We recently met with Director Garcia and staff at Iowa Department of Public Health. Below are the questions and answers we received as well as some additional thoughts regarding exemption code language and the misinformation campaign “no shot, no school”.
- 139A.8 section 4b. Discusses that exemptions are null during times of emergency or epidemic. What is the actual interpretation and intent of that law? Is it for only those vaccinations on the required Iowa school schedule in the event an outbreak would occur? Or is it for any emergency or pandemic where a vaccination exists?
Ken: “These would only apply to vaccinations on the Iowa school schedule in Iowa code, not to this epidemic, and the state board of health or director of public health would be the ones to decide if it was necessary.”
- Who oversees each county’s department of health? Do they report to the county supervisors, a board of health, or to IDPH directly?
Director Garcia: “County supervisors oversee county boards of health. No state level governing of those local boards.”
Recently, the Polk County Department of Health along with many other county health departments began their “no shot, no school campaign”. When citizens began commenting the current law allows for exemptions to vaccinations in Iowa, their comments were hidden, deleted, and in some cases citizens were blocked from commenting in the future. Why are public health departments and the Iowa Department of Public Health not allowing an open discussion with the public regarding their slogan “no shot, no school” and why is this false slogan, since exemptions exist in Iowa Code, allowed to be utilized by an executive department? How can we work together to improve actual informed consent in our state in the media, social media, programs, and flyers distributed by departments of health to accurately reflect the actual law and acknowledge the true risks and benefits prior to consenting to vaccinations.
Director Garcia: “That is not an IDPH slogan/campaign, that is Polk County initiative. You are going to have to talk to them about that directly.” When asked about whether they use it on their page or material she replied, “To my knowledge there are no posts on IDPH website/SM that state that. We can certainly take that back if they has shared or retweeted something.”
COVID vaccine will NOT be required for school this fall even if the CDC tries to tell people via their guidelines that you must wear a mask or get the vaccine. The vaccine can only be added to the required school schedule by passing through the state legislature and the Governor signing off on it. OR the Governor or Director would need to take action on the disaster preparedness chapter in Iowa code which according to IDPH they have not met with the state medical advisory group to talk about activating it for this specific epidemic. Therefore, exemptions will be accepted this year and there should be no more confusion about what this Iowa code is intended for.
We also asked about the “no shot, no school campaign” and the lack of those campaigns reflecting actual state law. The Director stated it was not their campaign, it was Polk county Health departments and that we needed to take it up with them. We challenged that we had seen similar statements on the IDPH website and they stated, then those are not accurate and should be taken down. If you see any misleading statements on the IDPH website please let us know or write to the director yourself with a link to the statement that it is misleading and missing information that accurately reflects Iowa law. If your county health department disseminates this type of information, please write to them and ask them to correct it. If they do not then take it to your county supervisors meeting and have the supervisors hold the department accountable for their “misinformation”. Iowa law 139A.8 subsection 4a is the exemption code to reference.
If you see a school district also mis-representing Iowa law by not informing parents of the exemptions and making claims that your child “must” receive ‘XYZ’ before school or they won’t be admitted email the school the exemption code (139A.8 subsection 4a) and inform them that is misinformation and ask them to change the language to accurately reflect Iowa law. If they do not change it, we will be gathering this information on the IA Freedom Violations website and having that information sent to Director Ann Lebo at the Iowa Department of Education as well as Director Kelly Garcia with IDPH. Please include details on the the emails, forms, conversations, etc. that have occurred between you and the school district and ask them to properly educate the school officials on state law to prevent this type of misinformation.
If there is one thing we have heard and learned over these past 3 years of being active legislatively, it is that not every issue requires a bill or a law to be passed. A lot of the time it just takes reporting it to the right place or handling it as closely to you as possible. Rep. Shipley had a bill two sessions ago to require schools to disclose this information, but when we asked Director Garcia about “no shot, no school” she was very defensive that that was NOT one of their campaigns and that if they had shared it in the past they would take it down since it is not accurate. This tells us other executive departments for the state that report to the Governor would likely react the same given this is misinformation and mis-representing state law. So please, do your part to kindly advise your local school district when they put out information that sounds like misinformation, and if they fail to respond or act then report them to the website.
ICI’s Facebook was deplatformed July 15th, 2021
July 20st, 2021 Facebook reinstated our page.
They tried to silence us… but we have some powerhouse legislators who went to bat for us.
We have truth on our side… and we have every right to question the narrative being fed to us by the media and our public health departments. We have a lot of fight left and we have some amazing allies.
We don’t know how long we will be back on so this newsletter is the best way to stay informed + connected. We are in the process of making some updates to our website so stay tuned for that!
Call the Governor DAILY and email or call your legislators to call a special session this fall to deal with the mandates and invasion of privacy coming from employers. Employees should have a right to defend their privacy and above all their Right to LIFE!
Governor’s office : 515-281-5211
Find your legislators here.
Email or call your federal legislators to cosponsor or support Congressman Thomas Massie’s bill HR3860 which prohibits any member of the military from being required to get a COVID 19 vaccine.
Mandatory compliance has been ordered by September of this year.
How many will walk away from service or be forced to due to death or injury? We need our brothers and sisters who defend us to have a choice on these experimental products and their unique health circumstances so the military can be at its best to defend America.
Find your representative here.
Senator Joni Ernst contact form here.
Senator Chuck Grassley contact form here
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