Stop Indiana from Outsourcing Vaccine Guidance to the Federal Government
SB 96 outsources vaccine guidance for Hoosiers to the federal government
Our Stand: At-A-Glance
UPDATED April 5, 2025
- On April 1, 2025, the House Public Health committee heard testimony on the bill. Disturbingly, lobbyists from the Indiana Immunization Coalition and Indiana Pharmacy Association made several untruthful statements during their testimony. As a result, SHF authored a rebuttal which can be found HERE, which was distributed to committee members to counter the false claims made by the lobbyists.
- Current Indiana law allows pharmacists to administer only the vaccines listed in Indiana code, and only lawmakers have the power to adjust the list of vaccines allowed to be given.
- SB 96 deletes the list and instead allows the State Health Commissioner to adopt policies from the federal ACIP committee (Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices).
- Since the ACIP committee has a history of ignoring safety signals, firing doctors and public health experts on the panel who voice concerns, and unnecessarily rushing the approval process, it would be unwise to outright trust this federal committee prone to conflicts of interest rather than the state doing its own due diligence.
- If SB 96 passes, Hoosiers will no longer have a public forum to weigh in on changes to the vaccine list – this cuts transparency, public oversight, and the ability for robust debate in an open forum.
- It’s bad policy for the state government to outsource their responsibility to protect Hoosier health to the feds; States intentionally chose to retain health powers because they’re so important to regulate at the local level.
- If SB 96 passes, our legislature will be kicking the can to the feds and shirking their duty to protect Hoosier health – a lesson we hope they’ve learned NOT to do as a result of the COVID public health debacle.
- Please take 2 minutes to send a one-click email to lawmakers today telling them to vote NO on SB 96 to preserve the system of checks and balances we have today and to not outsource their duty to protect to the federal government.

