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Children’s Health Defense (CHD) and thousands of concerned parents on March 16 filed an amicus brief in a lawsuit seeking to stop the Louisana Department of Health (LDH) from adding COVID-19 vaccines to the state’s school immunization schedule.
Under a rule promulgated by the LDH and approved by Gov. John Edwards, Louisiana joined California in requiring children to receive COVID vaccines in order to attend school. The mandate expressly applies to kindergartens and covers children age 5 and older.
An amicus brief is a document submitted by an individual or organization that is not a party to a legal case, but is permitted by the court to offer expertise or insight that has a bearing on the issues in the case.
In its brief, CHD argued data do not support mandatory COVID vaccines and it is scientifically unjustifiable to impose the requirement on children.
The brief states:
“Simply put, the COVID vaccines have not been shown to be either effective or safe for children. The benefits to children are minuscule, while the risks — including the risk of potentially fatal heart damage — are ‘known’ and ‘serious,’ as the [U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA)] itself has acknowledged.
“Moreover, it is undisputed that the existing COVID vaccines do not prevent COVID — at best they reduce the incidence of severe disease outcomes — and hence COVID is not a ‘vaccine-preventable’ disease; as a result, COVID vaccines cannot be made mandatory for school attendance under express Louisiana statutory law.
“Finally, with the rise of Omicron, the vaccines have become wholly ineffective at preventing infection, and hence vaccination will not prevent children from catching COVID and spreading the disease to others. Indeed, even as of August 2021, prior to enactment of Louisiana’s mandate, the Director of the [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention] itself admitted that ‘what [the vaccines] can’t do anymore is prevent transmission.’”
CHD also submitted a comprehensive study, published Feb. 28, of more than 365,000 children ages 5 to 11 showing COVID vaccines did not have the 90% effectiveness claimed by their manufacturers.
Instead, vaccine effectiveness was shown to be a “mere 12%.”
Also cited in the brief was an article by The New York Times showing vaccination offered “virtually no protection against infection,” meaning vaccinated children were just as likely as unvaccinated children to spread COVID to others.
A retired FDA senior vaccine regulator told the New York Times the finding, in so comprehensive a dataset, “certainly weakens the argument for mandating a COVID vaccination for children.”
About 4,700 Louisana parents joined CHD in filing the brief. According to the brief, parents are “deeply concerned about the lack of data establishing the safety and efficacy of the COVID vaccines for children and seek to defend the right of all parents in this state to choose for themselves whether or not to have their children vaccinated.”
In its argument, CHD said medical law and ethics require every proposed medical intervention satisfy a simple, well-established test: “Its benefits must outweigh its risks.”
According to CHD, COVID vaccines have not been shown to be safe or effective for children, and not a single governmental health agency, pharmaceutical company or study has shown vaccines are effective or safe for children.
“On the contrary, the medical benefits of pediatric COVID vaccination are infinitesimal, while the risks of an adverse reaction are extremely serious,” the brief states.
Risks of COVID vaccines for children entirely unknown
CHD argued in its brief the full medical risks of COVID vaccines for children are “entirely unknown,” but known risks are “extremely serious.”
“Because the vaccines were authorized in record time, there is no long-term data whatsoever on long-term adverse pediatric health effects,” CHD wrote. “But as the FDA itself has acknowledged, the existing data already show known serious risks of myocarditis — a potentially fatal heart condition — caused by the COVID vaccines” that predominantly affects younger individuals.
According to a 10-year tracking study published in 2020, in the Journal of the American Heart Association, more than half of myocarditis patients had a condition called late gadolinium enhancement (LGE), and 39% of those patients died within 10 years.
The overall 10-year mortality rate among myocarditis patients was approximately 20%, CHD wrote.
According to a study in the Journal of the American Medical Association, the rate of reported myocarditis following COVID vaccination is 70.7 per million among boys 12 to 15 and 105.9 per million among boys 16 to 17 years old.
CHD concluded:
“While all must profoundly hope for a different result, if the 20% 10-year mortality rate holds true of these boys, then the COVID vaccines will over the next ten years cause the death of approximately 14 per million boys aged 12-15 and approximately 21 per million boys aged 16-17.
“This conclusion is alarming to a degree impossible to overstate. It means that while the COVID vaccines can at most save the lives of 2 children of all ages per million (because only 2 children per million die from COVID), those vaccines may at the same time cause within ten years the deaths of 14 per million 12- to 15-year-old boys and 21 per million 16- to 17-year-old boys.”
The true scope of the myocarditis risks of COVID vaccination will not be known for years, CHD wrote.
COVID is not a vaccine-preventable disease and vaccines do not prevent spread
CHD said that by statute, Louisiana expressly restricts mandatory immunization of children as a condition of school attendance to “vaccine-preventable diseases.”
According to DC Health, vaccine-preventable diseases (VPDs) are “infectious diseases caused by viruses or bacteria that can be prevented with vaccines.”
The CDC website provides a list of VPDs and “serious diseases that can be prevented by vaccines.” COVID is not on the list because COVID vaccines do not prevent the infection as evidenced both by the CDC website and increasing number of vaccine breakthrough cases, CHD wrote.
Furthermore, CHD said there is “no evidence whatsoever” that COVID vaccines prevent infection or transmission of the virus.
“On the contrary, the existing evidence indicates that vaccination has negative effectiveness against Omicron — i.e., vaccinated people are more likely to be infected than unvaccinated people,” CHD wrote.
LA governor attempts to mandate COVID vaccine despite bipartisan opposition
Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry (R) and state Rep. Raymond Crews (R) in December 2021 filed the joint lawsuit against Gov. John Bel Edwards (D) after he announced COVID vaccines would be mandatory for all children age 5 and over at public or private schools, The Hill reported.
Landry and Crews contend Edwards’ decision to force children to receive COVID vaccines to attend school was an overreach of power and violated the state constitution.
“The only thing standing in the way of this overreach is the very document that protects Louisianans from the unbounded exercise of executive authority: the Louisiana Constitution,” the lawsuit reads. “The Louisiana Constitution grants the Governor the power only to enforce the law, not to make it.”
Louisiana’s bipartisan House Committee on Health and Welfare in December 2021 voted 13-2 against adding COVID vaccines to the state’s immunization schedule.
But Edwards in a letter rejected the decision and informed the panel he would allow LDH to add the COVID vaccine to the schedule of immunizations for students who are eligible for the jab according to FDA recommendations.
Edwards said opt-out provisions would be available, so that “no child is forced to get a vaccine if their parents object in writing.”
The governor said he is imposing the requirement because “it will save lives and will help Louisiana emerge from this pandemic.” Adding the COVID vaccine to the immunization schedule represents the state health department “doing exactly as directed and authorized” by state law “to protect the health and safety of the people of Louisiana.”
