For six hours Saturday, Kansas lawmakers sat silently as speaker after speaker made false claims while urging the state to “do something” about federal COVID-19 vaccine requirements.
Those offering testimony to the Legislature’s Government Overreach and Vaccine Mandate committee, including Sen. Mark Steffen (R-Hutchinson) and Rep. Trevor Jacobs (R-Fort Scott), falsely claimed that the COVID-19 vaccine is dangerous, that it contains fetal tissue and that it is not actually a vaccine. They rejected vaccine and mask mandates as a way the government could control society and lead to an authoritarian future.
“Mandates are a form of slavery, a tool of communism,” said Mary Anne Sause, a Kansas resident and retired nurse. “Vaccine mandates will be the start of a sinister plan to annihilate humanity.”
Serious side effects to the COVID-19 vaccines have proven exceedingly rare among the more than 414 million doses administered nationwide. All three vaccines are effective at preventing serious illness and death. According to Centers for Disease Control data as of August unvaccinated people were six times more likely to test positive for COVID-19 and 11 times more likely to die. As of Friday only two of the 18 patients hospitalized with COVID-19 at the University of Kansas Hospital had been vaccinated.
The testimony came on the second day of the two-day hearing. On Friday, lawmakers heard from some citizens, the attorney general and legal counsel on options for challenging vaccine...
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