Your Health Comes First Act

Mr. President, last week, I came to the Senate floor no fewer than three times and invited my colleagues to pass bills to protect millions of Americans at risk of losing their jobs, their livelihoods, due to President Biden's COVID-19 vaccine mandate.

Unfortunately, due to objections from the other side of the aisle, these bills were not adopted. But I committed then, as I do again today, that I will be back with additional proposals for as long as it takes to beat this sweeping mandate.

Since I began this effort against the mandate, there has been a massive outpouring of support from across the country. I have heard from Americans in countless sectors, from multiple States, who are at risk of losing their jobs. These Americans just want to make their own medical decisions--a right that has always been afforded and not challenged since the beginning of our Nation.

In Utah alone, I have heard from no fewer than 184 people who are at risk of losing their livelihoods. They and so many others, those who share the same concerns, are our neighbors; they are everyday Americans, and they have legitimate medical concerns about getting the vaccine.

But President Biden doesn't care. He said simply, ``This isn't about freedom or personal choice.''

Well, to the millions of Americans who face the punishment of being made unemployable if they do not succumb to the President's will, this very much is about freedom and personal choice. There must be a more reasonable answer. There must be a more compassionate answer.

The COVID-19 vaccine has been deemed generally safe. I don't dispute that. In fact, I, along with my entire family, have been vaccinated. I see the development of these vaccines as a miracle and a blessing. But there are some people with preexisting conditions or complications. Many of these individuals have been advised by their trusted, board- certified doctors that they should not receive the vaccine. These Americans, they deserve to be able to make their own medical decisions, and they should not be forced by the President of the United States to go against the advice of their doctors.

Now let's look down the road at what will necessarily follow this vaccine mandate. Countless Americans who follow the recommendations of their doctors would lose their jobs in an already troubled economy. These individuals and families would not be just unemployed; the President of the United States would deem them unemployable, second- class pariahs. Businesses that dare to employ the unvaccinated would be subject to crippling fines and risk closure.

The President of the United States, unilaterally, without any say from the people's Representatives in Congress, is set on imposing financial destruction on many American families and businesses. He is even targeting those with complicated medical conditions and forcibly removing them from the economy and much of broader society.

So today, I am offering the Senate an option to take a more compassionate, reasonable approach. My bill, the Your Health Comes First Act, would exempt from the President's mandate individuals with personal health concerns related to the vaccine.

Simply put, Americans who are worried about how the vaccine would interact with or compound their existing medical difficulties would not be obligated to get it. Those who have been advised by their doctors not to get the vaccine due to preexisting medical conditions would not be forced to go against the recommendations of their doctor.

This bill is a reasonable and a compassionate solution to allow concerned Americans the dignity and autonomy we all deserve.

This isn't the only flaw with the mandate. As I have said before, the President lacks authority to do this. Neither the Federal Government, in general, nor the President of the United States, in particular, has the power under the Constitution to implement a broad mandate of this sort.

Whether you think government ought to be mandating it or not, whether you think government ought to force people out of their jobs if they refuse to get it or not, that is a different, analytically distinct question in our constitutional system from whether the Federal Government has the authority, generally, or the President, in particular, has the authority. It doesn't, and he does not.

These arguments need to remain at the forefront of the conversation: questions regarding the constitutionality and the constitutional authority to issue this in the first place.

I will be back tomorrow with another proposal, and I will be at this for as long as it takes to end this unconstitutional and uncompassionate mandate.

Mr. President, as if in legislative session, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions be discharged from further consideration of S. 2848, and that the Senate proceed to its immediate consideration. I ask unanimous consent that the bill be considered read a third time and passed and that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.

Mr. President, I appreciate the insight from my friend and distinguished colleague, the Senator from Connecticut.

I want to be very clear: The limited focus of this bill--the bill that I offered up for passage in the Senate today--is narrow.

It has one purpose: For those Americans who have a medical concern and who have been advised by their doctor, based on some condition associated with their health, that they should not get it, they shouldn't have to choose between getting vaccinated and losing their job.

My friend from Connecticut goes so far, I think, as to implicitly acknowledge that there ought to be an exception made for those people. One, he says, President Biden's vaccine mandate accommodates them.

