The First Legislation in America Banning Medical Mandates: Leslie Manookian

[FULL TRANSCRIPT BELOW] “What happened during COVID is exactly a perfect illustration of the harms of sacrificing some for the many,” says Leslie Manookian, founder and president of the Health Freedom Defense Fund.

She played a pivotal role in getting her state of Idaho to pass the first legislation in the United States banning most medical mandates, including vaccines and masks.

“One of my missions at Health Freedom Defense Fund, in founding this organization, was to educate the public and raise awareness about the importance of medical freedom, because I think it’s the most basic and fundamental of human rights—and then to codify that in law. And the Idaho Medical Freedom Act is the first step in that process,” says Manookian.

In this episode, we dive into the volatile process of getting this bill signed into law, and discuss why Manookian believes Americans must be protected from being forced to undergo medical interventions—even if they are potentially lifesaving.

“On the last day of the legislative session, we were able to insert … that no healthy, unvaccinated individual may be excluded from any educational entity or any business entity on the basis of a disease outbreak. So just because you’re unvaccinated, if you’re healthy, they can’t kick you out,” says Manookian. “In the last 50 to 70 years, somehow public health has started to intrude into private health, and I think that’s a mistake.”

Views expressed in this video are opinions of the host and the guest and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.

FULL TRANSCRIPT

Jan Jekielek: 

Leslie Manookian, it’s such a pleasure to have you back on American Thought Leaders. 

Leslie Manookian:

So great to be with you, Jan. 

Mr. Jekielek: 

Legislation has been passed in Idaho, the Idaho Medical Freedom Act, the first of its kind. You played a big role in this. What is it, and why is it unique and important?

Ms. Manookian:

The Idaho Medical Freedom Act is the first legislation in the nation to ban almost all medical mandates. The only exclusions are for hospitals that take Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services [CMS]. Basically, as an individual living in Idaho, you cannot be forced to take a test, wear a mask, use any kind of device, or submit to any kind of medical intervention like a shot or a drug in order to engage in normal life. You can’t be forced by an employer, a school, or a business to conform to their views and wishes just to live a normal life, to go to the grocery store, hold your job, or get an education.

Mr. Jekielek: 

Why is this so unusual? 

Ms. Manookian:

You may remember that I made a documentary film on vaccines called The Greater Good. During the process of making that film, I learned so much about some of the pitfalls of modern medicine and how some things we thought were totally safe are actually not. The whole process of making that movie impressed upon me the primacy of the individual. What happened during Covid serves as a perfect illustration of the harms of sacrificing some for the many. I can’t believe that we, as a nation, are in this position. 

I certainly couldn’t believe that my beloved Idaho was in that position. I have lived in Idaho since the late 1970s, and it was very much a free, individualist kind of place to live. What happened during Covid was shocking. Having made The Greater Good and having researched the whole vaccine industry and all the legislation put in place to protect the vaccine industry from liability woke me up to the imperative of individual rights and freedoms. Witnessing what happened in Covid in my beloved Idaho was a wake-up call that we needed to return to our roots as Americans, valuing each person’s life irrespective of their medical choices. That was really the impetus behind making the film or passing the act, because I never wanted to see people thrown out of businesses.

One of my friend’s daughters was fired from a business when she was about 16 years old because she wouldn’t take the Covid shot. How did we get to the point where an employer thinks it’s their right to dictate what you do to retain your job or earn a living? That’s crazy. My own father was escorted out of the grocery store for not wearing a mask when he was 82 years old, despite having a heart condition and being unable to wear a mask without impairing his oxygen flow. Some big guy in the store said, “We don’t care about your exemption.” This is why we have to have the Idaho Medical Freedom Act.

Mr. Jekielek: 

There was some intrigue with respect to getting this legislation passed. Do you have some insights you would like to share? 

Ms. Manookian:

I wrote the legislation in the summer of 2024. I took a bill from 2023 called the Coronavirus Stop Act, which prohibited mandates of coronavirus shots in the state of Idaho. I used that as a template and expanded it to cover all medical interventions in the state. What was interesting to me is that I thought this was straightforward. I alone know my medical history; I alone am positioned to make my own medical choices; and importantly, I alone have to live with my medical decisions. I assumed I would just take this existing legislation, expand it, and we would sail through. 

