Pennsylvania families are raising concerns in Pennsylvania about sweeping new regulations proposed by Governor Josh Shapiro’s administration that would expand the powers of the PA Department of Health. The proposed rules would allow state government officials the ability to enter homes and schools without a warrant, access confidential health records, impose statewide disease-control measures, and meet privately with students without their parents present.
Note: These are proposed regulations, not current laws. They are currently open for public comment through September 21, 2026.
Here’s what you need to know:
Fact #1: The Shapiro administration is proposing new health regulations that would significantly expand governmental authority.
On June 4, the Independent Regulatory Review Commission (IRRC) received Regulation #10-242, hundreds of pages of proposed regulations from the PA Department of Health (PDOH) dealing with communicable and noncommunicable diseases.
PDOH is complaining that during the COVID-19 pandemic “the broad powers given to the Department to enforce disease control measures were restricted by regulation.” (See pg 3 of IRRC’s regulatory analysis form.)
The implementation of these regulations would effectively allow the PDOH to write itself a blank check of authority to monitor its citizens in the name of “prevention, containment, or mitigation” of disease. It seeks “the implementation of all disease control measures available to the Department under the Disease Prevention and Control Law.”
This language significantly enlarges the scope of state authority and control in any area related to communicable diseases, while also expanding the list of diseases dramatically. It gives the Department powers it never had before to do what it could not accomplish before: erode privacy in the name of public health. COVID is gone, but the czars still crave power.
On August 8, these regulations were published and made available for a public comment period through September 21.
Fact #2: The Shapiro administration’s proposed regulations would allow health officials to enter a school and meet in private with any child without parental notification or interference by school officials.
The proposed regulations would require all schools in Pennsylvania to be subjected to “contact tracing and partner services,” and school personnel are mandated not to interfere with “the Department to conduct its investigation based on the infectious period of the disease in question.” This would include all communicable and contagious diseases, including COVID-19.
PDOH, through these new regulations, would give itself the power to seek consent for medical services from the minor in private, and school officials would be prohibited from obstructing or interfering with the investigation. This would include the school making a call notifying the child’s parents.
These proposed regulations would also give the government access to patient medical records, including the records of children without their parents’ consent.
According to the proposed regulations, this would apply to “all 500 school districts, more than 160 brick-and-mortar charter schools, 14 cyber charter schools, approximately 396 colleges and universities, and 6,378 childcare group settings, and students and employees in those settings.”
As Independence Law Center Chief Counsel Randall Wenger told the Daily Wire:
“Parents have a fundamental right to direct the upbringing of their children. And these regulations that allow a bureaucrat to go into a school to meet with a child without parents’ knowledge and telling the school officials that they can’t even interfere with this. That ends up then interfering with the parents’ fundamental right to direct the care and upbringing of their children. That’s unconscionable. I don’t want any government agent coming in and talking one-on-one with my child about immensely personal subjects like sexually transmitted diseases.”
FACT #3: The Shapiro administration’s proposed regulations would require all health care providers to participate in a centralized government vaccine database that flags unvaccinated persons.
Participation in the Department’s immunization information system with personal vaccine data (previously voluntary) would become mandatory for health care practitioners and facilities.
The proposed regulations would also expand the number of diseases, infections, and conditions from 52 to 125, including COVID-19.
While a patient may refuse certain vaccines (made in writing), you would then be flagged as noncompliant in the centralized database.
FACT #4: The Shapiro administration has already published a school-by-school vaccine immunization database.
On August 3, the Pennsylvania Department of Health released vaccine data based on individual schools, including public, private, charter, parochial, and home education programs.
While this vaccine data has previously been made available in county and statewide summaries, PDOH has published this information at the individual school level.
The new database includes summaries for kindergarten, 7th grade, and 12th grade. It also includes the percentage of students with a religious exemption and states this is based on the record of “a vaccine exemption filed with the school.” Homeschool families are included in the vaccination rates of the public school district the student lives in.
The creation of this statewide school-level database raises important questions about privacy, the publication of school-specific information, how these data may be used, and the precedent it could set for expanding government reporting of individual school data in the future. This information can be used to surgically and “selectively” isolate vectors of contagion, including schools with high rates of religious exemptions to vaccinations.
FACT #5: Public comment period on the proposed regulations is open until September 21 at 5 pm.
