Here is the link to a new video on the Apulian regional law concerning the HPV vaccination:
The Puglia Region is concerned about our health. Very concerned. So much so that the first law enacted in 2024 sought to reassure Apulian citizens that “the Region protects public health as a fundamental right of the individual and of the community and recognises the promotion of citizens' health as a priority, identifying vaccination as an essential tool of primary prevention”. Evidently, the Puglia Region wanted to outdo the Constitution, which in Article 32 states that the Republic protects health as a fundamental right of the individual and an interest of the community, and guarantees free medical care to the indigent. The subtle conflation between an individual right and the interest of the community—that is, of the politicians in power—is indicative of our country's dangerous collectivist drift, which this Apulian law proves once again. To achieve the lofty goals they have set themselves, Apulian politicians have provided for an extensive plan of individual invitations to be vaccinated against HPV, namely human papillomavirus: a pathogen that usually produces no symptoms and resolves on its own, but which in some cases can lead to cervical lesions that, in extremely rare instances, degenerate into tumours. It is worth stressing that the HPV vaccine is not among those made mandatory by the notorious Lorenzin Law. In Italy there are around 2,500 cases of this cancer per year (https://www.salute.gov.it/portale/tumori/dettaglioContenutiTumori.jsp?id=5539&area=tumori&menu=vuoto). In Puglia, therefore, where roughly 7% of the Italian population lives, there should be about 175 cases per year.
Not content with their efforts to combat this scourge, Apulian lawmakers felt an urgent need to amend Law 1/2024. With a new law already passed and currently awaiting promulgation and publication in the Official Gazette of the Puglia Region (chrome-extension://efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/https://giac.consiglio.puglia.it/web/files/view/12882), the Regional Council decided to up the ante and introduce an extensive indoctrination scheme, aimed at young people aged between 11 and 25 and designed to convince them of the great usefulness of HPV vaccination, in order to overcome any hesitations that might stem from the fact that, whilst the mortality rate for cervical cancer is 2.3 cases per 100,000 people, the adverse reaction rate for one of the main HPV vaccines stands at no less than 85 cases per 100,000 (https://childrenshealthdefense.org/news/25-reasons-to-avoid-the-gardasil-vaccine/).
For this reason, the valiant Apulian legislators decided to introduce a new concept: that of informed dissent. For the purposes of enrolment in schools or universities, as the new Article 4-bis of Regional Law 1/2014 provides, parents of minors and students aged between 18 and 25 must submit, alternatively, documentation certifying vaccination, the initiation of the inoculation schedule, the refusal of administration, or the completion of an interview in which Puglia's healthcare personnel extol the virtues of the vaccine in question. Presumably, someone within the Puglia Regional Council must have realised that education is a right, that it is compulsory until the age of sixteen, and that access to schools and universities is open to everyone—even to those who do not share the Apulian legislators' enthusiasm for the HPV vaccine. In the new Article 4-bis, therefore, a clause of common sense was inserted: “save for formal refusal”.
Consequently, when Apulian parents or adult students apply for enrolment at school or university and an overzealous bureaucrat demands that they comply with the draconian provisions of the new law, they may reply: “I formally refuse to provide any document concerning vaccination against the HPV virus or the refusal thereof”.
Why is it advisable to refuse to provide information?
The purpose of the law is to register those who refuse the vaccine, and, whatever one might think of the utility of this treatment, being catalogued like a herd of cattle is a dreadful idea. Health choices are individual and private, and concern neither the state nor the Region of Puglia. Furthermore, data concerning health and the administration of medicinal products cannot be processed by school or university staff (Article 2(2)(i) of the GDPR) because they are not professionals bound by professional secrecy, such as doctors, meaning that the processing of information concerning the anti-HPV vaccination would be unlawful in any event.
Whilst they were at it, the Apulian legislators also slipped into the new law a provision that all newborns and infants must be vaccinated against respiratory syncytial virus (a generally harmless form of cold that in rare cases can cause complications). This is not a mandatory vaccination, as it is not included in the long list of the Lorenzin Law. Therefore, I advise all parents who do not wish to subject their children to this inoculation to be very vigilant and to notify maternity wards in writing that they forbid the administration of the vaccine against respiratory syncytial virus.
Let us always remember that these gems of regional legislation certainly do not come free of charge. In order to bestow their wisdom upon the population, Apulian regional councillors pocket between €10,000 and €13,000 per month at the expense of unfortunate citizens, who are forced to fund an unnecessary and harmful legislature, like all regional, national, and supranational parliaments. We do not need legislators. There are too many laws—almost all of them useless, and a great many detrimental to citizens' freedom and property. The few that possess common sense and deserve to be preserved stem from a millennia-old legal tradition and were merely incorporated into statutory codes to make it appear as though they originated from the state, whereas they are nothing more than the state's appropriation of a science—that of law—of which states are the destroyers. Laws, as Bruno Leoni taught, cannot be made; they must be discovered through a long process of evolution.
The best government, as Thoreau said, is that which governs least, and the excellent government is that which does not govern at all. Let us hope that all legislators, Apulian and otherwise, abide by this wise maxim.
What to do if approached by school or university staff?
Following the amendments to Law 1/2024, the Puglia Region has introduced a new requirement for the enrolment of students in schools and universities. Indeed, enrolment staff will be required to ask for information regarding vaccination against Human Papillomavirus (HPV). The law sets out a series of options, but the one to choose is the “formal refusal” to provide information.
Therefore, when information regarding this vaccination is requested—the purpose being to establish whether students have had the vaccine, have begun the inoculation schedule, have refused the treatment, or have participated in an indoctrination interview on the utility of the vaccine itself—it will be advisable to make use of the primary option provided by the law: namely, refusing to provide any information.
The request may be answered, where appropriate in writing, as follows:
“I/We the undersigned …, born in … on …, in my/our capacity as:
☐ parents exercising parental responsibility over the minor …, born in … on ...
☐ person concerned
hereby declare that I/we formally refuse to provide any information required under Regional Law 1/2024, as subsequently amended and supplemented.”