The bill did sail through the legislature, both in the Senate and the House. When it got to the governor’s desk, he issued a veto at the 11th hour—literally an hour before the bill was set to take effect on Saturday morning, March 29th. Along with the veto, he issued a statement saying that the reason he was vetoing the bill was that he didn’t think we had protected healthy kids in schools from sick kids and that we did not mention sick kids could be sent home. The bill didn’t actually say anything about sending sick children home because that’s already in Idaho statute. 

On Monday morning, Senator Dan Foreman, who was my sponsor in the Senate and the original sponsor, met with the governor’s office and decided in consultation with the governor’s office, that they were going to bring a new bill identical to mine, except it would exclude all daycares in the state. There were six different definitions of daycares written into the bill, and I thought, “What is going on with this?” Thankfully, we had some white knights in the House come to our rescue, but that’s essentially what happened.

Mr. Jekielek: 

What bill was passed in the end?

Ms. Manookian:  

The first bill was Senate Bill 1023. That’s the one the governor vetoed with the excuse that sick kids couldn’t be sent home from school. I told the original sponsor to just insert language indicating that this legislation is not intended to contradict existing code, which allows sick individuals to be sent home. Instead, he created a carve-out for daycares. He introduced a new bill, Senate Bill 1210, which had horrible language. I told him to stop, but he went forward anyway. 

Then the assistant majority leader and bill sponsor in the House, Rob Beiswenger, brought another bill that was identical to my first bill, but addressed the governor’s purported claims or concerns. It specifically stated that this bill doesn’t contradict anything in the existing code. That was House Bill 472. Essentially, the Senate introduced a bad bill, the House introduced a competing bill that was fantastic, and then they fought it out during the week. 

The House bill got pushed through quickly on Wednesday, and then we heard the Senate wouldn’t hear the bill. The Senate bill was amended, and the House asked, “Do you want us to kill the bill?” I was really put on the spot, as were my colleagues at Health Freedom Idaho, Miste Karlfeldt and Sarah Clendenon, who have been the ladies on the ground. It was just an up-and-down situation. 

On Friday morning, April 4th, I spoke with the sponsor and House leadership at literally 6 o’clock in the morning, discussing what needed to happen to make the bill acceptable. They asked, “Do you want us to kill it, or do you want to move forward? What do you want?” Then something amazing happened. On the last day of the legislative session, we were able to insert two really important things.

Number one, no healthy, unvaccinated individual may be excluded from any educational or business entity based on a disease outbreak. Just because you’re unvaccinated, if you’re healthy, they can’t kick you out. This is really important because healthy high school kids who are unvaccinated have taken their own lives after being excluded. They lost scholarships, GPAs, and the ability to play sports. This happened during Covid. 

The other thing we inserted, which was fantastic, was that no code or rules or regulations may be promulgated that contradict this code, meaning that even if the governor issues an emergency again, no state entity may enforce it. These two things happened on Friday morning at the 11th hour to our benefit, and we won with the best bill we had brought during this whole saga.

Mr. Jekielek:  

What happens if a federal mandate is instituted in the future? How does that play with this Idaho legislation? 

Ms. Manookian:

Federal law can supersede state law. However, the federal government can’t promulgate health laws because health laws and health powers are restricted to the states by the Constitution, so I think we’re very safe there. You may remember that the Health Freedom Defense Fund, the organization I lead, defeated the federal travel mask mandate in 2022. We did that on the basis of the CDC exceeding its statutory authority. I just don’t see how any arm of the federal government is positioned or has the authority, delegated from the Constitution, to enact something that could contradict this law in Idaho.

Mr. Jekielek:  

Are other states reaching out to you?

Ms. Manookian:

This is like breaking the dam open. When you look at history, there are all these things that are considered impossible until somebody does it, and then the floodgates open. That’s what is going to happen. I have so many people who want to help us take this nationwide. We are in the process of drafting a model bill and creating a package of information that’s going to help, and I’m considering who we might partner with in order to do that. 

But yes, people are fired up and so excited about this and bringing this to their own states. It’s so important for people to really think about this. If you look at the 20th century, public health measures, getting clean drinking water to people, getting the sanitation out of the streets, getting fresh food to people, those measures reduced mortality from infectious diseases by about 90 percent before the advent of antibiotics or vaccines or anything. Those were not widely used at all when this 90 percent decline had been achieved in the United States.  Public health was doing what it should be doing; addressing public health issues, things that are in the commons, things that affect us all. In the last 50 to 70 years, somehow public health has started to intrude into private health, and I think that’s a mistake. 

