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Children’s Health Defense (CHD) has published a new e-book to help those concerned about vaccine safety and mandates understand and explain the health risks associated with vaccines, the need to respect individual autonomy and the responsibility of those who administer vaccines to provide consumers with complete information.

The e-book, “Vaccine Mandates: An Erosion of Civil Rights?” is designed to be used with other CHD resources, including the Mandates Toolbox. The e-book can be downloaded here.

Compulsory childhood vaccination has long been a cornerstone of U.S. public health policy. But until recently, nearly all states allowed for vaccine exemptions. Most states still recognize the con­stitutional dimensions of the right to refuse medical care —  and they at least pay lip service to the ethical principle of informed consent, legally codified in the post-World War II Nuremberg Code.

But that could soon change. Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, countries and international organizations have been actively preparing for COVID-19 vaccine recommendations and mandates.

“They know they cannot get people to take this vaccine willingly,” said Robert F. Kennedy Jr., CHD chairman and chief legal counsel. “They know they cannot win this debate in the public square. The only way is through censorship and coercion. And those are bowling balls that are meant to destroy all of the tenets of our democracy,” Kennedy said. “What we’re standing up for is our children.”

Government officials appear willing to ignore the fundamental premises of clinical informed consent— that “the patient must be competent, adequately informed and not coerced” — to the point where censorship of vaccine risk information is earning plaudits and policymakers are openly entertaining the prospect of state-sanctioned forced vaccination.

Some vaccine proponents unashamedly have begun to argue that informed consent is a “legal fiction,” claiming that in the context of compulsory vaccination, “the mode of informed consent is confusing, inappropriate, and out of place.”

Meanwhile, as public health officials continue to add more inadequately tested vaccines to the childhood schedule, scholars at prestigious academic institutions are helping to lay a legal foundation for coercive legislation that stops just short of forcible vaccination.

In fact, each of the reportedly “incremental” measures being floated as viable proposals — eliminating nonmedical exemptions, developing “oversight mechanisms for medical exemptions,” lowering the age of vaccine consent and going after vaccine “disinformation” — are already well underway.

“As governments push for more vaccine mandates, especially flu and COVID vaccines, even as they fail to subject vaccines and vaccine mandates to appropriate scrutiny and skepticism, the public and ethical professionals must step into the breach,” Kennedy said. “‘Vaccine Mandates: An Erosion of Civil Rights?’ is designed to help them do just that.”

In “Vaccine Mandates: An Erosion of Civil Rights?” CHD lawyers and other experts:

  • Review the tenuous legal underpinnings of vaccine mandates in the United States. (Section II)
  • Discuss how officials have used the false rationale of “herd immunity” to make unjustifiable claims about the need for mandates. (Section III)
  • Present the flawed logic of hepatitis B vaccine mandates as a case study. (Section IV)
  • Explore the campaign to smooth the path to further mandates by undermining parents’ role in vaccine decision-making. (Section V)
  • Examine the highly coordinated agenda to push compulsory vaccination across the globe. (Section VI)
  • Discuss steps being taken to halt the erosion of informed consent and vaccine choice. (Section VII)

Learn more and sign up to get the e-book here.