ICWA Weekly News 3-19-25
Repeating the call to action against HB 1296 (Thursday 10:30 am) and HB 1531 (Friday 8 am); 🤑Financial Fear😱 Reigns at Washington Board of Health Meeting; Patty Murray foils Weldon's CDC appointment
In this issue:
First time customers get 15% off Azure Standard order - thanks to David Stelzer for being our guest on the radio show last Friday.
Repeating call to action against HB 1296 (Thursday 10:30 am) and HB 1531 (Friday 8 am) – deadline 1 hour before Senate committee hearings
🤑Financial Fear😱 Reigns at State Board of Health Meeting
What happened to take Dr. Dave Weldon off the table, and
Some really good memes for dessert.
March 14 Episode of Informed Life Radio - - notes and links
Health hour: Healthy Food Distributed
Guest: David Stelzer, Founder and CEO of Azure Standard, discusses what it’s like running one of the largest independent health food distribution companies in the nation, his life journey that led him there, and current farming and food issues.
Azure Standard - affordable organic, natural and non-GMO groceries, health, household and garden products.
New Customers can use the code: CHOICE15 to get 15% off their first order at AzureStandard.com. They can also get the code, along with the fine print, from https://qrco.de/bfoNQB
Liberty hour: Secretary Kennedy’s First Weeks @HHS
Guest: David Brownstein and hosts discuss Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.’s first weeks in office as Secretary of Health and Human Services, the difficulties he faces, and our hopes for the future of immunity and health in this nation.
William Thompson: ICWA Weekly News 8-21-24
Secretary Kennedy’s March 3 Press Release on Measles that mentions Vitamin A
Secretary Kennedy declares to close ingredient loophole Generally Regarded as Safe (GRAS)
Radio Show guests for March 21
Health Hour at 3 pm: Kim Overton, RN, on navigating life as a vax-free family.
Liberty Hour at 4 pm: Tim Eyman and the report from Olympia; and Restoring Trust in Public Health bill about to become law in TN.
Calls to Action – Bill Status
Please follow up on our recent Call to Action if you haven’t already. Register your position (Hopefully CON) on HB 1296 Safe & Supportive Public Education System and HB 1531 preserving the ability to respond to communicable diseases. And consider sending in comments. ICWA members will attend the committees to speak. Join us!
With the public hearing that occurred this Tuesday morning on HB 1620 Limitations in Parenting Plans, it has already been scheduled for Executive Session on Thursday in the Senate Law & Justice at 10:30 am. This means that they could vote it to the Senate floor. Watch closely as amendments can quickly change this bill back into a bad one.
Here are the quick links again for the two public hearings we’re tracking this week.
Deadline to Register Con: 9:30 am Thursday March 20, one hour before start of the hearing.
You can also send in your written comments on HB 1296, and show up to testify in person, or testify remotely.
Deadline to Register Con: 7 AM Friday March 21, one hour before the start of the hearing.
You can also send in your written comments on HB 1531, and show up to testify in person, or testify remotely.
Read on for more reasons to oppose 1531…
Financial Fear Reigns at Washington Board of Health Meeting 🤑😱
By Gerald Braude
When I first entered the room for the Washington Board of Health (BOH) Meeting last Wednesday, Bill Osmunson, retired dentist, approached me and handed me a sheet of paper.
For fourteen years, Bill has been lobbying the board to remove fluoride from public drinking water systems. Naturally, I expected a handout concerning his latest arguments on the hazards of fluoride.
Instead, I found myself peering down at a sheet titled, “Vote No on HB 1531.”
To review, House Bill 1531 is verbosely titled “Relating to preserving the ability of public officials to address communicable diseases using scientifically proven measures to control the spread of such diseases.”
Bill’s letter to his state senator began with the following:
I am Bill Osmunson a Dentist with Master’s Degree in Public Health.
