Supervisors of the Board of Supervisors met Sept. 30 in a work session to review a draft county vaccination policy and to hear a guest physician's concerns about emergency-use-authorized vaccines and contact tracing. The board did not adopt a policy; staff said the draft is under review and will be circulated for comment.

The discussion opened with a board member framing the issue as whether the county should define which vaccines it would provide or decline to provide, how to treat contact tracing, and how to protect informed consent for residents. A physician who identified himself as Dr. Sam Sigaloff, a physician who said he trained at an osteopathic medical school and now works at Carnet Clinic in Sierra Vista, urged the county not to offer products under Emergency Use Authorization and raised safety questions about COVID-19 vaccines and other immunizations.

Dr. Sam Sigaloff said, “The idea behind emergency use authorization is a legal term, and it is specifically a countermeasure for a biologic nuclear radiologic attack.” He told the board that package inserts and nonclinical-toxicity sections on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention website indicate, in his view, that some vaccines have not been evaluated for carcinogenesis, mutagenesis or impaired fertility and that modified RNA in some COVID-era products is not the same as naturally occurring messenger RNA.

Board members and staff discussed practical and legal limits to county action. Staff clarified that the county already provides certain vaccines through the health department but that those programs are not mandates; county staff further noted that the county no longer provides COVID-19 vaccine distribution and that most COVID vaccination is now handled in the private sector. Board members raised questions about access for low-income and border communities and about procedures for informed consent and for limiting the scope of contact tracing so it does not become coercive.

Supervisors and the guest also discussed historical examples and litigation referenced by the physician; Dr. Sigaloff referenced a military-era lawsuit he said had been filed against a Secretary of Defense and spoke from his experience in the military about prior vaccination programs. He also encouraged the board to consider distinguishing vaccines by mechanism (for example, traditional live/inactivated products versus gene-based therapies) when drafting policy.

County staff characterized the document under discussion as a draft that had not yet been reviewed by legal counsel. A staff member said the draft would be made available to board members and the public for review and feedback. No motion to adopt policy, ordinance or formal rule was made during the session.

The conversation included repeated references to three policy issues the board requested staff to address in the draft: (1) affirming that vaccinations provided by the county would be voluntary; (2) describing how the county would handle requests from underserved or low-income residents who lack private access to vaccines; and (3) clarifying contact-tracing procedures and scripted language to ensure people know they may end a contact-tracing call. Staff told the board the draft would be circulated for review and further comment.

The work session closed without formal action; supervisors set a future work-session agenda and directed staff to circulate the draft policy and accept feedback ahead of any formal consideration.

Ending: The board did not vote on or adopt a vaccination policy at the Sept. 30 work session. Staff said the draft is still under internal review, will be shared with the board and—when finalized—posted for public review. The board scheduled follow-up work-session time for agenda review on Oct. 2.