Well, there is a problem with that. President Biden hasn't issued anything. He has suggested, along with members of his administration, that there might be a somewhat accommodation for them. I am not sure what that means, neither is corporate America. A lot of corporate America, acting on the advice of legal counsel and human resources departments, tends to be adopting rules already. Some of them take exceptions like these into account; others do not.

Look, it is really not too much to ask. I suggest that if you are going to impose a sweeping mandate like this, that you ought to have some protection for people with complicating medical conditions, who, on the advice of a board-certified physician, choose not to get it.

Now, again, this does not mean that I am OK with the rest of the mandate; I am not. And I respectfully, but very strongly, disagree with my friend's characterization that this is just fine for the Federal Government to do.

The Federal Government lacks general police powers. The lion's share of the authority within government in our system lies with the States and their political subdivisions.

Our national government is in charge of just a few basic and distinctively national matters: national defense, a uniformed system of weights and measures, trademarks, copyrights, and patents, regulating trade or commerce between the States with foreign nations and with the Indian Tribes.

There are a number of others, but there is no power in there that just refers to providing generally for laws that make the American people safe and healthy.

Those powers exist in America; they just aren't vested in this government. It doesn't mean that States and localities will always exercise that power wisely or prudently or compassionately, but it means insofar as you are going to act through government, that is the appropriate place and not this one.

Now, my friend from Connecticut then responds by saying, ``Yeah, but the power is still there anyway.''

Even if I were to assume his point that the power of the Federal Government somehow extends to an individual vaccine mandate, which it doesn't--and I would challenge him or anyone else to cite what provision of the U.S. Constitution it is that that provides that authority--but even if we were to accept the premise, just for purposes of discussion, that the Federal Government may exercise such authority, the President may not exercise that authority alone.

The very first clause of the first article--in the first section of the first article of that Constitution says: ``All legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested in our Congress of the United States, which shall consist of a Senate and House of Representatives.''

Article I, section 7 then makes clear that in order to pass a law, a Federal law in the United States--that is, in order to adopt a policy of the Federal Government, enforceable through the overpowering force that is the Federal Government--you have to follow the article I, section 7 formula, which means you have to take a legislative proposal--a bill--you have to pass it in the House, and you have to pass it in the Senate with the same language--and it has to be submitted to the President for signature, veto, or acquiescence.

If you don't undertake that process at all, there is no authority in the executive to do anything like what they are describing. What President Biden has done is to arrogate to himself powers that he not only characterizes as Federal, but, really, are legislative powers that he doesn't possess.

The President of the United States is the chief executive. He is not a lawmaker. And he certainly is not the entire legislative branch. And so that, really, is quite beside the point.

It doesn't make a difference with his Federal authority. The fact that Federal authority is asserted to exist, which it is not, and we can't identify a single clause of article I, section 8, or another part of the Constitution that can fairly be read, especially against the backdrop of its original public meaning, to convey that power--but even if you concede that point, there is no reasonable, plausible, defensible argument that would say the President of the United States may wield this authority unilaterally.

That is what despots and tyrants would have the power to do. And if there is one thing that is very consistent and uniform in our constitutional structure it is that no one person, no one group of people, is ever supposed to be able to accumulate dangerous degrees of power and that the President of the United States is neither a lawmaker nor the entire legislative branch. He may not step into those shoes.

As to the assertion about science, my friend and colleague referred to this as somehow a war on science. It is not a war on science to suggest that the President lacks authority to do something unilaterally. I would call that a war on the Constitution, frankly.

It is not a war on science to say that whenever a government acts, it ought to do so out of an abundance of caution and out of respect for the people to provide reasonable accommodations to individuals who have medical conditions that make them uniquely vulnerable to what the government is inclined to require.

Again, this mandate is unconstitutional. It doesn't make the vaccine bad. In fact, the vaccine is a blessing, and I think the American people have been made safer as a result of it.

