NVIC’s 2023 Annual Report on US State Vaccine Legislation

Record Breaking Number of Bills Worth Supporting Pass in State Legislatures This Year

In 2023, more vaccine related state legislation that NVIC supported has passed into law than in any other year. The COVID-19 pandemic provided an historic opportunity to inspire and encourage active citizen involvement in order to educate state legislators about the urgent need to protect the human and legal right to exercise voluntary, informed consent to vaccination.

The impact of change from our 14 years of grassroots organizing and focused public education efforts is clear. This year’s NVIC’s 2023 Annual Report on U.S. State Vaccine Legislation provides evidence the tide has turned to support our 41-year mission to prevent vaccine injuries and deaths through public education and to secure vaccine informed consent protections in U.S. public health policies and laws.

2023 Session Has Vaccine Related Bills Filed in Every State and D.C.

The non-profit educational charity National Vaccine Information Center (NVIC) reports that during the 2023 legislative session up until October 17, 2023, NVIC analyzed, tracked and issued positions on 709 vaccine related bills in all 50 states and the District of Columbia (D.C.) through the NVIC Advocacy Portal.

This was the first year in the history of NVIC’s state-based legislative advocacy program since establishment in 2010 that vaccine bills related to NVIC’s mission were filed in every state and D.C. in a single legislative session. The 709 bills tracked by NVIC on the Portal in 2023 is the second largest amount of bills publicly tracked over the last 14 sessions, and second only to 2022’s 875 bills.

Since its establishment in 1982, NVIC has provided well-referenced and accurate information to the public about vaccine science, policy, and law, and defended the ethical principle of informed consent to medical risk taking. NVIC does not make vaccine use recommendations.

NVIC is opposed to mandatory vaccination and has worked with families and state legislators to prohibit new vaccine mandates and retain or secure flexible medical, religious and conscientious belief exemptions in existing U.S. public health policies and laws.

In 2010, NVIC launched the NVIC Advocacy Portal (NVICAP), a free online vaccine choice advocacy network, for the purpose of securing and defending informed consent protections in U.S. vaccine policies and laws.

Over the last 14 years, the NVIC Advocacy Program has analyzed, tracked, and issued positions on over 3,000 vaccine-related bills.

The NVIC Advocacy Portal Team works collaboratively and shares legislative information with U.S. health freedom groups and individuals supporting NVIC’s 42-year call for the protection of vaccine informed consent rights in America.

Alongside volunteer NVIC Advocacy state directors and mission aligned groups, NVIC works with families and enlightened health care professionals to educate legislators and their staff to protect vaccine informed consent rights by advocating for voluntary vaccination.

NVICAP staff update bill posts throughout the bill’s life to include what advocacy actions NVIC staff recommends to help pass, defeat, or amend a bill. For the highest priority bills, the NVIC Advocacy Team issues action alerts that are distributed through email, online NVICAP posts, social media, and NVIC’s text alert program. The NVIC Advocacy Team provides NVICAP users accurate and referenced vaccine information and talking points to educate legislators and their staff.

At the time this report was written in October 2023, some states still had active vaccine-related bills filed for 2023, or the states’ legislative sessions were in recess but still could be reactivated to work on bills. Some states have bills that will carry over until their next session in 2024.

For these reasons, it is especially important for registered users of the Portal to regularly check NVICAdvocacy.org because end of year legislative activity requiring your help in taking action is still possible.

Information about all bills referenced in this report are published on the NVIC Advocacy Portal. Registered users can obtain a more detailed bill analysis, current bill status, NVIC’s position on each bill, and any recommended action. The bills displayed are those current for this year.

To view all other bills included on the NVIC Advocacy Portal since 2010, you can select the display setting on the righthand side to view “Expired” bills. This provides a unique and historical perspective not offered on any other advocacy website.

Some bills published on the NVICAP contain language that falls outside of NVIC’s mission. Bill analysis and NVIC positions published on the Portal are focused on sections that fall within NVIC’s mission. NVIC does not take a position on the rest of the bill’s provisions that fall outside of NVIC’s mission.

Ratio of Bills Worth Supporting vs Opposing Highest in 2023

During the 2023 legislative session, NVIC tracked 709 bills, of which 446 bills were worthy of NVIC’s support, and only 158 bills were designated to oppose.

2023 marks the third consecutive year in which NVIC supported more vaccine-related bills than we opposed with almost three times (2.83) as many vaccine bills introduced in state legislatures that NVIC supported than opposed. This is the highest ratio of supported bills to opposed bills since the launch of the NVIC Advocacy Program.

There were 105 bills tracked on NVICAP in 2023 that were marked as a bill to “WATCH.” The “WATCH” category is usually designated because NVIC’s analysis indicates the bill may have been well-intentioned and may even have some sections worth supporting, but the bill contained problem language. If the problems can be readily fixed with amendments, that is indicated on the bill post. Residents of every state use this information to share with their legislators.

When comparing the number of bills NVIC supported to those opposed, an impressive record breaking 42 states and D.C. had more bills filed that were worthy of supporting than opposing.

