Editor’s Note: a guest post by Jill Hines, cross-posted at the Health Freedom Louisiana Substack.

Whether it is because he has the absolute worst medical advisors or he is just a sadistic SOB, Governor John Bel Edwards has proven that he has no qualms about medical experimentation on children. Therefore, his veto of HB648 and HB182, both of which prevent further medical experimentation on children, is no surprise. While this means Edwards leaves an unquestionable legacy of violence against children, it is essential to note that the Louisiana Legislature has never intervened to stop him.

Did I get your attention? Let me explain.

In the past several years, Governor Edwards has mandated mask wearing for children as young as two, implemented a vaccine lottery and other coercive programs that included minors to incentivize the uptake of Emergency Use Authorized (EUA) drugs, and authorized his department of health to grant approval for EUA vaccines to be required for school attendance. Each of these scenarios involves not only medical experimentation on children, but also experimentation without informed consent. In each instance, parents were not informed that the medical intervention that was either mandated, incentivized, or required was, and still is, experimental.

First, it was mandated experimental masks on children.

As we have argued repeatedly since Edwards issued the first mask mandate in May of 2020, there have never been any sufficient safety studies of long term mask use in children, especially for toddlers. The FDA issued an EUA for mask use during the pandemic, meaning this intervention IS experimental for the purpose intended. As I explained in a previous article, Purveyors of Misinformation: Louisiana Department of Health, an EUA means that an experimental medical intervention is being authorized for emergency use. Additionally, the terms of the EUA for masks requires that it be disclosed that the masks cannot be used to prevent viral transmission:

“No printed matter, including advertising or promotional materials, relating to the use of the authorized face mask may represent or suggest that such product is safe or effective for the prevention or treatment of patients during the COVID-19 pandemic.”

Were you EVER informed that the masks Governor Edwards mandated for your kids to wear at school to prevent transmission of covid had never undergone ANY safety studies or that the masks were NOT intended for antiviral protection?

In a recent mouse study in which lowered Co2 levels simulated extended mask wearing, researchers stated that the study would not have been ethically defensible to perform in “mask-wearing pregnant women, children, and adolescents.” Without ANY studies, Edwards mandated children wear masks in schools for almost two years.

And for the attorneys out there: what do you call an “unwanted touching?” Now imagine how many teachers forcefully replaced a mask on a child experiencing difficulty breathing.

This is Edwards’ legacy.

The Louisiana Legislature NEVER intervened to protect children from this unethical and unconstitutional mandate despite our repeated efforts to get them to act.

Next, was Edwards’ shocking inclusion of minors in his despicable vaccine lottery scheme.

Several minors won hundreds of thousands of dollars in college scholarships because they received an EUA – experimental – vaccine.

Remember Shots for Santa?

A basic tenet of the Nuremberg Code is: The voluntary consent of the human subject is absolutely essential. Voluntary means without any form of coercion and with full knowledge of the nature and extent of the experiment.

Incentivizing an experimental medical procedure and including minors is truly contemptible, made even more so by claiming the drugs are not experimental as State Health Officer Dr. Joseph Kanter did during a legislative hearing on December 6, 2021. Paying families, especially those who may be in dire financial circumstances during the holidays, to participate in a medical procedure crosses an ethical line and provides unlimited opportunities for child abuse.

This is Edwards’ legacy.

The Louisiana Legislature NEVER intervened to protect children from these unethical and morally reprehensible events despite our repeated efforts to get them to act.

Then, Edwards attempted to add EUA covid vaccination to the required list for school attendance.

While the covid vaccines were still EUA, Edwards began the administrative process through his Office of Public Health to add the covid vaccine to the required list, but parents fought back and he eventually reversed the effort. An initiative to prevent the addition of the shot stalled in the legislature – it was parents and many in the medical community that prevented it!

Still, Edwards allowed the Louisiana Department of Health to grant approval to individual schools to require EUA covid shots. Along with colleges and universities across the state, at least 86 schools in the city of New Orleans still require covid shots for children as young as FIVE. All covid vaccines currently available to school age children are EUA, as the “FDA-approved” monovalent are no longer recommended. It is vitally important to note that FDA-approved covid vaccines were never available in Louisiana, despite claims otherwise from LDH. This alone is incredibly egregious. It is doubtful that any recipient or vaccine provider was made aware of this. We filed a formal complaint with the FDA regarding this malfeasance in March, shortly before Secretary of Health Dr. Courtney Phillips resigned on April 6, 2023.

