Panhandle Health District board discusses children’s vaccines

By Soncirey Mitchell
Sandpoint Reader

The Panhandle Health District will host a public meeting Thursday, Feb. 20 at 2 p.m. in the Kootenai Room of the PDH Headquarters (8500 N. Atlas Road, in Hayden) to discuss current informed consent practices for childhood vaccines, among other topics.

PDH Board Chair Dr. Thomas Fletcher announced the meeting at the Bonner County board of commissioners meeting Feb. 18, briefly outlining his proposal to add greater “transparency” to PDH.

“If nothing else, this COVID pandemic experience has taught us one lesson, and it is that public health institutions are capable of deception. The deception goes from the global scale — the World Health Organization — all the way down to your local public health district,” said Fletcher.

“In the spirit of exercising sovereignty, and as chairman of the

Panhandle Health board, we seek to improve honesty in the arena of the CDC childhood vaccine schedule.”

If passed by the PHD Board of Health, the proposal would require that medical providers give patients or guardians supplemental information regarding childhood vaccines, in addition to the literature provided by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. This material would be chosen and approved by the PHD board.

“A robust literature exists to support the hypothesis that elements of the CDC childhood vaccine schedule are detrimonius [sic] to children’s health. I’m not saying the entire schedule is toxic, but certainly elements of it are,” said Fletcher.

He later clarified that while he used “we” in his statement, he had not consulted the other five board members and had “no control” over their votes.

To attend the meeting online, visit PDH’s YouTube page.