HB 1531 is poorly written and lacks an understanding of my Public Health profession's training, terms such as "public health officials," "best available science," "scientifically proven," "communicable diseases," "emergency," "evidence-based measures," and removes local and individual control. HB 1531 is dangerous and will cause more harm than good.
He listed eight reasons why HB 1531 should not become a law:
#1. Public health professionals are primarily “sales” people, not basic science reviewers.
#2. Who are the unnamed "public health officials?" Neither the Board of Health nor the Department of Health are competent to review science and drug approval.
#3. "Best available science" is undefined. Science is always the best available, but sometimes not adequate. Science must meet a threshold of confidence.
#4. "Scientifically proven" is a nonsensical and dangerous term. Science is not set in stone, nothing should be considered "proven." Dangerous because few scientists will question the policy. We must always question and doubt. The term is an oxymoron.
#5. "Communicable disease" is not defined. All bacterial and viral diseases can and do transmit and communicate between susceptible individuals. HB 1531 could quarantine everyone over the common cold. Do you mean “highly contagious and highly lethal?”
#6. "Emergency" for public health officials is already in law. This bill is redundant and dangerous. Caution is thrown to the wind.
#7. "Evidence-based measures" is not defined. There is evidence for all sides of every issue. The evidence must be weighed by experts from all relevant professions and persuasions and the host must be considered. Does the bill refer to evidence cherry- picked by the tobacco companies or pharmaceutical companies? Every action has adverse reactions and the study of harm is poorly funded and orphaned in science.
#8. Freedom. HB 1531 removes Local Control. Sometimes the patient is right. Sometimes local control is best. Authoritarian kingly dictators are not always correct and sometimes have their own vested interests and profits blinding judgment.
I looked up from the sheet and told Bill that HB1531 is the worst piece of proposed legislation in the history of our state. He looked down for a moment, obviously contemplating my remark. He then looked up at me with a sparkle in his eye and said, “You know what? You’re right.”
For his public comment to the board, however, Bill stuck to criticizing them for moving ever so slowly on putting a halt to adding fluoride to the public water supply and not giving him the opportunity to present his four-hour case. The only other public commenter on the fluoride issue was from the Children’s Alliance. She said that fluoride in the water was needed because not all children have access to dental care. (A quick background check on Children’s Alliance shows huge funders like the Microsoft philanthropies, Ballmer fund, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation – in case you were wondering). Her point might be well taken – but luckily, even unfluoridated water has some naturally occurring fluoride compounds in it.
But the Board of Health did get a heavy dosage of public comment criticism about HB 1531 from Natalie Chavez:
You're all probably aware of what happened in Southwest Idaho in Oct. 2024, the Health Board voted to remove COVID-19 vaccines from its thirty taxpayer funded healthcare sites across 6 counties in Southwest Idaho. And the 'Powers That Be' in Olympia all flew into a frenzy and then House Bill 1531 was born, to apparently 'preserve the ability of public officials to address communicable diseases,’ which makes no sense since public officials already have the ability to address communicable diseases under the current law and code.
There were over 10,000 'CON' votes opposing HB 1531 and only 162 'PRO' votes in favor of the Bill, with at least one duplicate 'PRO' vote by a Paid Lobbyist for the WA Vaccine Association.
This very unpopular bill was just passed in the House in the wee hours of the morning on Saturday March 8th, so it's now headed to the Senate for approval. We couldn't make this up if we tried.
It wouldn't have mattered if there was over a million 'CON' votes opposing HB 1531, it still would have been pushed through~ which is why the trust that Washingtonians have in Public Health here is severely broken, shattered and beyond repair.
Obviously, if HB 1531 passes, the medical dictatorship we endured during COVID-19 could easily happen again. The other public comments by ICWA volunteers spelled out some of those COVID-19 abuses.
As for Dr. Osmunson’s point number four above--"Scientifically proven" is a nonsensical and dangerous term—I spoke to the Board about how shameful it was that the Washington Medical Commission stripped Dr. Ryan Cole of his physician’s license for speaking out against the COVID-19 shots and, during his presentation to the European Parliament, he showed a slide of a man holding a protest sign that read, “Of course, all scientists agree when you censor the scientists who don’t.”
