Republican Rep. Andy Biggs introduced a bill Thursday (April 8) to ban federal agencies from creating so-called Vaccine Passports.
“A Vaccine Passport is a certificate that proves a licensee has been vaccinated against COVID-19, a pneumonia disease caused by the Chinese Communist virus. “Vaccine Passports are presented in the form of an app or a written document.
The proposed bill, called the No Vaccine Passports Act, would create a legal requirement that would prohibit federal authorities from issuing any standard document that could be used to certify COVID-19 vaccination status to third parties, such as airlines or restaurants, in the future.
“A (federal) agency may not issue a vaccine passport, vaccine pass, or other standardized document for the purpose of certifying the COVID-19 vaccination status of a U.S. citizen to a third party, or otherwise release or share any COVID-19 vaccination record or similar health information of a U.S. citizen.” The bill says.
Biggs’ office said in a statement that the bill would also prohibit the use of proof of COVID-19 vaccination as a requirement to obtain federal or congressional property and services.
“My private medical decisions, and your (medical decisions), are nobody else’s business.” In a statement, Biggs said, “Vaccine passports will not help our nation recover from COVID-19; instead, they will only impose more ‘Big Brother’ surveillance on our society.”
The White House said Tuesday (April 6) that the Biden administration does not support a mandatory federal vaccine passport requirement. The White House was contacted about Biggs’ bill to confirm whether there has been a change in this area, but had not received a response at press time.
Biggs’ bill was initiated amid growing controversy over vaccine passports, which have been proposed in several countries and are being considered by some U.S. states and territories. The state of Hawaii has floated the idea of a vaccine passport for travel within the island, and New York has introduced an “Excelsior Pass” system that requires people to prove they have been vaccinated when entering certain events and locations.
Vaccine passports have been criticized by civil liberties groups, who say they risk violating Americans’ privacy rights while denying critical services to people who have not been vaccinated.
A spokeswoman for the World Health Organization (WHO) said Tuesday (April 6) that WHO does not support requiring people to show their “vaccine passports” when traveling because there is uncertainty about whether vaccination can prevent the spread of the virus. In addition, there are many other concerns.
WHO spokeswoman Margaret Harris told a U.N. news conference that a “vaccine passport” would be discriminatory for people who for some reason cannot be vaccinated. There are also other problems with the vaccine passport.
In a recent interview on NTDTV’s “The Nation Speaks,” Dr. Sarah Chan, a bioethics expert at the University of Edinburgh’s School of Medicine, said, “I think that technically, the ‘vaccine passport’ is a kind of a vaccine. I think ‘vaccine passports’ are a solution that would be disproportionately burdensome and they would probably be a waste of resources. And on top of that, I think there are serious ethical issues with it. It’s an unnecessary way to divide (society). It will create more inequity and inequality in an already unequal society.”
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