On Wednesday, Republicans on the Iowa Senate Education Committee approved a bill that would require public and private colleges and universities that offer “a medical, nursing, or other health care-related degree” to permit unvaccinated students to complete courses requiring clinical rotations that would bring them into contact with medically vulnerable patients.
SF 2095 requires a college or university “upon request of a student enrolled in the degree program, identify a rotation placement where the student will be exempt from any vaccination requirements imposed by the placement during the duration of the rotation,” according to the bill’s text. If a school doesn’t create an exemption for unvaccinated students, it would be excluded from the Iowa Tuition Grant program, cutting off state financial aid for all students at the institution.
“It is an issue that needs to be addressed,” Sen. Sandy Salmon, a Republican from Janesville and the bill’s sponsor, said during the committee meeting.
Salmon said she was “aware of some issue with a student in my area at a community college” and had heard stories about other healthcare students who were unable to participate in clinical rotations because they chose to refuse required vaccinations.
SF 2095 was the final bill on the committee’s agenda on Wednesday, and there was almost no discussion before it passed on a party-line vote. Sen. Cindy Winkler did urge her fellow committee members to vote against the bill in her brief remarks.
The Davenport Democrat said the bill didn’t belong in the Education Committee because it involved altering Iowa Code on the issue of “communicable diseases,” rather than a real education issue.
The only Republican to speak on the bill besides Salmon was Sen. Jeff Taylor, a Republican from Sioux Center.
“I first heard about this as a problem probably two years ago, maybe, when a parent of a nursing student at my alma mater ran into this issue,” Taylor said. The senator attended both Northwestern College, a private Christian college in Orange City, and the University of Iowa, but did not say which school he was referring to. “I really hadn’t even thought about it as a potential problem.”
Taylor said he did have “two concerns” about the bill.
“One, I want to make sure that federal regulations and requirements on the sites — on the places they would be doing this work — would prevent the colleges and universities from placing people in these positions,” he said. “It could be a catch-22 situation. If you’re caught between a federal requirement and a state requirement, that could be a problem for the institutions.”
His second objection was “the penalty for the private colleges and universities.”
“I don’t really like the idea of using the Iowa Tuition Grant as a penalty, because that money goes to the students,” he said. “I would rather see something along the lines that is used as a fine.”
Salmon said she was committed to continuing work on the bill, but thought it was important for the committee to vote to approve SF 2095.
Because it was approved at the committee-level, SF 2095 now moves to a floor vote in the Senate. It also means the bill survives the legislature’s first “funnel week,” which ends on Friday. Most bills must pass either a Senate or House committee by the end of the first funnel week to remain under active consideration during this year’s legislative session. Because funnel week is a legislative custom, and not something written into law, House and Senate leadership can revive bills that fail to pass funnel week.
SF 2905 isn’t the only bill addressing vaccinations in an educational setting that has been passed at the committee level this session.
HF 2171 was approved by a House committee on Feb. 4. It would eliminate any requirement that a student in elementary or secondary school be vaccinated against any disease. Currently, students in Iowa schools must be vaccinated against diphtheria, tetanus, whooping cough, polio, measles and rubella, hepatitis B, varicella and meningitis. State law allows a parent or guardian to request either a medical or religious exemption for a student from a vaccination.
“I just don’t think students and parents should be required to vaccinate their kids to be educated,” Rep. Zach Dieken, a Republican from Granville and the bill’s sponsor, said during the House Education subcommittee hearing on HF 2171. “I don’t think those things are linked together. So if you want to vaccinate your kids, go for it. If not, go for it.”
Rep. Brooke Boden of Indianola, one of the two Republicans on the subcommittee, claimed that having to apply for an exemption from a vaccination under current state law infringes on parental rights.
“You either really have to have a medical concern or you have to claim that you’re religious, and I think that’s coercing parents into a situation in which they’re not able to utilize their parental right [and] find the right vaccination schedule for their child,” she said.
Rep. Heather Matson of Ankeny, the only Democrat on the subcommittee, called the bill “one of the most dangerous pieces of legislation I’ve seen come through this building in a number of years.”
“Public health matters,” Matson said. “This bill is dangerous for our kids, and I don’t know why we would be telling families in Iowa that we do not value public health or making sure that their kids are healthy.”
Chaney Yeast, who spoke to the subcommittee on behalf of Blank Children’s Hospital in Des Moines, said the health professionals at the hospital opposed the bill and were very worried about the foreseeable consequences likely to occur if it passes and is signed into law by Gov. Kim Reynolds.
“This is the bill that scares them the most about children’s health, and I don’t think I’m being dramatic about that,” she said. “We, in our lifetime, have probably never experienced one of the basic childhood immunization outbreaks.”
Jane Colacecchi, who served as director of the Iowa Department of Public Health under Gov. Tom Vilsack, was one of the many other people who opposed HF 2171 at the subcommittee hearing.
“Child immunization practices are one of the most thoroughly studied medical interventions in history,” she said. “They’ve been used for decades with hundreds of millions of doses administered worldwide. The vaccine evidence shows that they are safe, they are highly effective, there are absolutely no credible evidence linking their use to autism or other development disorders.”
In her comments on the bill after witness testimony was finished, Rep. Helena Hayes of Mahaska, the second Republican on the subcommittee, argued that the science regarding vaccines isn’t settled, pointing to the changes made under the second Trump administration by CDC, which is now follows the agenda of longtime anti-vaccine activist, and now secretary of Health and Human Services, Robert Kennedy, Jr.
“Regarding the science settled, I think maybe that deserves a little bit more conversation,” Hayes said. “There’s a reason why the CDC went from 17 to 11 childhood vaccines. Why is that? I wouldn’t exactly say the science is settled.”
“I don’t know that I agree with it being so fear-based and fear-mongering that terrible, terrible things are going to happen if we don’t demand that people get their children vaccinated,” she continued. “They have that choice.”
Boden and Hayes agreed to advance the bill. Matson opposed it.
In a somewhat unusual move, HF 2171 was taken up by the full House Education Committee just a few hours after it cleared the subcommittee. It was approved by the committee, 14-9. Two Republicans, Chad Ingels of Randalia, and Tom Moore of Griswold, joined all the committee’s Democrats in voting against the bill.
Asked about the bill, House Speaker Pat Grassley did not give a clear answer on the bill itself, instead telling reporters that discussions about it would continue.
“I think as we’re looking at this we just need to be mindful that we’re not getting too far ahead of what the federal government does,” Grassley said. “At the same time recognizing there’s a lot of conversations going on with vaccines and vaccine schedules. So I think that’s something we need to continue to talk about.”
