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.
