Idaho hat Impfvorschriften verboten. Aktivisten wollen es zum Vorbild für das Land machen.

In April, Governor Brad Little signed the Idaho Medical Freedom Act. The bill makes it illegal for state and local governments, private businesses, employers, schools and daycares to require anyone to take a vaccine or receive any other “medical intervention.” Whether the law will actually alter day-to-day life in Idaho is an open question, because the state already made it easy to get around the few existing vaccination requirements. 

But it could have a significant effect in other states, where rules aren’t already so relaxed. 

For Leslie Manookian and her allies, the state’s ban on vaccine mandates inspired a new goal: to make Idaho’s legislation a nationwide standard.

The law is the culmination of a decade of anti-vaccine activism that got a boost from the pandemic. It’s rooted in a belief system that distrusts institutions — government health agencies, vaccine makers, medical societies and others — on the premise that those institutions seek only money and control.

Manookian’s nonprofit, the Health Freedom Defense Fund, is now distributing model legislation and a how-to guide, with talking points to persuade legislators.

In an interview with ProPublica, Manookian said her objective is for people to “understand and appreciate that the most basic and fundamental of human rights is the right to direct our own medical treatment — and to codify that in law in every state. Breaking that barrier in Idaho proves that it can be done, that Americans understand the importance of this, and the humanity of it, and that it should be done in other states.”

The Department of Health and Human Services did not respond to ProPublica’s request for comment from Kennedy or his staff on Idaho’s law.

Read our full story: [https://www.propublica.org/article/idaho-vaccine-bill-medical-freedom-act-maha](https://www.propublica.org/article/idaho-vaccine-bill-medical-freedom-act-maha)