ICWA directors Bob Runnells and Lisa Templeton detailed the Global Vaccine Data Network study of ninety-nine million individuals across eight countries, which confirmed what some doctors and independent researchers have warned for years: Serious, life-altering risks are linked to the COVID-19 shots.
Bob told the Board of Health to read the study and share it with the entire Department of Health, notably because it was such a high-powered study with 99 million data points. Also, because of the higher-than-normal adverse events of special interest that were tallied after COVID-19 shots. And to note the conspicuous absence of other AESIs: conditions like autoimmune disorders, menstrual irregularities, cancers, and chronic inflammatory syndromes were not investigated.
Lisa recounted some of the study findings about the following elevated risks:
Neurological disorders – including a 2.5x increase in Guillain-Barré Syndrome and 3.78x increase in brain inflammation after mRNA vaccines.
Hematological disorders – a 3.23x increased risk of catastrophic blood clots after AstraZeneca’s vaccine.
Cardiovascular damage – a 6.1x increase in myocarditis following Moderna’s second dose—hitting young males hardest.
Lisa then tied the study into the loss in trust in public health:
Yet, public health officials dismissed these warnings, insisting these shots were “safe and effective.” Now, the very risks they denied are being confirmed—too late for those who suffered the consequences.
And still, this study likely understates the true risks. It ignores key demographics, examines only 13 adverse events, and is funded by institutions that marketed these very vaccines—raising clear concerns about bias.
The science is clear. The risks are real. And the cost of ignoring them has been paid in strokes, clots, heart failure, and lives lost.
So, I ask, “Will those responsible be held accountable? And will this catastrophic approach be repeated?”
As soon as she concluded with ‘repeated,’ I whispered to myself, “It sure will if HB 1531 gets passed into law.”
Although Sue Coffman’s public comments did not mention HB 1531, her criticisms of the Board of Health rang just as true for the prospects of this bill:
As members of the Board of Health, your job is to advise us based upon the actual evidence uncovered. Due to the lack of transparency within the department, and your one-sided approach to public health, there is no true discussion about consent or the right to refuse. Additionally, there should be ongoing conversations about pesticides, toxins, and poor nutrition in our daily lives that contribute to our overall health.
Considering all the lobbying efforts that Tao Kwan-Gett has been putting into passage of HB 1531, I was curious how much extolling of the bill he would give during his Department of Health update.
But he ended up not mentioning any of the bills going through the legislature. Board Executive Director Michelle Davis mentioned bills for newborn screening, water recreation facilities, hematological testing, the child fatality statute, and tribal membership on local board’s of health – but not HB 1531.
Board meeting resources:
This was also the BOH’s first meeting since the confirmation of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as the head of HHS. But Kwan-Gett made no mention of him during the DOH update report. He did discuss the U.S. Senate confirmation hearings, starting with Dr. Dave Weldon to lead the CDC:
Dr. Dave Weldon, President Trump’s nominee to run the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is set to appear before the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pension, tomorrow. Weldon is a physician and a former member of the House of Representatives from Florida, and he is one of the last of President Trump’s nominees to lead an HHS subagency to have his confirmation hearing scheduled.
But that hearing never happened. Instead, Trump withdrew Weldon from the nomination process, and, along the way, Kennedy lost a close ally toward restoring public trust in the CDC.
Here is the beginning excerpt to Weldon’s reaction as submitted to the Brownstone Institute:
Twelve hours before my scheduled confirmation hearing in The Senate, I received a phone call from an assistant at the White House informing me that my nomination to be Director of CDC was being withdrawn because there were not enough votes to get me confirmed. I then spoke to HHS Secretary Bobby Kennedy who was very upset. He was told the same thing and that he had been looking forward to working with me at CDC. He said I was the perfect person for the job.