That doesn't mean every American must get it. It certainly doesn't mean that it is any of the Federal Government's business to tell people that they have to choose between getting the vaccine and losing their job, especially with regard to individuals who have preexisting medical conditions that would make it dangerous for them to do so in the judgment of their board-certified medical physician. That is wrong. That is absolutely wrong.

Now, look, COVID-19 has imposed a lot of tragedies, and it is heartbreaking. A number of people we have lost, including the individuals who have died in the last month at Tallahassee Memorial Hospital, who he mentioned--every one of those lives is of infinite eternal value. Those are unrepeatable lives lost to a deadly pandemic. My heart goes out to each one of those souls who has departed, along with their families.

We are reminded of the lives that have tragically been lost to COVID- 19 by an exhibit that has been up on the Mall, up around the Washington Monument. It is beautiful, really. There are little flags--small flags--each of them white, each one representing one of the Americans who has been lost to COVID-19 since it broke out just over a year and a half ago. There are about 700,000 of those around the Washington Monument. From a distance, it looks a little like snow.

I come from a State where there is usually snow at the top of mountains. It looks familiar to me when I see what looks like snow from a distance, but it is somber as I remember what they actually represent.

If we want to talk about the loss of human life, we have to talk about the loss of all human life, and we also have to talk about the right of each individual to live and to continue living and to follow the advice of medical doctors based on the individuals' own medical conditions.

I sometimes find staggering the accusations that those who have concerns with this are somehow committing a war on science. Against which science? Who exactly is it that is against science--the science that tells us that unborn human life can experience and respond to pain in the womb in 15 or 20 weeks of gestational development?

What would it look like if we had a separate memorial with little red flags instead of little white ones, each representing one of the human lives lost every single year to abortion?

You see, every single year we lose about the same number of human lives to abortion as we have lost to COVID since it first broke out. If for the last 50 years we had a little red flag, each marking one of those human lives lost, there would be a sea of red. It would take up not just the grass all around the Washington Monument, which is large, it would probably take up all the grass between the Capitol, the Washington Monument, and the Lincoln Memorial. It would be a sea of red.

So, no, no, you can't say that this is a war on science to be concerned about individuals being able to make their own decision about whether to get this vaccine.

If you want to accuse people on the other side of the aisle of doing something, you have to stop and think about other decisions that we make--other decisions that some are willing to defend, decisions that involve a whole lot of human suffering and a whole lot of loss of a whole lot of human lives.

I get that a lot of people disagree on these things, but the fact that we disagree on them doesn't mean that they don't exist. It certainly doesn't mean that we can stand by and watch as if a vestigial legislative organ--as one single man steps into the shoes of 435 Representatives or 100 Senators--makes, as it were, a law that, on its own, fails even to accommodate good-faith medical concerns backed up by medical science.

It is too bad that we couldn't pass this simple law today. We could have; we should have; I wish we would have. I will be back. This issue isn't going away. Neither am I.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, last week, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit issued an emergency stay on President Biden's sweeping vaccine mandate. The court granted the stay, citing ``grave statutory and constitutional issues'' with the mandate. The 22-page order is persuasive and compelling in explaining the grave effects the mandate will have on businesses and individuals alike throughout the United States.

The order also explains that the limited nature of the Federal Government under the Constitution simply doesn't allow for sweeping mandates of this nature, generally, but it certainly doesn't allow for sweeping mandates like this one without an act of Congress. You see, our powers within the Federal Government are carefully circumscribed; they are carefully constrained. The Constitution brings about a balancing, a limitation on powers that operate along two axes. The vertical constraint is called federalism, and the horizontal constraint is something we refer to as the separation of powers.

The Federal Government's powers are, as James Madison described them in Federalist No. 45, ``few and defined,'' while those reserved to the States are ``numerous and indefinite.'' Likewise, within the three branches, we have these protections in place to make sure that no one person can exercise what power the Federal Government does have exclusively; you can't accumulate too much power. So the President of the United States, under our constitutional system, isn't a King and may not rule by decree. He is not free to just do things because he thinks they are a good idea.

