On May 6, 2025, Jenny O’Higgins, and her colleague at the Department of Health and Human Services, testified at a public hearing on HB446. Their testimony can be accessed here at 2:35:00. As you will hear at the beginning of their testimony, Ms. O’Higgins stated that she was there on behalf of DHHS to oppose HB446.
You can click here to access the YRBS MIDDLE School, and HIGH School CDC survey.
Since when do employees from the state departments take a position on legislation? Are taxpayers funding lobbyists working for the State to oppose parental rights? HB446 would do a few things if it were passed into law :
1) The new law would require parental consent before schools could administer the invasive, and controversial Youth Risk Behavior Survey to children. This change in the law would expand parental rights, and at the same time, it would make the administration of this survey ethical.
Any research involving students, according to the Declaration of Helsinki, requires Institutional Review Board (IRB) approval. The purpose of such approval, which is rigorous, is to assure that any human experimentation, which includes surveys, is not only safe but likely to produce important new information. While there is the claim that this survey is anonymous, and therefore IRB approval is not necessary, we’ve heard testimony indicating the opposite.
The questions have been described as inappropriate for children because:
a) It’s considered sexual harassment if this was given in a workplace to an employee
b) Violates the 5th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution
c) Unethical to survey children without informed consent by parents/guardians
d) Has the ability to trigger a student who has been sexually abused or harmed
e) Delves into the private life of the family when it comes to things like firearm ownership
2) The myth of anonymous data.
The YRBS is to be administered to students in a way that keeps their identity anonymous. Parents have reported that their children have written their name on them, or their UPI, (Unique Pupil Identifier number) believing they are taking a test. Other parents have reported that teachers have looked over their students’ surveys to see how they are answering the questions. This is research on children and, therefore, should be done in an ethical manner. Administrators have been able to retrieve some of these surveys after they were completed and gathered up by teachers.
3) PhD Child Psychologists could lose their license if they gave the same survey to a child/patient but did not acquire parental consent. See #9 under Assessments. Ethical Principles of Psychologists and Code of Conduct. A child does not have the capacity to make a decision to participate in a survey on sexual practices, drug usage, or whether their parents have a gun in the home.
3.10 Informed Consent
(b) For persons who are legally incapable of giving informed consent, psychologists nevertheless (1) provide an appropriate explanation, (2) seek the individual’s assent, (3) consider such persons’ preferences and best interests, and (4) obtain appropriate permission from a legally authorized person, if such substitute consent is permitted or required by law. When consent by a legally authorized person is not permitted or required by law, psychologists take reasonable steps to protect the individual’s rights and welfare.
4) Those who oppose using ethical practices to administer the YRBS point to their dependence on grant funding in order to provide programs in schools that address some of these risky behaviors. Those who testified continually brought up the importance of their ability to secure funding. Money versus ethical treatment of children, seems to be their biggest concern.
5) This is legislation that prioritizes parental rights based on ethical treatment of children used as subjects for government research. I don’t see how it is appropriate or legal for employees at DHHS to weigh in on this legislation. This Bill does not end the YRBS in the schools; it simply makes the research ethical.
Many taxpayers in New Hampshire do not find it fiscally responsible to pay employees during the work day to lobby in opposition to parental rights.
Here are links to information on lobbying by employees. How does anyone consider this fiscally responsible spending by legislators when we are forced to pay state employees as lobbyists?
1) NH Employer Warning! Are your employees unregistered lobbyists?
2) TITLE I: THE STATE AND ITS GOVERNMENT Chapter 15 LOBBYISTS Section 15:1
3) Federal Restrictions on Lobbying for HHS Financial Assistance Recipients
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