We have a family friend at home in Idaho, a man named Doug Cameron. His boss coerced him into getting the Covid shot. Doug didn’t want the Covid shot. He told his boss, “I don’t want the shot. I’m not planning on getting it.” His boss said, “You’re going to be setting a really good example for the hundred people underneath you. I want you to get the shot, Doug.”   

He basically didn’t really have much of a choice, and it was a job that he loved. He ended up relenting and getting the shot. He’s paralyzed from the diaphragm down. He was a strapping man, super fit and strong. He will live in a wheelchair for the rest of his life, while his boss has since died.

This illustrates how no one should claim the moral authority to dictate what we do in our own personal private medical matters in order for us to just earn a living or to engage in normal life. This is insanity. How we got to this place really reflects a kind of greater ill in our society that we’ve drifted more towards socialism and away from our original founding principles. It really needs to be corrected, and the Idaho Medical Freedom Act is one of the first steps in that direction.

Mr. Jekielek: 

There are people that would respond by saying, “If I make medical choices for myself, some of them might impact people outside of me. It’s not just me that experiences the effects of my bad choices.”

Ms. Manookian:

Sure, but do we actually dictate that you’re excluded from life? If people eat a lot of sugar or they eat a lot of junk food, they’re far more likely to be sick. They’re far more likely to spread illnesses because they are actually ill. We know that just eating a small quantity of sugar suppresses the immune system for hours afterwards. Are we going to start regulating how much sugar people can eat? It’s so nuanced. 

Then the flip side is people say, “If you don’t get a vaccine, then you’re threatening everyone else.” The problem with that line of thinking is that vaccine-induced immunity is not permanent. The only lifelong immunity that we know of is natural immunity derived from a natural illness. If you look at the pertussis shot or whooping cough vaccination, within four or five years, something like 80 percent of people who took the shot don’t have any residual immunity. Why in the world could you ever justify it on a public health basis? 

But even if they were perfect, even if they did actually effectuate permanent immunity, are they perfectly healthy for every single individual? Can you name one food, one substance, one medication that’s perfectly healthy for all individuals? It doesn’t exist because we’re all unique, and all of us react to things differently for different reasons and even at different points in our lives. How can you look at someone like Doug Cameron, who’s paralyzed from the diaphragm down for the rest of his life, and tell any human being that you have the moral authority to dictate what they do in their life?

Mr. Jekielek: 

This is a slippery slope scenario where someone can decide they have the moral authority to dictate ever-increasing kinds of interventions. Where would it stop? It’s not clear. You’re suggesting that the only way is to make the primacy of the individual key and build everything around that, and then create a safer world for people within that reality.

Ms. Manookian:

One hundred percent, and also encourage people to eat healthy. We need to get the money and the politics out of our food system and out of our medicine because our food systems and medical systems are not really truly about health. Those are things that can be changed. But if we can force vaccinations on people, can we force people to be microchipped in order to identify them? Can we force our employees to take ADD medications because they’re more productive and more focused? Can we force women to take birth control pills so that they don’t get pregnant, in order to pursue business objectives? Where does it stop? 

Some of these things actually do have an effect on other people. If someone has an irritating personality trait, can they be forced to take some kind of psychiatric medicine? Where does this end? If someone can force you to undergo a medical intervention against your will, could they force you to get a microchip? Why not connect you to the Internet of Things? This isn’t just a theoretical conversation. This is happening right now. People are being microchipped in Estonia and Sweden and other places. They are volunteering for it, but that’s where this is headed.

You may recall that there’s a lawsuit from 1905 called Jacobson v. Massachusetts. In this lawsuit, it was all about the smallpox vaccine and whether or not Pastor Jacobson could be forced to take the shot or pay a fine. He refused the shot. He was allowed to refuse the shot, but he was forced to pay a fine. He appealed all the way to the Supreme Court. 

The Supreme Court said that in a super narrow situation like a smallpox outbreak, the state had a rational basis for mandating the shot because the shot was believed to be effective. The Supreme Court said, “You have to pay the $5 fine,” which is about $180 today. The Supreme Court didn’t say that this lawsuit affords a broad sweeping authority to any state entity to issue mandates for medical interventions. It didn’t say that. 

