Vaccination law debated in Parliament this week amid huge pressures. Amendment takes out compulsion

The mandatory vaccination law is entering the Parliament’s debate this week after a deadlock of 2 years and a half. The law had been adopted by the Senate, but it had been blocked in the Chamber of Deputies amid the anti-vaxxers’ huge pressures that are continuing now as well.

Before entering the debate in the plenary session, anti-vaxxers, who are opposing mandatory vaccination have started putting new pressures on the MPs to not vote the bill.

The lower chamber’s Health Committee has adopted the bill today, after the amendment stipulating the mandatory vaccination had been rejected. The draft law will enter the plenary session the upcoming days or next week.

The form adopted by the Health Committee stipulates though sanctions that can mount up to RON 10,000 for the parents who refuse to vaccinate their children, without presenting a medical certification release certifying the vaccines’ contraindications.

Parliamentary parties revealed before the vote that the draft bill will not enshrine the mandatory vaccination, as no political consensus ha\d been reached. Sources told Hotnews that the law only stipulates a recommendation for vaccines envisaged in the National Vaccination Programme, and not an obligation.

Moreover, a potential provision that the access of children who are not vaccinated in schools and kindergartens would risk to be unconstitutional as it would break the right for education.

Sources quoted by Digi24 pointed out that deputies had received hundreds of messages where they are asked “to not vote such a law through which children would be vaccinated by force, in the name of the Romanian people, Decebalus’ heirs”. Anti-vaxxers also claimed that “this forced vaccination is imposed by a global occult force”.

“The campaign against the adoption of the universal vaccination law is the most aggressive of all I’ve seen so far. The messages have flooded since last evening“, said the Liberal deputy Ovidiu Raețchi.
One of the message reads:

“Don’t adopt this barbaric law, otherwise we’ll have an epidemic of cancers, autoimmune diseases, autism, and various allergies. Think about, if this unfair law passes, your children included will have to be subdued to forced vaccination with what is imposed by the big world players and you’ll regret it! Vote NO”.

Some MPs from PNL and USR will probably vote against the law, although the general party direction is pro-vaccination.