General Conference president Ted Wilson issued a corrective statement on Friday, July 4, 2025, clarifying remarks he made to delegates the day before, when he read from a 2015 General Conference Administrative Committee (ADCOM) statement about immunization. 

Following Wilson’s speech on July 3, church officers were made aware that the immunization statement posted on the official Seventh-day Adventist Church website for the past 10 years was not the version actually voted in 2015.

In his speech on July 3, Wilson had read directly from the 2015 immunization statement voted by ADCOM, following a motion to add a review of the statement to the 2025 GC Session agenda.

The following wording of the correct, voted statement shown to delegates and updated on the church’s website reads as follows:

“The Seventh-day Adventist Church places strong emphasis on health and well-being. The Adventist health emphasis is based on the Bible, the inspired writings of church co-founder Ellen G. White, and is informed by peer-reviewed scientific health literature. As such, we encourage responsible immunization/vaccination, and have no religious or faith-based reason not to encourage our adherents to responsibly participate in protective and preventive immunization programs. We value the health and safety of the population, which includes the maintenance of what is known as “herd immunity.”

“We are not the conscience of the individual church member, and we recognize individual choices. These choices are exercised by the individual. Refusal of immunization is not and should not be seen as a teaching nor a doctrine of the Seventh-day Adventist Church.”

“I hope no one anywhere around this globe will bring up again that the Seventh-day Adventist Church does not place the Bible and the Spirit of Prophecy as the highest level of authority,” Wilson said. 

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