The judges also, refreshingly, asserted the commerce clause of the Constitution and brought up the commerce clause as the source of the claimed authority for Federal action under this circumstance, noting that, even under broad interpretations of the commerce clause that we have seen from the Federal court system since 1937, the commerce clause is not unlimited in the scope of the authority that it provides to the Federal Government, and in this case, it certainly doesn't authorize the Occupational Safety and Health Administration to issue a sweeping vaccine mandate on all companies with more than 99 employees nor does the commerce clause even authorize Congress to undertake such an action, which, of course, Congress has not undertaken.

We have erred dangerously, over many decades, from the true application of the Constitution's limits. In many respects, we have lost sight even of the fact that this is a government of limited powers, and now that lack of those limits--the lack of respect for those limits within those who operate the Federal Government--is placing millions of Americans at risk of not only becoming unemployed but, in many cases, unemployable. Some in Congress are, today, taking it even further in asking the President of the United States to impose a vaccine or a test mandate as a condition precedent for interstate travel.

Now, I have heard from hundreds of Utahns who are at risk of losing their jobs because of this now, thankfully, halted mandate. These are not bad people. To the contrary, they are good people. They are our neighbors and our friends. They are everyday Americans who are all too often just trying to get by to provide for their families. They are not our enemies, and it is troubling to think that the President of the United States said--on national television no less--that he is ``losing [his] patience'' with them. What does that even mean? In fact, recent polling numbers show that, if anything, it appears to be the other way around. We are losing patience with him and with his broad assertions of authority that he doesn't even have.

I have come to the Senate floor about 15 times now to oppose this vaccine mandate. I have offered a dozen bills to limit, clarify, or otherwise counteract the vaccine mandate. Each time, one or another of my colleagues from the other side of the aisle has objected to what should be uncontroversial bills. Let's review each of these that we have gone through so far.

Now, this started back on September 28 with S. 2850. This bill, S. 2850, would have provided exemptions for those with religious or moral objections to the vaccine mandate. President Biden, significantly, had promised these exemptions would be in the mandate, but for some reason--for some reason that I struggle to understand--Senate Democrats, nonetheless, objected to the passage of that bill.

So then I came back, and I offered up S. 2840, the Don't Jab Me Act, a bill that would require that the Federal Government make those who suffer from the vaccine mandate financially whole. The Democrats rejected that bill too.

Next, I offered S. 2843, the No Taxation Without Congressional Consent Act, a bill that would require congressional authorization before the fines associated with the mandate could be charged to businesses. Notwithstanding the fact that the Constitution is very clear about where taxes need to originate within our system of government, the Democrats objected to that bill as well.

So then I came back with another bill. This time it was S. 2848, the Your Health Comes First Act. This is a bill that would offer exemptions from the mandate to those who have preexisting medical or other health concerns about the vaccine. This is also another exemption that President Biden himself promised in his speech when first announcing the vaccine mandate, but it is an exemption that the Senate Democrats, apparently, didn't feel worthy of codifying with legislation, and so they objected to that one too. This one was particularly surprising because if, in fact, President Biden himself felt comfortable with those exemptions, one would think that there wouldn't be discomfort with codifying what he himself said should be the law.

So then, in response to that, I returned to this Chamber on another day, and I offered up S. 2846, the Natural Immunity is Real Act. This bill would require that the Federal vaccine mandate recognize natural immunity. Countries across the world recognize this immunity for the powerful protection that it, in fact, provides, a protection that, according to some studies, may be as much as 27 times stronger than that offered by the vaccine alone. Unfortunately, President Biden's mandate wasn't so generous on that point.

This bill, too, was rejected by the Democrats, disregarding science's showing the very real impact of natural immunity.

So I came back, and I offered up S. 2847, the Let Me Travel America Act. Now, this bill would prohibit the requirement of vaccination before citizens could travel between the States. Apparently, the Democrats want to leave that option open because they objected to that one too. Well, that one is not in the vaccine mandate. It is feared, as I mentioned a few minutes ago, that that might be on the table. Apparently, it still is because people were unwilling to codify what should be a natural conclusion for most Americans to reach, which is that our right to travel from one State to another without permission from the Federal Government ought not be interfered with and that it is fundamental that we shouldn't mess with it. That is why it was unfortunate that this one, too, drew an objection.