Bobby told me that earlier that morning he had breakfast with Republican Senator Susan Collins of Maine who said she now had reservations about my nomination and was considering voting no. I had a very pleasant meeting with her 2 weeks prior where she expressed no reservation, but at my meeting with her staff on March 11 they were suddenly very hostile-a bad sign. They repeatedly accused me of being “antivax,” even though I reminded them that I actually give hundreds of vaccines every year in my medical practice. More than 20 years ago, while in congress I raised some concerns about childhood vaccine safety, and for some reason Collins’ staff suddenly couldn’t get over that no matter what I said back.
There are 12 Republicans and 11 Democrats on the committee so losing one, was a problem if all the Democrats vote no which they have been doing. I can assume that the White House staff had my nomination withdrawn also because the Republican Chairman Dr. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana was also voting no. Ironically, he is also an internist like me and I have known him for years and I thought we were friends. But he too was also throwing around the claim that I was “antivax” or that I believed that vaccines cause autism which I have never said. He actually once asked that my nomination be withdrawn. So, he was a big problem and losing Collins too was clearly too much for the White House. The president is a busy man doing good work for our nation and the last thing he needs is a controversy about CDC.
The concern of many people is that big Pharma was behind this which is probably true. They are hands-down, the most powerful lobby organization in Washington DC giving millions of dollars to politicians on both sides of the aisle. They also purchased millions of dollars of advertising in newspapers, magazines, and on television. For any news or organization to take on big Pharma could be suicide. Many media actually carry water for Pharma. They also give generously to medical societies and colleges and universities. I have learned the hard way don’t mess with Pharma.
On One America News with former Attorney General nominee Matt Gaetz, Dr. Peter McCullough was asked whether there was any chance the CDC would get a leader who can be unbiased on vaccines. “I think the answer is no,” McCullough replied. “Whomever is selected as CDC director must be an apostle of vaccine ideology. Someone who is unwilling to challenge the religious order reigning for over 300 years.”
Weldon Demise Indicates Senate Panel Compromised by Vaccine Ideology [Focal Points on Substack]
Before the interview with Dr. McCullough, Gaetz said, “Senator Patty Murray, in this case, led the smear campaign against Dr. Weldon.”
On February 20, 2025, our Washington Senator Patty Murray issued the following case against Dr. Weldon’s nomination to head the CDC:
In our meeting today, I pressed Dr. Weldon on his longstanding vaccine skepticism and whether he would make changes to the membership of the CDC’s vaccine advisory panel. He said he had no intention of getting rid of anyone. Yet just hours later, there is new reporting that RFK Jr. may upend the advisory committees that make important recommendations on vaccine approvals and coverage—and replace experts with dangerous anti-vaxxers. I have very little confidence that Dr. Weldon will stand up to RFK Jr.—not only has Dr. Weldon spent years promoting the false conspiracy that vaccines cause autism, but he has also criticized the CDC’s essential role in vaccine safety research.
Additionally, I remain deeply concerned by Dr. Weldon’s history of peddling inflammatory and medically debunked anti-abortion rhetoric and past legislative efforts, which have put the lives and health of countless women in danger.
Kwan-Gett further mentioned that this same committee would be voting on Thursday for Jay Bhattacharya to lead the NIH and Marty Makary to head the FDA. Fortunately for us medical freedom lovers, the committee voted to favorably report both nominations to the full senate for a vote at a later date.
This BOH meeting marked the two-year anniversary since its first in-person meeting after Governor Inslee’s lockdowns. At that March 8, 2023 meeting, eight of the twelve sitting at the BOH table and more than half of those at the Department of Health (DOH) table were wearing masks. In other words, the BOH and the DOH were still laden with fear.
But this time around, a different kind of fear revealed itself: Budget cuts. And that turned out to be the major focus of Kwan-Gett’s DOH update. Here’s a portion of what he said:
I’d like to give you an overview of some of the Federal topics that we have been looking at. These are developments that we are watching closely to look for impacts on state and the public health system. These are changes in funding and funding freezes, data integrity impacts on employees, and the public and impacts from executive orders. These have enormous potential for impacts on the entire public health system, including the State Board of Health.