This number increased from an already impressive 32 states in 2022. Of those 42 states, the following 16 states had no opposition bills filed in 2023 at all: Alaska, Arkansas, Colorado, Hawaii, Idaho, Mississippi, Nevada, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Utah, Virginia, Washington, and Wyoming.

California, Georgia, and Ohio landed evenly with the same number of supported and opposed bills this year.

Only six states filed more bills that NVIC opposed than supported: Delaware, Massachusetts, Michigan, Nebraska, New York, and Wisconsin. Delaware was the only state in the U.S. where there were no bills filed worth supporting.

These numbers show us that the vast majority of states have legislators who are listening to constituent concerns. These conscientious lawmakers have responded to the unprecedented infringement on human rights and civil liberties that many Americans have endured during the federal COVID-19 pandemic response.

Highlights From 2023 Enacted Bills

There are significant and positive take away points from the 2023 legislative session:

2023 Enacted Bills

Out of the 60 vaccine-related bills that were enacted in 2023, NVIC supported 30, opposed 21, and watched 9. Of the 9 watched bills, 7 included positive elements worthy of support and two were watched because the provisions we opposed were successfully removed before the bills passed.

NVIC has grouped the bills that passed into the following categories:

A handful of bills are included in more than one category. The breakdown and analysis of vaccine-related bills that passed in these designated categories identifies trends across the states.

Now more than ever, it is critical that people continue to be actively involved in the legislative process at all levels of city, county, state, and federal government. Participation includes learning where candidates stand on issues important to your family and voting accordingly.

You can help educate your legislators, your governor, and local officials in order to protect you right and the right of others to exercise informed consent and reject discrimination, segregation and forced vaccination.

Your voices matter and are impacting real change as you can see in this report. Positive bills that were passed protecting informed consent rights listed below.

COVID-19 Vaccines: Stopping Mandates and Discrimination

Businesses and government entities overstep in an abuse of power when they require patrons, employees, or citizens to receive injections of biological products that can injure or kill them and have unknown future consequences. No one should have to decide between providing for their family and taking a vaccine they don’t want or need.

People need the protection granted by laws when government entities or private business violate informed consent rights, such as requiring use of a pharmaceutical product, which carries known and unknown risks that can be greater for some people, as a condition of holding a job, receiving medical care, getting a school education, or participating in society in everyday life.

While NVIC would prefer bills to be passed that would prohibit mandates and protect individuals from discrimination based on vaccination status for all vaccines, we still supported bills that were COVID-19 vaccine specific for several reasons including:

There were 15 bills passed during this legislative session that affect the eight states of Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Louisiana, North Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, and the District of Columbia that prohibited COVID-19 vaccine mandates or vaccine passports. For all of the bills listed below, NVIC either supported them or the bills contained sections that NVIC supported.

There were an additional 33 states that had bills filed to prevent some type of COVID-19 vaccine mandate or discrimination based on vaccination status that unfortunately did not pass.

These states were Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Hawaii, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia, and Wyoming.

The fact that 40 states and the District of Columbia had bills filed to stop COVID-19 vaccine mandates and discrimination to some degree shows that Americans voicing their concerns to their legislators has made a huge impact across the country.

Discrimination and Passport Ban for All Vaccines

An employer, the government, or a business should not be able to legally discriminate or retaliate against anyone for declining a vaccine they have decided they don’t want or need. Some states, which have prohibited employer vaccine mandates or required exemptions to employer vaccine mandates, have seen employers make working conditions miserable for employees.

It is NVIC’s position that protections only allowing employees to decline vaccination are not good enough. Anti-discrimination provisions must accompany legal protections prohibiting mandates.

Two states, Utah and Texas, passed bills with partial protection from discrimination based on vaccination status for all vaccines, not just COVID-19. NVIC opposed the exceptions to Texas HB 44 for transplant and cancer patients.

Two states, Florida and Texas, had exemplary bills prohibiting discrimination over vaccination status for all vaccines for most areas in one’s life, but these bills did not even receive a hearing.

Florida HB 305/SB 222 protect medical freedom, prohibit discrimination based on vaccination or immunity status for all vaccines, and require consent for the data in the state immunization registry to be shared outside of Florida.

Texas SB 304 prohibits vaccine mandates and discrimination based on vaccination or immunity status for all vaccines in almost all areas of life and provides penalties for violations. SB 304 contained the same language as SB 1669 from the 2021 legislative session that had a multi-hour hearing.

While both states passed varying degrees of protection from COVID-19 vaccine mandates, many citizens were justifiably disappointed with their state legislature’s failure to pass legislation protecting residents from vaccine mandates and discrimination for all vaccines in all areas including employment, health care and insurance, and public accommodation.

This disappointment was compounded by the fact that some legislators in both states inaccurately claimed the bills that passed were protecting constitutional freedom and civil liberties, when in reality the protections were confined to COVID-19 vaccines only.

Nine states filed, but did not pass, bills to prevent mandates or discrimination over vaccination status for all vaccines to some degree: Maine, Michigan, Mississippi, Oklahoma, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington, and West Virginia.

Prohibiting mandates and discrimination based on vaccination status for all vaccines is important. Use of a pharmaceutical product is a personal medical decision that should have no..