So I returned. I hoped that this body could give some assurance and some respect to the brave men and women of our military who are at risk of losing benefits and losing the right to serve over this vaccine mandate. So my bill that I offered that day, S. 2842, the Respecting Our Servicemembers Act, would protect servicemembers from losing their livelihoods and their benefits--that they have accrued and earned through their valiant service--as a result of the mandate. The Democrats objected to this one too. That is particularly sad. These are heroes. These are people on whom we rely to keep us safe. We ought to give them more trust than that. We ought to not put them in a position in which many of them are facing a difficult decision.

So I offered another bill. I returned to this body, and I offered a bill that should be one of the least controversial measures that we have ever considered, not just about the vaccine mandate but about anything. That bill, the Parental Consent for Vaccination Act, would have simply required that parental consent be provided before COVID-19 vaccines were given to children. The Democrats objected to that as well.

So I came back, and I offered the Transparency in COVID-19 Vaccination Act. This bill would have provided information regarding vaccine side effects to the public. It would have just made sure that the American people had access to that information. I thought information would build confidence in the vaccines. The Democrats disagreed, and they objected. Apparently, that was too much. I don't know why people wouldn't want more information. I actually think that would have built confidence in the vaccine, but, apparently, they didn't see it that way or maybe they just didn't want people to have access to the information. I don't know. I can't speak for them. I just know they objected.

So I came back for the 10th time. I offered up the Transparency in COVID-19 Research Act. This bill would have provided research and information drawn from that research--that the American taxpayers are paying for--to the public, that should be available to the public. We pay for that research. We ought to know what the findings are. The government shouldn't have anything to hide and wouldn't have anything to hide here, but the Democrats disagreed, and they objected to that one as well.

So I tried again. I came back, and I offered up S. 2851, the Transparency in COVID-19 Expenditures Act. This bill is just a good housekeeping measure. It is a commonsense measure. It is not something that should have been either liberal or conservative or thought of as Republican or Democratic. It is just a good housekeeping matter. You know, I think it is strange that it would be controversial, given the simplicity of what it would do. It would simply call for an audit regarding how our COVID-19 funds have been spent. I thought the information would be helpful to us as we make policy moving forward, and yet the Democrats objected to that one.

So I tried again. I offered a 12th bill that would simply end the mandate. The No Forced Vaccination for COVID-19 Act would clarify that Federal law does not authorize OSHA or any other Federal Agency to implement a general vaccine mandate, but the Democrats objected to that one too.

Twelve times--twelve bills. Some were simpler than others. Some should have involved no controversy whatsoever. Some just inserted good principles of lawmaking or constitutionalism generally or federalism in particular. Each one was rejected, one right after the other after the other, repeated 12 times.

Thankfully, while some in this body have floundered, judges on the Fifth Circuit fulfilled their duty to the American people and their oaths to the Constitution. That does not mean, however, that this fight is anywhere near over. It will continue in the courts, where the States and the Biden administration will each be able to make their case. But I am also going to continue this fight here. I will stand for those Utahns and those Americans who are at risk specifically because of this mandate.

It is also important for us to remember that separate and apart from what the courts might do, we have an independent obligation, having each taken an oath to uphold and protect and defend the Constitution of the United States in the fulfillment of our duties. We need to make sure that before authority is exercised--especially authority operating in such a personal manner on such a personal issue as this--that power isn't being taken from those to whom it belongs. The power in our system of government belongs to the people, and in the absence of a delegation of power to the Federal Government, that power is retained by the States respectively or by the people.

So we ought to be looking at this carefully and closely, analyzing it on our own. We can't assume that the Federal courts will save us from our own unconstitutional actions.

I have been critical of Presidents of both political parties when they have taken actions that exceed the scope of their authority as President of the United States or of actions enacted by the legislative branch under the direction of either political party that exceed the power of the Federal Government. This is an issue that is not Republican or Democratic. It is not liberal. It is not conservative. It is simply an American issue. It is a constitutional issue. We ought to be debating it, discussing these things here, and not waiting for the courts to act.

