Anti-COVID Vax Kingston Rep Called ‘Danger to Public Health’

Kingston Rep. Ken Weyler is being called out from both sides of the political aisle for his radical views on the COVID-19 vaccine that could hold up federal funding for the state's vaccination effort.

Weyler, the longtime chair of the fiscal committee, was accused of spreading misinformation about the vaccine during a hearing with Health Commissioner Lori Shibinette in September. The Republican said he has heard in the "mainstream media" that many people vaccinated within the past six months are being hospitalized and accused Shibinette of denying breakthrough cases.

Rep. Mary Jane Wallner, the ranking Democrat on the Fiscal Committee, said in a statement Weyler sent members of the committee a 52-page report full of misinformation about the COVID-19 vaccine.

Among Weyler's claims in the report, according to Wallner:

• Live creatures with tentacles are entering people's bodies via the vaccine
• 5G technology is in the vaccine to control people's thoughts
• The Pope and Catholic church are Satanists and Luciferians for supporting public health measures
• The babies of vaccinated parents are born with pitch-black eyes and can stand and walk at only three months old.

Wallner said Weyler canceled an earlier Fiscal Committee meeting because he was waiting on information from state agencies.

"We are left wondering what information we are waiting on as it certainly can't be this," Wallner said in her statement. "The continued dissemination of disinformation from Rep. Weyler is a danger to the public health of New Hampshire and to the credibility of the legislature as a whole."

At stake is $27 million in money from the American Rescue Plan that would go towards creating positions that would expand the state's COVID-19 vaccine response. Weyler told Seacoast Current it's a waste of money.

Gov. Chris Sununu who defended Shibinette after the Fiscal Committee hearing said he is in favor of removing Weyler as chair.

“I have repeatedly expressed directly to Speaker Packard about the need to remove Representative Weyler from this position of leadership, and these latest absurd emails have accelerated the urgency that the Speaker needs to take action. Disseminating this misinformation clearly shows a detachment from reality and lack of judgment," Sununu said.

The governor is a strong proponent of the COVID-19 vaccine as the best way out of the pandemic but does not support mandates forcing it on people.

Raymond Buckley, chair of the state Democratic Party, called for Packard's resignation "from an office he can't handle" along with Weyler's resignation in a tweet on Monday night.

"Integrity and trust must be returned to the NH House, it is in a crisis," Buckley said.

Buckley said that the Speaker does not have to be a member of the House and called upon Sununu to "beg" Doug Scamman to return to the position he held between 1986-1990 and between 2004 and 2006.

"A bipartisan council of ex-speakers must serve as his council to run House," Buckley said.

Weyler has as a representative from 1990 until 2008 and again from 2010 to the present.

Contact reporter Dan Alexander at Dan.Alexander@townsquaremedia.com or via Twitter @DanAlexanderNH