Federal grants are another key topic we’re following. In January, Federal funding was frozen. In response, attorney generals from many states, including Washington, filed a lawsuit seeking a temporary restraining order, which was granted.
Fear of budget cuts also came from two others at the presenters’ table during the DOH update. Jessica Todorovich, DOH Chief of Staff and Interim Secretary of Health, appeared first during the update, and at one point she said, “It’s been a really hard time.”
This is what else Ms. Todorovich said about the loss in funding:
This has been the most difficulty I have been in while working for this state. So, we kind of realigned work and moved work back into other offices and stopped some work that’s happening. So, our Office of Executive Strategic Partnerships, Global One Health, and Healthcare Access and Transformation. Those offices were closed up or consolidated into other offices.
So with that, we made really tough decisions, and we put forward a 6 percent reduction. I won’t spend too much time on the details here but to say they’re big cuts. They affect people, and they affect the work that we do. We also put forward a 15 percent management reduction.
We’re in a little bit of a unique situation here at the Department of Health because we also have COVID reductions. We are communicating with those employees who might be impacted, and at-risk notices will be going out, both for those folks who are leaving as part of the COVID Project reductions, as well as those who are identified as possible state reduction costs.
Amy Ferris, Chief Financial Officer for the DOH, appeared last during the DOH update, and her tone was filled with fear as she filled in the board with more of the financial details. Of note, she said, “Ferguson also included additional reductions that we did not put forward that were new investments from Inslee’s budget. So, these were climate, resilience, and adaptation.”
Speaking of numbers, the BOH showed fascination with Chantell Harmon Reed’s use of “measurable goals” when she gave her Tacoma Pierce Health Department presentation, so much so that Kwan-Gett asked how the DOH can develop measurable goals. Reed told him about data driven influences to measure effectiveness. The two agreed to meet at a later time to discuss this more thoroughly, which would be a grand idea considering Kwan Gett’s statement at the November 8, 2023 BOH meeting about the 222 reported deaths (the VAERS count at that time) following the COVID-19 shots here in Washington:
VAERS is the Vaccine Adverse Event Recording System, and it’s deliberately designed to catch a very big net, for we encourage health care providers to report anything that can remotely possibly be related to vaccine, and then it’s up to the epidemiologist to do the careful work of determining of this large bucket of reported events which ones really are related to vaccine. And so when we do that careful work, it’s been shown that the COVID-19 vaccine is very safe, and studies have shown that all-cause mortality for those who are vaccinated is lower than expected. So, I think VAERS is very important to be able to detect adverse events and describe them. And for me personally, the VAERS data and the analysis of the VAERS data just bring home the safety of the COVID-19 vaccine to where I made sure that my parents got the updated COVID-19 vaccine now, because I had the confidence that the VAERS data showed that the vaccine is safe.
It’s the board’s acceptance of such “proven science” from the DOH chief science officer that shows how scary HB 1531 can become if passed into law.
Editor’s final note:
With HB 1531, local jurisdictions won’t be able to act on different public health information they’ll inevitably hear, like was presented at the Franklin County Commissioner’s meeting on February 19.
Dr. Kim Biss Presentation to Franklin Co Commission
Coronavirus Genetic Vaccines Gene Therapies sold by LIES J Lindsay
Hulscher - Market Removal of COVID-19 Vaccines Presentation to Franklin
It seems like a good time to use Anne Can’t Stand It and her fine artistic social commentary. Share with family members and friends lest they forget!
And while Kwan-Gett is looking for measurable results, he would undoubtedly agree that fear is in the Public Health toolbox.
Finally, this looks interesting: a small dose of hopium elsewhere in the U.S.:
Thanks for another brilliant update! I especially enjoy hearing what the BOH is doing. I wonder if Dr. Qwan-Gett is still getting his parents and all his other family members "boosted."