One of the profound frustrations that I have encountered over the years is that sometimes people will conflate the issue of constitutionality with litigation. They will assume that constitutional issues are those that have to be addressed in the courts and only in the courts.

Fortunately, we have the courts to adjudicate disputes and the meaning of statutes and provisions of the Constitution, but that doesn't excuse us of our responsibility to provide an independent check and balance to make sure that authority isn't being exercised where it should not. It is especially important where, as here, we are dealing with a fundamentally misguided and, I believe, immoral proposition; that is, that individual Americans, hard-working moms and dads throughout this country, ought ever to be put into a position by their government to choose between, on the one hand, receiving a medical procedure that they may not want or to which they may have religious or other moral objections or which they might have a specific health concern, for example--they ought not ever be put in a position where they have to choose between that unwanted medical procedure on the one hand and on the other hand, the ability to put bread on the table for their children. That is not right. The American people know it, and deep down, they know something is terribly wrong whenever one person can, with the stroke of the Executive pen, issue so broad, so deep, and so immoral a mandate.

I am not going to stand for this. I will be back. I will be back tomorrow. I will be back the next day. I will be back as often as it takes, as long as it takes. I am not going to stop until we win this fight.

Thank you.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, last week, I came to the floor in support of Senator Scott's bill pushing back on what many of us consider the unconstitutional COVID vaccine mandates. I used my floor time to describe the lack of transparency of our healthcare Agencies by talking about the information that our healthcare Agencies, the media, and the news media are not providing the American public. I come to the floor today to expand a little bit on that information.

Now, last week, I presented this chart, which shows the daily number of new cases. Those are the blue lines. You actually have daily deaths--the tragic deaths--very thin red line. But you also have this line showing the percent of fully vaccinated Americans.

Now, I pointed to this chart because this is not what I would expect to see if we had 100 percent effective vaccines. Now, let me again state, I was a big supporter of Operation Warp Speed. I am not an anti- vaxxer. I have had every vaccine up to this one because I had COVID.

So I had hoped and prayed that the COVID vaccine would be 100 percent safe and 100 percent effective, but this chart is not what I would expect to have seen with a vaccine that was highly effective and what we all were hoping would happen once we had a high percentage of Americans vaccinated, together with those who already had COVID, like myself, with natural immunity.

You can see, prior to the vaccine even being able to take effect, as the first major surge of the pandemic was winding down, I would have expected to see a continued winding down, but that is not what we saw. We have seen this surge in Delta, and we have seen additional deaths, and the tragedy continues.

Now, back on September 9, President Biden said: This pandemic is of the unvaccinated.

And he also said: This is not about freedom or personal choice.

No, this is exactly about freedom and personal choice. President Biden also said in July of this year--on July 21, he said: If you are vaccinated, you are not going to be hospitalized. You are not going to be in the ICU unit. You are not going to die. You are not going to get COVID if you have these vaccinations.

Today, I received an email from a constituent in Wisconsin. I am going to read an excerpt. I am not going to identify the individual because he fears reprisals. He has seen what happens to people that tell the truth about COVID and COVID vaccines, so I will keep his name anonymous.

But let me quote from his email: Both my parents were fully vaccinated with the Pfizer vaccine in the spring. Yet, in August, my mom became infected and then gave it to my dad. They became so sick that my sister, fully vaccinated with Moderna, moved in with them to care for them. She used PPEs and was careful, and she caught COVID too. Hence, my family, three of us, caught COVID while fully vaccinated. They spread it while they were fully vaccinated, from vaccinated to vaccinated. My mom and sister recovered. Dad died in a week at home after a 3-week stay in the local hospital.

Now, that is a tragedy. I wish what President Biden said would have been true, but it is not. That talks to the vaccine's efficacy.

Let's talk about vaccine safety. I have heard so often from who I refer to as the ``COVID gods''--the healthcare Agencies, the media, the news media--that vaccine adverse events are rare, and they are mild. Well, they are rare, and they are mild until they happen to you.

Here is a chart that compares the number of deaths reported on the VAERS system. Now, this is the CDC's own vaccine adverse event reporting system. And I charted this all the way back to 1990, at the beginning of the VAERS system, and I got deaths associated with the flu vaccine there in blue. You can barely see them. But the largest year, the peak year for the VAERS-reported deaths associated with the flu vaccine was--in 2010, there was 162 reported deaths.