In fact, it said just the opposite. Justice Harlan said it shouldn’t be construed to confer broad or sweeping authority. But it was for decades. Then in the last 50 to 60 years, the Supreme Court has issued new laws or new rulings on cases before it, such as Washington v. Harper, Washington v. Glucksberg, Cruzan v. Missouri, and Griswold v. Connecticut. There are at least a half dozen that have gone before the court, and the court has ruled that you have a liberty interest in refusing unwanted medical interventions, even if they might save your life.

Essentially, we as a society have moved on from 1905, when I couldn’t have voted and Jim Crow laws were in place, to a place where we actually do recognize the primacy of the individual. This is now Supreme Court case law; it’s jurisprudence on the federal level. But there’s this thing from 1905 that is still at odds with it. 

We as a culture need to reconcile those disparate opinions and also really embrace this as a society. One of my missions at the Health Freedom Defense Fund in founding this organization was to educate the public and raise awareness about the importance of medical freedom, because I think it’s the most basic and fundamental of human rights, and then to codify that in law. The Idaho Medical Freedom Act is the first step in that process.

Dr. Ryan Cole is a friend of mine, and he and I spoke at an event at the Capitol a couple of weeks ago in Boise, Idaho. He gave a fantastic illustration of this. If someone takes your house and you’re homeless, and if someone takes your car and you don’t have a car, and if someone takes your clothes and you don’t have clothes, all you have left is one piece of property. What is that?

It’s your body. The Constitution says we have the right to protect our property. If there is anything more fundamental and basic than our bodies as a form of property, I can’t think of it. If someone can force me to undergo a medical intervention against my conscience, then no one in this country is free. 

Mr. Jekielek: 

One of the things that took a hit over the past years is doctors applying the Hippocratic Oath, which says “do no harm.” This legislation will help doctors follow that oath once again, if indeed their ability to do that had been compromised. 

Ms. Manookian:

There’s no doubt that their ability to follow that oath was compromised. Because we know that federal funds were tied to the hospitals and medical staff adhering to these federally dictated protocols.   

Mr. Jekielek: 

The guidelines, technically.

Ms. Manookian:

Yes, it was guidelines. It was kind of a standard of care that was issued by the federal government, by the CDC, in fact, and so those entities were in a difficult position. They got $40 for every Covid shot that they administered, and that’s not right. That is going to affect the ethical decision, the moral decision about how they’re treating patients. That’s one thing. 

But this bill has a broader effect in terms of reasserting that each and every one of us derives our rights from our creator, not from the government. That the government is of, by, and for the people, not to oppress the people. This elevates that conversation. What’s most important is engaging in this dialogue about who ultimately really owns us, who owns my body. 

For me, it’s very clear; it’s me as an individual. It’s me as the parent for children who are minors. No one should ever claim otherwise. People will say, “You can get another job. You can go and shop somewhere else.” Well, you can, if you live in a big city and if everyone is not complying.

But we know from Covid that in cities like New York and D.C., almost everybody complied. It was nigh on impossible to go anywhere or do anything. In places where I live, it was impossible. I could not go to lots of places. I couldn’t attend events that were held at the events center unless I showed my papers at the door. This isn’t just some kind of hypothetical. This actually happened.

Mr. Jekielek: 

This brings us back to the Hippocratic Oath.

Ms. Manookian:

One hundred percent, because ultimately, who is the arbiter of doing no harm? The individual is, and the physician should be there to support, to educate, to give the patient the opportunity to make educated choices. If the physician is in a position where they’re pushing or dictating, then I think that we’ve stepped over. We’re actually violating the Hippocratic Oath at that point. 

All medical interventions carry risk. All of them. If you are pushing medical interventions on your patients, then you are by definition violating the ethical principle of informed consent, which says that every single medical intervention requires prior voluntary informed consent. By extension, that violates the Hippocratic Oath as well, because if there’s any element of force, then there’s no informed consent. 

This reminds me of this story that’s happening—it’s actually in the news right now—of this family who declined vaccination for their nine-month-old. They claimed a religious exemption in the state of Massachusetts, and the physician threatened the family and said that he would report the family to Child Protective Services in Massachusetts. They hunted this family down across state lines in Texas and arrested the father, and I think the mother too.