The EUA bivalent covid vaccines currently being recommended to children never underwent randomized clinical control trials in humans. They are more experimental than ever.

To reiterate, EUA medical products ARE in fact experimental, by the FDA’s own definition.

“Emergency Use IND  allows the FDA to authorize use of an experimental drug in an emergency situation that does not allow time for submission of an IND in accordance with  21CFR , Sec. 312.23 or Sec. 312.20.”

Mandating experimental masks for children, incentivizing experimental vaccines for children with unethical lottery programs, and requiring experimental vaccines for school attendance for children are all evidence of abhorrently immoral behavior.

This is Edwards’ legacy.

The Louisiana Legislature has NEVER intervened to protect Louisiana children from Edwards’ unethical and coercive mandates and schemes.

What does this have to do with HB182 and HB648?

Edwards released a list of vetoed bills on Friday, June 30th, that includes HB182 by Rep Kathy Edmonston and HB648 by Rep Gabe Firment.

HB182 would have prevented schools from requiring covid vaccination – all still experimental (EUA) for this age group – for school attendance. But more importantly, it would have prevented the Office of Public Health from granting any further requests from schools to require covid vaccination. As we noted in testimony for HB182, not only are covid vaccines EUA, but newly peer-reviewed data shows that repeated vaccination makes recipients more susceptible to covid infection. Additionally, FDA researchers identified a safety signal indicating covid vaccination places children at increased risk of myocarditis and pericarditis.

HB648, which has significant bipartisan support, would have prevented any further attempts to medically change the biological sex of minors. As noted repeatedly throughout the bill’s presentations in the legislature, these medical attempts are completely experimental and extremely damaging to the body and minds of those children who undergo the process.

In his veto letter for HB648, Edwards acknowledges that he relied on an LDH report created at the request of the legislature in 2022 to justify his veto. Authored by a physician who regularly performs “gender affirming care,” S. Amanda Dumas MD, the report analyzes state Medicaid data only – no private health insurance data is included! Without acknowledging data limitation or the study author’s extreme conflicts of interest, Edwards justifies the veto of HB648 while referencing the biased information included in the report.

Incredibly, while VETOING a bill that would prevent horrific sex modification surgeries on minors, Edwards agrees the procedures are an “egregious example of breach of standard of care and medical malpractice,” but he has “faith and trust in our Louisiana physicians that they are not performing any unnecessary surgical procedures on children who have been diagnosed with gender dysphoria.”

From his veto letter on HB 648…

While acknowledging the appalling nature of the practice, Edwards refuses to sign a law preventing it!

Who is going to tell Edwards that current state Medicare guidance allows for this “egregious example of breach of standard of care and medical malpractice”?

Although current guidance includes a note that “chest surgery” on minors must be performed “WITH GUARDIAN CONSENT,” as noted by parent, Donna Lambert, in her testimony before the legislature, parents are warned that “if you do not affirm and begin a path of medical intervention, you will be the cause of your child’s death. Under such conditions, it is impossible for a parent to make rational decisions and may agree to follow professionals even when they have doubts about these questionable medical and experimental procedures.”

In regards to opposite-sex hormone treatment for children with gender dysphoria, Edwards again puts on the blinders and ignores what scientists and physicians around the world are conceding:

“There is no reliable evidence that youth transition improves mental health outcomes.”

In a recent article published in The Hill, Leor Sapir, a fellow at the Manhattan Institute, goes on to write:

“Why the U.S. has become an outlier on pediatric transgender medicine is a complicated question, but at least part of the answer is that European welfare states have centralized health bureaucracies and public health insurance. Before medicines can be approved for state funding, their evidence base needs to be evaluated. The American health care system is more vulnerable to profit motives, activist doctors and political pressures. Medical associations claim to advocate for patient health but can have other motives as well.

The situation is so dire that when pediatric gender medicine experts in other countries want to defend their practices before a skeptical public, they sometimes say that at least they are not as bad as the Americans. That is one kind of American exceptionalism we can do without.”

It goes without saying that if Edwards’ veto stands, Louisiana will become a mecca of “affirming” harm as state after state puts the brakes on this troubling social contagion.

This is Edwards’ legacy.

But it is also the legacy of the legislature that lets these vetoes stand.

As Congressman Higgins rightly notes in the above tweet, Edwards leaves a legacy of horror. It is a legacy of violence upon children that was never halted by the legislature.

The legislature has one last chance at redemption: a veto override session.

Email your legislators NOW and demand they act to protect Louisiana children.