A new coalition composed of 15 groups, including an organization founded by Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., is targeting vaccine and mask mandates across the United States.

Children’s Health Defense, the Kennedy-founded group, and other members of the Medical Freedom Act Coalition say they want every state to introduce and pass medical freedom bills.

“I think it’s the first time we’ve seen this kind of effort in the kind of freedom and health movement,” Leslie Manookian, who founded the Health Freedom Defense Fund, told The Epoch Times.

The model state is Idaho, which in 2025 enacted a law that prohibits businesses and schools from requiring customers, employees, and students receive vaccines or other medical procedures. 

Manookian helped write the legislation, called the Idaho Medical Freedom Act.

“Because that passed, it really showed what was possible,” Leah Wilson, executive director and co-founder of Stand for Health Freedom, and one of the leaders of the coalition, told The Epoch Times. 

“Our goal is to take the Medical Freedom Act to as many states as possible across the United States.”

The coalition also includes others linked to Kennedy or his Make America Health Again (MAHA) movement, including the Independent Medical Alliance,  the MAHA Institute, and MAHA Action.

“This state, more than any state in the country, stands for not only medical freedom but a healthy population,” Kennedy said in a briefing with Idaho Gov. Brad Little, a Republican who signed the Idaho Medical Freedom Act a few months prior, on July 23, 2025.

Kennedy recently told reporters in Tennessee that he was not part of efforts to end school vaccine mandates in states. 

“I believe in freedom of choice,” he also said, describing vaccination as “a personal choice that people should make with their physicians.”

The American Academy of Pediatrics, which partners with vaccine manufacturers, and American Families for Vaccines, among other organizations, oppose rolling back vaccine mandates. The groups did not respond to requests for comment.

Idaho Requirements Still in Place

The Idaho Medical Freedom Act says in part that a school “shall not mandate a medical intervention for any person to attend, enter campus or buildings, or be employed.” 

It also says that a business “shall not refuse to provide any service, product, admission to a venue, or transportation to a person because that person has or has not received or used a medical intervention.”

But according to the Idaho Department of Health and Welfare (DHW), parents are required to have their children vaccinated against certain diseases for school and daycare attendance in Idaho.

The department points to another law that outlines vaccine requirements for children.

“DHW encourages school districts to consider the Medical Freedom Act ... when implementing vaccine requirements at schools,” a spokesperson told The Epoch Times in an email.

Supporters of the act say the Idaho legislation was imperfect. A new Medical Freedom Expansion bill introduced by state Rep. Rob Beiswenger, a Republican who co-sponsored the legislation, seeks to make clear that mandates are unacceptable.

“The expansion bill will make it abundantly clear to students and parents that vaccination is a voluntary, personal, and private choice and not mandatory,” Beiswenger told The Epoch Times in an email.

This year, legislators in about a dozen states, including Arizona, Hawaii, and Indiana, have released bills that would alter or ban mandates for vaccines or other medical procedures.

On the other hand, some lawmakers have been floating bills that would tighten vaccine mandates. South Carolina state Sen. Margie Bright Matthews, for example, recently introduced a bill that would end religious exemptions for measles vaccination amid an outbreak in the state.

“This legislation is about protecting children, protecting classrooms, and protecting communities with clear, medically grounded standards,” Bright Matthews, a Democrat, said in a statement.

Every state in the country requires vaccines for school attendance. Some allow exemptions for religious or philosophical reasons, while all permit medical exemptions.

—Zachary Stieber; Stacy Robinson

BOOKMARKS

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—Stacy Robinson