Tennessee House lawmakers on Tuesday voted to shelve a bill that would have eliminated parental responsibility for vaccinating children in accordance with federal and medical association guidelines.
The bill by Rep. Susan Lynn, R-Mount Juliet, and Sen. Janice Bowling, R-Tullahoma, proposed to strip a provision from Tennessee law encouraging parents and guardians to get children vaccinated according to guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention or the American Academy of Pediatrics.
Lynn argued before a House Population Health subcommittee that the current law is unconstitutional, because it “delegates” authority for setting childhood vaccination guidelines to a federal agency.
“We have not looked into the CDC’s ever-growing list of vaccinations, that ever-growing vaccine schedule. We have not looked into it at all. So we are simply delegating all of our rights to the CDC – giving up everything to the CDC,” Lynn said.
“Also, because this is in the law and (if) a parent doesn’t do that, it can be said they are in violation of the law,” she said.