year in JAMA) that high levels of vaccination rates within the community are needed to prevent disease outbreaks, and to protect vulnerable populations such as immunocompromised people, the elderly, and many of the babies and children who are not yet old enough to get certain vaccinations. All in all, HB 1449 takes away not only parent options and choice, but will actively put our communities at risk as it will inevitably lead to lower vaccination rates due to these barriers. HB 1449 should not be allowed to pass at it will have detrimental effects across our state.