Now, again, I understand that the VAERS does not prove causation. I have got that. But if you compare our experience since 1990 with the flu vaccine--by the way, it is generally about a third of the number of doses for an annual flu season versus what we have experienced with the COVID vaccine.

So you compare that very low level of deaths reported on VAERS to what we now experienced with COVID, for just this count here, and it is 15,737 worldwide for the 3 vaccines that have emergency use authorization in the United States. In total, it is 15,937 deaths reported on the VAERS system.

Now, again, I realize that does not prove causation, but I do need to point out that 5,272 of those deaths occurred on day zero, 1, or 2 following vaccination. Now, if I were in the CDC or FDA, those Agencies that in October of 2020 touted the VAERS report, their early warning safety surveillance systems--before the vaccines ever got the emergency use authorization--they were talking about how they were going to rely on these to provide the safety signals. I remember one member of the CDC saying: We are going to take adverse events so seriously that if somebody loses a couple of days work, lost work time because of an adverse event, we are going to get a CDC representative on the phone with that individual, and we are going to look into it.

That simply has not happened.

Now, one thing that the FDA has done is they have ridiculed some of the early treatment drugs. I don't have it on the chart here, but I just want to put things in perspective. So, now, again, 15,937 deaths in about 10 months with the COVID vaccine. Ivermectin, since 1996, over 25 years, has 379 total deaths. That is 15,937, COVID vaccine; Ivermectin, 379 in 25 years; Hydroxychloroquine, about 1,039 deaths over 25 years; Remdesivir, which appears to be the drug of choice for hospitalized COVID patients, 1,499 deaths. Again, that is information our Federal Agencies aren't providing the American public, but this is information people need to know.

Now, why am I giving you this information? Well, first of all, on social media, this is suppressed. This is being censored. People like me that would even broach the subject of VAERS have been attacked.

So I think it is important to come to the Senate floor so the American people understand what is happening. But the main point I am trying to make is, those individuals who believe in their own health autonomy, believe in their own personal freedom, many of whom have already been infected with COVID, are reading the science and believe, based on what they are reading, that their natural immunity is probably as, if not more, effective than the vaccinated immunity and have chosen not to get the vaccine. That is their right. You may not agree with that, but it is not your body. It is not your right to impose on someone else a mandate to take the vaccine or take away their job, take away their livelihood, and take away their healthcare.

By the way, I am not the only one that thinks this. President Biden, back on December 4, said: I don't think it should be mandatory. I wouldn't demand it be mandatory.

The Press Secretary said: The vaccine mandate is not the Federal Government's role.

And yet here we are, nurses being fired. What do you think that is going to do to our healthcare system? We already have a severe healthcare worker shortage. We are going to exacerbate that problem.

These mandates are unconstitutional, but they are going to be incredibly harmful for military readiness and for our healthcare system. They are also going to be incredibly corrosive to our society.

I have been inundated--even well before President Biden announced his ill-advised and unconstitutional mandate, I have been inundated with emails and letters and phone calls from people who are so concerned about being coerced, being forced to take a vaccine under duress. It has had an incredibly corrosive effect on our society.

But I want to quote from one particular letter. I got this letter from a nurse. She has a master's degree. She is also a professor of nursing. She is describing what happened inside a meeting of their faculty as they were deciding how to handle mandates in their nursing school.

She writes: Some of the biggest issues today are the conversations occurring behind closed doors. Our nursing department faculty got together to decide how to handle the nearly 50 percent of students that hadn't yet received their COVID-19 vaccination and faced being dismissed from their nursing program unless they complied. The students were referred to as ``ignorant,'' ``uneducated,'' ``killers.''

This name-calling, although deeply inappropriate, is becoming the cultural norm against the masses of those who decide that it is within their right to attack the personal choice of others.

But if I were a student or a parent of a student who heard that interaction that I am about to share with you, you would be beyond furious.

