Two Georgia Republicans have filed legislation promoting education and availability of vaccines — with caution.
Five years after the coronavirus pandemic began and the criticism about scientifically sound vaccines that followed, some conservative lawmakers are inching back toward publicly supporting measures addressing community health. These bills stop short of enforcing vaccinations, showing the fault lines around health that have deepened and become political flash points since 2020. But public health experts say they can still be effective and worthwhile measures.
House Bill 173, sponsored by state Rep. Darlene Taylor, would require the state Department of Education to provide middle school parents with information about meningococcal meningitis, human papillomavirus (HPV), and tetanus, diphtheria, and pertussis (TDAP).
The information would address how each vaccine prevents disease, as well as provide recommendations from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and sources for additional information.
“If you get these (vaccines), they will prevent diseases, and we want healthy Georgians,” said Taylor, who represents Thomasville, in a committee hearing last week.
One virus, however, was conspicuously missing. “Why not add COVID-19?” state Rep. Park Cannon, an Atlanta Democrat, asked.
Taylor said she limited the list to recommendations from the Department of Public Health, and COVID isn’t on the list.
“COVID-19 vaccines, unfortunately, were politicized, so this bill may have a better chance of making it through, and it be a more acceptable set of information if it doesn’t include a vaccine that, unfortunately, became very controversial,” said Jodie Guest, the senior vice chair of the Department of Epidemiology at Emory University’s Rollins School of Public Health.
While about 70% of Americans said routine childhood vaccines were “very safe,” according to a 2024 analysis of polling from the National Institutes of Health, just 35% to 42% consider the COVID-19 vaccine “very safe” for children.
The measure passed unanimously in the committee.
House Bill 218, sponsored by state Rep. Katie Dempsey, would allow hospitals to offer the flu and pneumonia vaccines to patients starting at age 18, lowered from 50, prior to their discharge.
Dempsey, R-Rome, said her bill is “not a mandate.”
“You don’t have to take it. You can say yes or no,” she said. And, because the vaccines would only be offered to adults, “it does not affect parental permission to do it. We’re not impacting that in any way.”
According to the CDC, just 36.9% of adults over 18 in Georgia have received the flu vaccine, making the state among the worst in the nation for vaccinations.
Her bill also passed unanimously. Both bills now move for consideration before the entire House chamber.
“Vaccines are the most powerful prevention tool we have,” said Dr. Harry Heiman, a clinical professor in the Department of Health Policy and Behavioral Sciences at the School of Public Health at Georgia State University. “These bills are great, proactive ways to try to increase immunization rates.”
The vaccine measures come as the U.S. Senate confirmed Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to be the nation’s secretary of the Health and Human Services Department. Kennedy has been skeptical of vaccines, despite overwhelming health evidence showing their safety and efficiency. Georgia Sens. Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff voted against Kennedy’s confirmation.
While Guest said Kennedy’s ideas about vaccines “stand to be harmful,” she said. “These bills make me very optimistic.”
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