They took the children, and arrested the parents for kidnapping their own children, and for making their own medical choices. How have we gotten so insane in this country that we think that that’s acceptable? How did that physician get so separated from his Hippocratic Oath and from the ethical principle of informed consent that he deemed that acceptable? That is frightening.

Mr. Jekielek: 

Because in his mind, he didn’t want to see the children harmed, and he felt the parents were doing that. He didn’t do it because he wanted to be cruel.

Ms. Manookian:

But talk about overstepping, right? Until we decide that the state gets to dictate what’s best for children, which I hope never happens, then parents and parents alone get that responsibility. No physician should be able to do that strictly on the basis of declining a vaccination. This was a healthy child. 

The National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act of 1986 says very clearly that vaccines harm and injure, or injure and kill, some recipients. This is federal law. It’s not a question of whether or not they cause harm and kill some. Maybe this physician doesn’t know that, isn’t aware of that, but the parents clearly are. Maybe it was their faith. They said that they were choosing a religious exemption. 

This just happened in North Dakota as well. For a newborn baby, the parents submitted a birth plan about what they did and didn’t want, what interventions they did and didn’t want for the newborn baby, and the hospital referred them to CPS and took the child for four days and administered all of these medical interventions against the parents’ will. I didn’t allow any of those medical interventions. 

I did not put erythromycin in my son’s eyes because breast milk will clear it up. There are lots of other issues if a child develops any kind of infection in their eyes. I didn’t allow vitamin K shots because there are troubles associated with those shots as well. He didn’t get the hepatitis B vaccine. He didn’t get any of these things because I didn’t believe it was what was best for him. How can we actually justify this kind of action by people just because they’re medical people? They don’t know everything.

Mr. Jekielek: 

You experienced some resistance in getting this law passed. Now that it has passed, are you still experiencing resistance?

Ms. Manookian:

There was a concern that children who were sick, who had pink eye or lice or something, couldn’t be sent home. They could be sent home for any reason, and then the parents were free to choose how they were going to take care of it. All of these legislators were using those same arguments, and those arguments seemed to be coming from an organization called the Idaho Educational Association. They were very opposed to this, and they fought it. 

Someone who is connected to that organization is also connected to New Horizons Daycare. There’s a lawsuit against them right now in Idaho for unenrolling a child whose parents claimed a vaccination exemption for their two-year-old. That case is going to be heard in front of the Idaho Supreme Court on May 5th of this year. That’s one thing. 

Personally, I haven’t gotten much pushback from it yet. I’ve just had thousands and thousands of people supporting us, applauding us, and all that. People say that there’s a public health issue. But the people of Idaho and the people of the country are very aware that they were misled during the Covid era, that the guidance to stand on circles six feet apart was not science-based, that the masking science wasn’t science-based at all either. 

There was CDC science in May of 2020 that said that masks didn’t do anything for influenza-like illnesses, that people were misled. They were told that the shots would stay in the arms, that it would be rid from the body within a short period of time, a couple of days. We now know that almost two years afterwards some people’s bodies are still making [inaudible]. I’m not saying every single person, but this is clearly an issue. 

My point is that we were misled. There are all of those arguments that you hear about public health and your private decision may intrude on public health. That’s the number one thing they say. But this is so fresh in people’s minds that there’s not a lot of pushback. We have actually seen authoritarianism under the guise of public health in the last five years. Most people—all but the most truly committed to the whole scenario—want to put it either in the rearview mirror or to make sure that it never happens again. But by and large, the response has been extremely powerful and positive.

Mr. Jekielek: 

A final thought as we finish up?

Ms. Manookian:

It’s really important that we understand that we come into this world alone and we go out alone and that each and every one of us has to live with our choices. Unless we’re going to literally dictate every aspect of our lives, what we can and can’t eat, how much exercise and sleep we get, then we shouldn’t be intruding into people’s personal and private medical matters. I hope more than anything that this begins a conversation on a national level about medical freedom, health freedom, and bodily autonomy, because it is sorely needed. I think it’s a place that most Americans want to go to. 

Mr. Jekielek: 

Leslie Manookian, it’s such a pleasure to have you on the show. 

Ms. Manookian:

Thank you so much for having me on. 

This interview was edited for clarity and brevity.