Idaho Medical Freedom bill--a first in the nation--passed Idaho Senate and House

Here is the bill:

https://legislature.idaho.gov/wp-content/uploads/sessioninfo/2025/legislation/S1023.pdf

Here is most of a story in the Idaho press about it. The bill awaits the Governor’s signature. Leslie Manookian, who produced and directed the film “The Greater Good” and was central in lawsuits that stopped the mask requirement on airplanes and allowed Los Angeles teachers to avoid COVID vaccine mandates, wrote this bill. A large number of others helped move it forward to successful votes. Bravo to all!

Doug Cameron has become the face of the "Idaho Medical Freedom Act" as his story circulated the halls of the Idaho Legislature this session. The Idaho Medical Freedom Act passed the Senate with a vote of 19-14-2 on Feb. 26, and passed the House with a vote of 47-23 today.

"This is a great day for Idaho and for freedom," said Leslie Manookian, family friend of Cameron's, a Ketchum resident and founder of Health Freedom Defense Fund (HFDF).

Cameron, who lives in Hammett and worked in the dairy industry, was required by his employer to receive the Covid -19 vaccination. Cameron protested initially, but ultimately took the Johnson & Johnson vaccine in 2021 to keep his job, which ended with him paralyzed from a blood clot.

"We can't have freedom of speech if we can't stop someone from mandating a medical intervention," Manookian said in a recent interview with the Gazette. "Doug was vibrant and strong, and he now is in a wheelchair because of the Covid vaccine. How it okay, someone else get to dictates what is best for him or anyone, or dictate any of our medical choices."

SB 1023 aa,aa (as amended, as amended) bill amends the "Coronavirus Stop Act", replacing Covid related mandates to include all medical interventions, defined as any pharmaceutical or biological agent designed to alter or restrict biological functioning.

"If someone wants to wear a mask, get the Covid shot or any other intervention they should, but no one should be forced into it for fear of losing their job or participating in society," Manookian said.

During the House Health and Welfare Committee meeting on Friday, Manookian testified people in the Wood River Valley lost their jobs, and/or were denied entry into businesses for not received the Covid vaccination.

"There were businesses and others who literally asked people for their papers, meaning their vaccination cards," Manookian said. "People were getting fired and shunned for not masking or getting the Covid shot."

She stands by her belief no one or no entity should have any authority to tell someone what they have to put into their body to engage in society.

"The right to bodily autonomy has a large body of case law behind it. In 1952, the Supreme Court ruled it is not permissible to pump someone's stomach to regain evidence swallowed. In 1990, the court held there is protected liberty in refusing a treatment. Who cares if I can speak if my body is not mine," Manookian said….