When it was determined by consensus of the faculty group that we were not going to allow any special accommodations--in other words, switching of clinical assignments or sites--to allow for the unvaccinated students to progress, and that will be the standard practice in all other nursing programs soon, one faculty member exclaimed to the group: ``Good luck finding a new career.''

And the group responded with laughter.

This nurse writes: Let that sink in for a moment. They laughed. They laughed at the thought of someone's dreams being crushed.

That's the effect these unconstitutional, coercive, freedom-robbing mandates are having on our society. There is no need for them.

As the previous email from my constituent that I received today proves, even if you have been fully vaccinated, you can catch COVID. You can transmit COVID. You can die from COVID. Now, it is a tragedy. I wish it weren't so, but it is true.

When are we going to start following the science? When are we going to reclaim the freedom that has been lost in this pandemic?

There has been enough harm done during the course of this pandemic. I am begging this body; I am begging the President, do no further harm.

With that, I yield the floor.

Mr. President.

Mr. President, reserving the right to object. Yesterday, Tallahassee Memorial Hospital disclosed that 82 people died inside their healthcare system from COVID over the course of the month of September. That is the worst month on record for that hospital system.

It is not shocking to anyone because we just went passed 700,000 people who have now been killed by this virus in the United States of America. And this attack that continues to be launched on the Senate floor against science and against sound public health policy is standing in the way of us defeating this virus.

Now, I will speak to Senator Lee's objection, but Senator Johnson just came to the floor and opened up his remarks by declaring he that wasn't an anti-vaxxer and then just engaged in a 10-minute broadside against vaccines, citing conspiracy theory after conspiracy theory. The effect will be to undermine America's faith in vaccines that are working.

To prove his point, the Senator from Wisconsin read an email from a constituent who got the vaccine and got infected.

I am sure that is true. There are, in fact, people who have gotten the vaccine who have gotten the infection. It isn't 100 percent effective.

But he didn't cite these statistics: those who have been vaccinated are 10 times less likely to be hospitalized. Those who have been vaccinated are 10 times less likely to die.

Here are some numbers from the State of Pennsylvania that I just saw this morning: In Pennsylvania, 97 percent of deaths are amongst the unvaccinated; 95 percent of hospitalizations are amongst the unvaccinated; and 94 percent of cases are amongst the unvaccinated.

Senator Lee is right, vaccines work--vaccines work, and I appreciate his statement to that effect. But others, like the Senator from Wisconsin, are coming down to the floor, and their words have the effect of undermining people's faith in science, and that is deadly. That is deadly.

As to Senator Lee's objections, I know he makes them in good faith, but my impression is that this Congress and this country decided a long time ago that the government does have a role to play when it comes to the safety of our workplaces. In fact, that is the entire reason for the existence of OSHA. Whether you like it or not, from a policy perspective, OSHA has handed down mandate after mandate about what is necessary for employers to make sure that when you show up to work in a hospital or a factory or a school, that your workplace is safe.

Specifically, this country is not a stranger to vaccine mandates. In fact, every parent who sends their kids to school knows all about vaccine mandates because you have to make sure that your child is vaccinated before they go to school. Most of those schools have relatively reasonable exemptions--often, at the very least, medical exemptions; sometimes religious and philosophical exemptions.

Let's be clear: President Biden's plan includes commonsense considerations for exemptions.

Let's also be clear that, at least with respect to the OSHA requirement, it is a mandate for testing, not for vaccinations. There are other mandates that are requiring the vaccination take place, but the broadest of the proposed mandates is a mandate that everybody get tested; you don't have to get tested if you get the vaccine.

And so I am deeply worried about how unserious this country is about the science and about sound public health policy. We aren't going to get over this pandemic--we aren't going to be able to turn the page-- unless people choose to get vaccinated: 10 times less likely to die, 10 times less likely to get hospitalized.

Yes, it is true, there are cases in which there may be medical contraindications. President Biden's plan accounts for that. And yes, it is true that there are individual people who have still had breakthrough cases. But this is an effective vaccine. It is a safe vaccine. And the only way that we save lives is if we stop focusing on ideology and keep our focus on science and what works.

And for that reason, I object.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to complete my remarks before the vote.