The proposed regulations are not yet final. The public comment period is open until September 21, 2026.
We need your help to stop this government overreach and erosion of privacy rights and parental authority. Click here or go to pafamily.org/regulations to express your opinion and help stop these new state regulations.
I oppose proposed Regulation 10-242 because several provisions expand government authority at the expense of individual liberty, privacy, parental authority, and due process.
My concern is not with reasonable measures to control serious communicable disease. My concern is giving government broad, standing powers without equally clear protections for the citizens subject to those powers.
First, private property must remain protected. Proposed §27.60a allows health authorities to enter an apartment, building, or other location as part of an investigation upon presentation of government identification. The regulation should expressly state that nothing in it eliminates the requirement for consent, a warrant, or other lawful judicial process where constitutionally required. Government identification alone should never be interpreted as unlimited authority to enter a citizen’s home.
Second, parents should not be casually removed from decisions involving their children. Proposed §27.60c requires schools to permit health officials to meet and speak privately with students and prohibits interference with that access. Whatever legitimate public-health purpose may exist, government access to a minor at school should have clearly defined limits and should preserve parental notice and involvement whenever existing law does not specifically require confidentiality.
Third, medical privacy deserves strong safeguards. Proposed §27.60e gives health authorities access to patient medical records and permits electronic transmission of those records. Such authority should be limited to information actually necessary for a specific investigation, with clear standards governing access, retention, security, disclosure, and accountability.
Finally, emergency authority should not become ordinary government authority. Broad phrases such as investigating “any case” or “unusual occurrences,” combined with prohibitions against citizens obstructing or interfering with government investigations, create substantial discretion. The regulation should contain objective thresholds, defined limits, due-process protections, and meaningful oversight.
Pennsylvania’s Constitution begins from the principle that people possess inherent rights to liberty and that governmental power originates with the people. It also specifically protects people, their homes, papers, and possessions against unreasonable government searches.
Public health and individual freedom do not have to be opposing principles. Government can protect public health while remaining constrained by consent, warrants where required, parental rights, medical privacy, due process, and judicial oversight.
I therefore ask that Regulation 10-242 not be adopted in its present form. At minimum, these provisions should be rewritten to place explicit and enforceable limits on government authority and to make clear that Pennsylvanians do not surrender their fundamental freedoms simply because the government invokes a public-health purpose.
I am opposed to regulation #10-242. I urge the department to rescind these regulations and make clear that the state will respect the privacy and parental rights of its citizens in medical decision making. Do not turn Pennsylvania into a surveillance state.
Thank you
Rich Goehring
I am opposed to Regulation 10-242. We need to keep our God-given freedoms to make decisions for our own households, bodies & children.
Gov has Zero rights interfering with family health, period! Regulation 10-242 is to be opposed. We The People have our God given rights n freedoms n this regulation is trying to take them away.
I vehemently oppose regulation 10-242. The government does not have dominion over me or my children’s health! I will not have ANY government official talking to my child behind my back! I feel like Shapiro thinks he is a King! Maybe we need some real NO KINGS protests, not made up ones! I feel like we are living in Communist China! If this passes I will be forced to leave the state along with the rest of my taxpaying family and go to a freedom loving Red State! I will take the hundreds of thousands of tax dollars with me!!
I oppose this legislation in Pa because it interferes with parental rights. I believe in vaccines but not having gov. come in without parents permission.
I strongly disagree with 10-242, it is too much government overreach and private property rights as well as parental rights need to stay intact. Hipaa is there to protect the privacy of medical information. Governor Shapiro should be ashamed of himself.
I DO NOT WANT anything that Josh Shapiro has planned for me and my family! He’s been and shown that he’s nothing but a liar! The Government needs to stay out of my business in any way, shape or form! I OPPOSE ANYTHING WITH THIS NEW BILL!!!
STAY OUT OF MY BUSINESS JOSH SHAPIRO! Stick to your high salary, do nothing job!
Thank you PA Family Institute for raising awareness about this issue.
I oppose regulation 10-242 because it takes the privacy from individuals and parental rights from the parents. The children do not belong to the government, they are the responsibility of the parents. This regulation is just another over reach of the government.
I am against this.
I am opposed to regulation #10-242. I urge the department to rescind these regulations and make clear that the state will respect the privacy and parental rights of its citizens in medical decision making.