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Can the Government Mandate a Vaccine for Your Own Good? This Federal Court Says Yes.
Defending COVID-19 policies against legal challenges, government officials relied heavily on Jacobson v. Massachusetts, a 1905 case in which the U.S. Supreme Court upheld a smallpox vaccine mandate imposed by the Cambridge Board of Health. But the breadth of the license granted by that decision is a matter of dispute, even as applied to superficially similar COVID-19 vaccination requirements.
Critics of those mandates argued that COVID-19 shots, unlike smallpox vaccination, do not prevent disease transmission, so requiring them amounts to paternalistic intervention rather than protection of the general public. Last summer in Health Freedom Fund v. Carvalho, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit dismissed that distinction as constitutionally irrelevant.
Rejecting a challenge to a 2021 COVID-19 vaccine mandate that the Los Angeles Unified School District imposed on its employees, the majority held that the district “could have reasonably concluded that COVID-19 vaccines would protect the health and safety of its employees and students.” The implications of the 9th Circuit’s decision for the right to bodily integrity are alarmingly broad, since the court’s logic would seem to bless all manner of medical mandates that the government views as beneficial to the patient, even if they have no effect on other people.
Dems Fine Firing Troops Over Biden’s Vax Order but Furious Over Trump ‘Treason’ Talk, GOP Vet Says
Democratic veterans in Congress who released a video telling servicemembers they can refuse unlawful orders were ripped by Republicans, including by an Air Force veteran who pointed out how former President Joe Biden’s Pentagon discharged 8,700 servicemembers for refusing vaccine mandates.
Sens. Mark Kelly of Arizona and Elissa Slotkin of Michigan, along with Reps. Chrissy Houlahan and Chris Deluzio of Pennsylvania, Jason Crow of Colorado and Maggie Goodlander of New Hampshire appeared in a video that informed servicemembers they could refuse unlawful orders, ostensibly from President Donald Trump.
Jennifer-Ruth Green, an Iraq War Air Force veteran and former Indiana state official running in her second attempt to oust Rep. Frank Mrvan, D-Ind., slammed her fellow veterans in the video as highly hypocritical. Green is a Republican. “I just want to point out that the thousands of service members who refused the ‘illegal order’ from Joe Biden that forced them to get the COVID vaccine were fired without their benefits and Democrats were perfectly okay with it,” Ruth-Green said on X.
Inquiry Says COVID Lockdowns Could Have Been Avoided — They’re Right
The U.K. was one of the most locked down countries in the world during the COVID-19 pandemic, but this was not inevitable — it was a failure of public health policy.
That should be the lasting legacy of the U.K. COVID-19 inquiry’s latest report, not a critique of politicians no longer in office.
In a public health emergency, saving lives will always be the first priority, but even as COVID-19 raged, it was never a binary choice between harsher restrictions or more deaths. The choice was between different ways to protect people from a dangerous virus.
In 2020, governments that had never previously contemplated lockdowns imposed them anyway. On March 23, the U.K. population was ordered to stay at home, without any assessment of how much harm this would do to the economy, education, access to healthcare and the wellbeing of everyone — especially children. The vast scale of the resulting damage shows why avoiding lockdowns must be a priority for policymakers in future pandemics.
I gave evidence to that effect to the COVID-19 inquiry myself. I also listened to testimony from politicians, officials, doctors and epidemiologists. But I heard surprisingly little about how COVID-19 could have been tackled without lockdowns, even though everyone has had years to reflect on this question.
Former VIHA Nurse’s Human Rights Complaint Over COVID-19 Vaccination to Proceed to Hearing
A former Island Health nurse who was fired for refusing the COVID-19 vaccine will get a full hearing before the B.C. Human Rights Tribunal (HRT), after the tribunal rejected the health authority’s attempt to dismiss her complaint. In a decision handed down Sept. 10, the tribunal ruled that Lindsay Sharp’s discrimination complaint has a “reasonable prospect of success” and should proceed to a hearing.
Sharp was fired in March 2022 after refusing to comply with the provincial vaccination order for health-care workers. According to the HRT ruling, she argues that the decision amounted to discrimination based on disability and religion. Sharp, who worked remotely in a temporary accommodated position due to complex medical conditions, said she feared the vaccine could trigger a life-threatening stroke.
She also said her Christian beliefs prevented her from receiving a COVID-19 vaccine.
Her request for a medical exemption was denied by Provincial Health Officer Dr. Bonnie Henry and she was suspended from her position and later fired. Island Health asked the tribunal to dismiss the case, arguing Sharp could not reasonably prove her refusal was connected to either her disability or sincerely held religious beliefs.
On the issue of religious belief, the tribunal pointed to Supreme Court of Canada decisions that protect sincerely held personal beliefs even when they are subjective or not widely shared. “She says that she prayed to God about whether to take the vaccine, and God commanded her not to take it,” Cousineau wrote. “She says that God warned her that the vaccine may harm her and that she is required by the Bible to follow His commands.”
