La. attorney general, other elected officials oppose LDH’s vaccine mandate proposal for some students

BATON ROUGE, La. (WAFB) - Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry and other elected officials shared their opposition to a proposal by the Louisiana Department of Health to require the COVID-19 vaccine for some Louisiana students.

The proposal from LDH would add the COVID-19 vaccine to the list of required shots for students 16 and up.

In an interview on Sunday, Nov. 21, Gov. John Bel Edwards said he supported the idea. He went on to say it would be “inappropriate, unfortunate, and dangerous” to not add the COVID vaccines that are fully licensed by the FDA to the vaccine schedule. As of Monday, 18 kids under the age of 18 have died from COVID.

RELATED: Governor weighs in on LDH’s vaccine mandate proposal for some students

In a nearly 2-minute video posted on YouTube, Landry said he is against making the vaccine a requirement for students.

“Today, I sent a letter to LDH about the fatal flaws that exist with this attempted rule,” said Landry. “Medical decisions for our children should be made by parents, not bureaucrats.”

When the news of the proposal broke, a few other Louisiana officials decided to weigh in.

“I’m 100% for the parents being able to make a choice to vaccinate their children or not,” said Kim Powers.

Powers is a newly-elected school board member for the Central Community School System. She believes the choice should lie with the parents and nobody else.

“Parents know what’s going on with their children and parents have the ability to make those decisions. That’s where this should lie. This is a parent’s choice whether they want to vaccinate their children or not,” added Powers.

Edwards said all the current opt-out provisions in the law surrounding other vaccines children are required to get to go to school will pertain to these shots as well.

The state’s Health and Welfare Committee will review the proposal and decide whether or not to move forward with it. The date for that meeting has yet to be set.

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