March 04, 2022 10:06 AM UTC

'Natural Immunity' Bill Meets Expected Demise

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• by: Colorado Pols

State Rep. Mark Baisley is the bizarro Leonardo da Vinci of the House Republican caucus: He knows very little about a wide array of topics, and he takes great pains to convince others that his idiocy is actually genius.

Baisley is the same guy who suggested in January that Colorado wrap its voting machines in tin foil in order to protect them from wireless signals, or aliens, or something. In 2014, Baisley warned us that “Sharia law” was coming to Colorado (as it turned out…not so much).

As The Colorado Times-Recorder reports, Baisley failed in his attempt to turn his theories on “natural immunity” in relation to COVID-19 into actual policy:

Colorado House Democrats have voted down a bill that would have exempted employees with “naturally acquired immunity” from their employers’ COVID-19 vaccine and testing mandates.

The Naturally Acquired Immunity COVID-19 bill, backed by state Rep. Mark Baisley (R-Roxborough Park), falsely stated that “natural immunity” – also known as post-infection immunity – offered superior protection against SARS-CoV-2 compared with mRNA vaccines.

“What ultimately defends our bodies from COVID-19 is antibodies,” Baisley said in his opening statement at yesterday’s meeting of the House Health and Insurance Committee. “What we refer to as natural antibodies, natural immunity, is a more direct response to the actual signature of the virus [than a vaccine].”

A bevy of witnesses provided testimony in favor of Baisley’s measure. That lineup included an OB/GYN physician who was fired for refusing a COVID vaccine, a chiropractor, a natural-health advocate, and impassioned representatives from Stand for Health Freedom. Also present was a man who claimed to stand for the “rebels, revolutionaries, resistors, radicals and rainbow healers” of Colorado. [Pols emphasis]

This parade of “experts” apparently failed to impress members of the State Health and Insurance Committee, who allowed the bill to die of natural causes (HB22-1144 was “postponed indefinitely.”)

You might recall that Baisley’s “natural immunity” bill came up at the beginning of the 2022 legislative session, when the Douglas County lawmaker rambled at the end of a GOP press conference about “rMNA vaccines” (presumably he meant to say “mRNA” vaccines). House Minority Leader Hugh McKean quickly stepped in to cut off Baisley, but not before Baisley claimed that anyone who has been infected with COVID-19 has the same immunity and protection from future infection as someone who has been vaccinated against the virus. As we discussed at length at the time, this is absolutely not true.

Baisley was promoting the same sort of boneheaded argument that was the main topic of discussion in October when Republican gubernatorial candidate Hiedi Heidi Ganahl hosted a forum with right-wing pundit Dennis Prager; during that forum, Prager claimed that schools were “poison factories” and “vaccines are child abuse.” He went on to say that he was TRYING to get infected with COVID-19…which ended up happening just a few days later. (Ganahl has since called on the University of Colorado to end ALL vaccine mandates, even those for preventable illnesses such as mumps and measles).

It’s a good thing that Baisley’s half-baked “natural immunity” bill was extinguished in a House committee before the idea could spread any further. Still, this is another frightening reminder of the kind of nonsense that a Republican majority would be doing with its time if given the opportunity.