VERMONT: No shots for tots at drugstores
H305 is unnecessary, costs workers money, and trivializes very real vaccine risks and serious reactions by allowing pharmacists and pharmacy technicians to administer possibly life-threatening vaccines to young children.
Our Stand: At-A-Glance
- UPDATE: H305 passed on a voice vote today thru the Senate. Different from the House version, the Senate version of H305 increases fees (costs to all Vermonters) and recklessly proposes to give COVID and FLU shots to children as young as FIVE, at drug stores. it will now head back to the House where your elected Representatives in the House, will be noticed about the changes. If they agree it goes to the Governor, if they disagree – it would go to a conference committee (which is “unpopular” at this late stage in the session). Please continue to tell your Senators about this dangerous amendment so that they know what has happened under their noses.
- Vermont is seven days away from legislative break and a bill, H305, has been substantially amended by the Senate Committee on Government Operations and is on 3rd reading. The language added authorizes pharmacists and pharmacy technicians to give Covid and Flu shots to FIVE year olds. This bill will also increase professional fees across the board for working Vermonters.
- NO testimony was taken on this provision. This bill is unnecessary, costs workers money, and trivializes very real vaccine risks and serious reactions by allowing pharmacists and pharmacy technicians to administer possibly life-threatening vaccines to young children.
- Please take action now! Write and call your Senator(s) immediately at 1-802-828-2228 and ask to OPPOSE H305. You can use the form here to write your Senator and let them know this is a dangerous and unnecessary bill. Talking points are listed below to help you personalize the message to your Senator:
- Will pharmacists or pharmacy technicians have the equipment and training to be able to tell the difference between cardiac arrest, anaphylaxis, fainting, and act accordingly to save the lives of small children who react at the time of vaccination?
- This bill undermines the doctor patient relationship and removes critical health history screenings prior to vaccination. Neither pharmacists nor less qualified pharmacy technicians have the necessary medical history of FIVE YEAR OLD child or the time to prescreen for contraindications based on a child’s personal and family history and unique heath needs prior to vaccination. Vaccines, just like all pharmaceutical products, can cause injury and death in some people.
- Neither pharmacists nor pharmacy technicians have enough training on product risks, prescreening, contraindications, emergency interventions for reactions, reporting reactions to Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System (VAERS), and advising parents about the statute of limitations and instructions for filing a claim with the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program.
- In Vermont alone in just two years COVID shots have been associated with 2,471 adverse events, including death. Flu shots have been associated with about 30 adverse events per year in VT. By contrast, children are not at risk of death from COVID or FLU. These VAERS reports are often discredited by authorities but stand as testimony of the actual consumer experience. VAERS reports are largely submitted by healthcare providers and required by law.
- Vaccine Information Statements list many reasons why patients shouldn’t be vaccinated, and it is highly unlikely a pharmacist or technician has the time to ask about all the reasons not to vaccinate them.
- These are some of the reasons to not vaccinate that are recorded in federally required vaccine information statements that a pharmacist or pharmacy technician with limited training on vaccines is unlikely to catch:
- Will pharmacists or pharmacy technicians screen for things like allergic reactions to ingredients in the vaccine and are they going to cover all these ingredients of every vaccine?
- Will they check if a child is allergic to yeast (contraindication in HPV vaccine)?
- Are they going to perform an exam at the pharmacy and take the child’s temperature to make sure they don’t have a fever since fever is contraindicated for some vaccines in the VIS statements?
- Are they going to know if the child has a weakened immune system due to disease (such as cancer or HIV/AIDS), medical treatments (such as radiation, immunotherapy, steroids, or chemotherapy), if they have a history of seizures, if they have a parent, brother, or sister with a history of seizures, or if they have a parent, brother, or sister with a history of immune system problems?
- Will they screen if the child has a condition that makes them bruise or bleed easily, if they might be pregnant (some vaccines cannot be given in pregnancy), or if they are taking aspirin?
- Will they know if a child has recently had a transfusion or if they have ever had Guillain-Barre syndrome post vaccination?
- Will they know if a child has had a serious or a life-threatening reaction to any vaccine?
- Most pharmacies and grocery stores don’t have lifesaving defibrillators like they do in doctors’ offices to save the lives of infants and children who have an immediate life-threatening reaction to vaccines. And they do happen.
- Please tell your Senator to vote no on this unnecessary and costly bill.

