Rand Paul grills Johns Hopkins dean about COVID vax mandates on college campuses
By: Alec Schemmel | The National Desk
February 24, 2023 (Updated): Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., questioned the dean of Johns Hopkins School of Nursing during a Senate hearing Thursday about her university's vaccine mandates, highlighting the fact that many European countries don't do the same, and some don't even recommend vaccines for children.
"In Britain, France, Germany, Norway, Sweden, Denmark they don't have university mandates on this," Paul insisted to Dr. Sarah Szanton. "Some countries don't recommend it for children at all. There really is a debate and discussion -- you can have an opposite debate -- but if you believe in choice, when something has a debate and there's arguments on both sides, you'd give people the choice."
Earlier in Paul's questioning of Dr. Szanton, he asked if she was "pro-choice" when it came to patients making individualized medical decisions.
"Broadly, yes" she responded.
The Kentucky senator emphasized that requiring successive vaccine mandates to attend school, as Johns Hopkins and the other universities represented at the hearing do, is contradictory to Dr. Szanton's belief in individualized patient choices.
Dr. Szanton insisted to Paul the matter does not hinge on her opinions.
"You have a voice," Paul shot back, adding that "frankly" he thinks requiring students to get COVID vaccines to attend school is "malpractice."
"This isn't an argument against vaccinations, it's an argument for thinking, and understanding that people of different ages could respond differently," Paul added.
Sweden's Public Health Agency recommended in November that the administration of the Novavax COVID-19 vaccine, which the U.S. has recently agreed to buy 1.5 million more doses of, be suspended for individuals under 30. Sweden also suggested a warning be added to the vaccine pertaining to heart inflammation.
Similarly, the Danish Health Authority and Britain's Health Security Agency, among other European health agencies, stopped recommending or giving the COVID vaccine to kids last year.
"The Danish Health Authority does not currently plan on recommending vaccination to persons under the age of 18 as a group," Lotte Bælum, a spokesperson for the Dansh Health Authority, told The Associated Press. "Children and young people who are at increased risk of a serious course of covid-19 will continue to have the option of vaccination after individual assessment."
Source: KTXS12 ABC
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