Bill banning vaccine mandates, limiting remedies SC could offer in future pandemics advances

COLUMBIA — Legislation that would ban South Carolina businesses from requiring COVID vaccines and restrict what the state’s public health agency could provide in future pandemics advanced Wednesday in the state Senate, despite opposition that included the state Chamber of Commerce.

The proposal sponsored by Sen. Shane Martin would greatly expand on a law signed two years ago that bars vaccine mandates by public employers. It threatens to send violating employers to prison.

It would also limit what the state could buy, store, distribute and/or administer in a public health emergency. Public health officials could provide only vaccines and treatments fully approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Those with emergency use authorization, as the COVID vaccines had, would be specifically disallowed.

Martin, a Spartanburg County Republican, told his fellow senators he wants to “protect myself and all my constituents” from the “draconian and often compulsory measures” enacted by the White House and government bureaucrats between 2020 and 2022 as a reaction to the COVID-19 pandemic. He presented his bill as guaranteeing future freedom.

One of the panel’s two Democrats noted that could cost lives.

“If we’re in another pandemic… in terms of us being denied access to a vaccine that saves lives, we can’t turn back the hands of time and bring those persons back,” said Sen. Ronnie Sabb, D-Greeleyville.

Both Martin’s bill, along with another one that would renew a more limited anti-vaccine-mandate law signed in 2022, advanced on 3-2 votes on partisan lines.

The 2022 law barred state and local governments from requiring COVID vaccinations for their employees, contractors or, in the case of K-12 schools and colleges, their students. But it automatically expired at the end of 2023. The new proposal authored by Senate Majority Leader Shane Massey, R-Edgefield, would have no sunset provision.

The subcommittee chairman, Tom Corbin, R-Travelers Rest, told the SC Daily Gazette he was pleased with his panel’s work.

“I felt like it was my job to move the bill along,” he said about the bill he’s co-sponsoring, noting the meeting lasted for three hours. “There’s ample opportunity to amend it as we go forward.”

Possible prison time for employers

Martin’s bill wouldn’t bar all vaccine requirements. Instead, it says employers can’t require employees to get a “novel vaccine,” defined as any vaccine not fully approved by the FDA or those licensed within the last 10 years.

Under the bill, public and private employers who mandate a “novel vaccine” could be punished by a $1,000 fine and up to a year in prison on first offense. A third conviction would be punishable by up to a $5,000 fine and five years in prison.

Bob Morgan, president and CEO of the South Carolina Chamber of Commerce, said such harsh penalties represent government overreach that’s no better than the mandates issued by the Biden administration before the U.S. Supreme Court struck them down.

“South Carolina has a long and proud position of allowing private-sector employers to run their businesses without excessive governmental interference,” he said. “At the South Carolina Chamber of Commerce, we believe that government should let businesses do business by letting them run their operations as they deem fit.”

The Republican senators on the committee were unmoved.

“If we were to do what you would want, that would leave the employee at the mercy of an employer in the situation of a novel vaccine or gene therapy, of ‘you’re going to take this vaccine or lose your job,’” said Sen. Richard Cash of Anderson County.

The bill also limits how authorities can respond to public health emergencies, to include limiting their ability to require people to quarantine. It also limits pharmacists’ ability to refuse to fill a prescription.

Cash said he was concerned about pharmacists not filling prescriptions for ivermectin — an anti-parasitic drug that was sometimes prescribed experimentally to treat COVID-19, despite the FDA saying it was not effective as a treatment and could be dangerous in some circumstances.

“A lot of people, if they got the doctor’s prescription, they couldn’t get ivermectin,” said the Powdersville Republican. “We intend to rectify that problem.”

Brian Clark, CEO of the South Carolina Pharmacy Association, objected to the broad restrictions, saying the proposal could cost pharmacists money if they can’t decline to fulfil a prescription because insurance won’t reimburse them or because of liability issues.

Clark, of Chapin, told senators he personally filled prescriptions for ivermectin, but he believed that pharmacists should not be mandated to provide any specific kind of care.

“Pharmacists have gone to school for a long time and deserve the right to exercise their professional judgment,” he said.

Amanda Hovis, a physician’s assistant from Spartanburg, testified in support of both bills.

“That is not the right of a business to force any type of medication onto another person,” she said.

The subcommittee also advanced a resolution calling on Congress and the president to withdraw the United States from the World Health Organization. The proposal carries no legal weight and advanced without debate or testimony, despite an objection from Sabb.