Monday, August 22, 2022
Lawsuits Coming for Entities That Don’t Change COVID Mandates After CDC Update: Lawyer
Entities with COVID-19 vaccine mandates that don’t pay heed to the new Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) guidance will face lawsuits, a civil liberties lawyer says.
“We don’t have a new lawsuit in the works yet. But if we see that colleges and universities and public employers are not responding to the new CDC guidance the way that they should be, then we would certainly tee up a new lawsuit,” Mark Chenoweth, president and general counsel at the New Civil Liberties Alliance, told The Epoch Times.
The response to the updated guidance should be, at a minimum, a lifting of mandates for people who have recovered from COVID-19, he added.
Such people have a high level of protection against severe illness and death, according to a number of studies. Many studies indicate the protection is higher than that of the COVID-19 vaccines—including one study funded by the CDC.
The CDC issued updated guidance on Aug. 11, stating in part that risk for illness from COVID-19 “is considerably reduced by immunity derived from vaccination, previous infection, or both” and that “persons who have had COVID-19 but are not vaccinated have some degree of protection against severe illness from their previous infection.”
The public health agency rolled back quarantine recommendations for people, regardless of vaccination status, citing the high amount of immunity in the U.S. population from vaccination, prior infection, or both.
Since virtually all entities that have imposed mandates have cited CDC guidance, the entities won’t be able to argue they aren’t aware of the updated guidance, according to Chenoweth.
That means any institution that doesn’t alter or rescind its mandate in light of the update “is ripe for a lawsuit,” he said.
“Because the thing that the judges have said so far is that it was rational for these employers to follow CDC guidance, but now the CDC guidance is different. And if they’re now going forward with these mandates for example, against people who have natural immunity in the teeth of the CDC guidance on that question, then I think it’s going to be much harder for them to win even a rational basis challenge to their policies.”
Suits
The New Civil Liberties Alliance has brought lawsuits against Michigan State University (MSU), the U.S. government, Fairfax County Public Schools, George Mason University, and Rhode Island officials over mandates that the legal group says are illegal.
They have focused on how entities aren’t granting exemptions to people with proof that they’ve recovered from COVID-19.
While one of the cases won the plaintiff an exemption from the mandate, judges have ruled against many others, often tracing the mandates to CDC guidance.
“Plaintiffs have the burden of negating every rational basis that supports the MSU vaccine mandate, and the Court finds that they have failed to do so,” U.S. District Judge Paul Maloney, a George W. Bush appointee, wrote in February as he dismissed the suit.
“CDC guidance is clear: ‘[V]accination remains the safest and primary strategy to prevent SARS-CoV2 infections,'” he added. “In achieving MSU’s stated legitimate goal of protecting its students and staff from COVID-19, it was plainly rational, in July 2021 when MSU established the policy, for MSU to rely on CDC guidance and require its students and staff to receive the COVID vaccination.”
The CDC has long maintained that vaccination is superior to natural immunity, and urged people with natural immunity to get vaccinated, even though many studies show that natural immunity provides better protection than vaccination and some suggest that people who recovered from COVID-19 are at higher risk of side effects if they do get a vaccine.
Moreover, some experts say getting vaccinated after recovery doesn’t make sense because the increase in protection is negligible, though others say the increase is worth the risk.
Could Have Changed in 2021
Chenoweth said the CDC should have updated its guidance in 2021. “I think it’s remarkable that it’s taken the CDC this long to come around to admitting the science on this topic. The science was there at least a year ago when we started litigating the issue of whether or not folks with natural immunity should be subjected to vaccine mandates,” he said.
A CDC spokeswoman told The Epoch Times in an email that the update was based on having more tools such as treatments than were available in 2020 and “the reality that nearly the entire U.S. adult population now has some level of immunity, either due to vaccination, past infection, or both.”
“We also have a better understanding of who is at higher risk for getting very sick with COVID-19 and ways we can help protect them from severe disease. With more tools to protect ourselves and our communities from severe illness from COVID-19—like vaccination, boosters, and treatments—we have increased protection and flexibility for the future. CDC’s commitment to addressing COVID-19 is strong and as a nation, we continue to respond to evolving challenges and identify best practices related to COVID-19,” she added.
The spokesperson didn’t respond when asked why the guidance wasn’t updated in 2021.
Chenoweth said courts would be made aware of the new guidance, including the appeals court weighing the appeal in the MSU case. In another case, for Dr. Stephen Skoly Jr., a surgeon in Rhode Island, the update will be incorporated into an amended complaint
******************************************************
Approved versions of vaccines now Available for 1st Time in United States
A small number of Comirnaty and Spikevax COVID-19 vaccine doses have become available in the United States in recent weeks, according to court filings and U.S. health departments.
Vials of vaccines labeled Comirnaty started being available to members of the U.S. military in May and tens of thousands of the vials have since been ordered, according to military officials. Dozens of vials were spotted at a clinic in Alaska in June, according to a Coast Guard officer.
Several states, meanwhile, confirmed to The Epoch Times that providers are now able to order the vials.
Comirnaty is the approved version of Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine. Spikevax is the approved version of Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine. Approval means drug regulators granted a biologics license application (BLA). The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in 2021 approved Comirnaty for adults 16 and older, and in January approved Spikevax for individuals 18 and up. Before that, the vaccines were available under emergency use authorization (EUA).
The differences matter due to federal law. A biologics license requires a higher threshold of evidence, and certain aspects of emergency clearance don’t apply to approved products.
Even after the approvals were issued, no approved versions were available in the United States, according to the vaccine makers and federal and state officials.
Military members, among others, have cited the unavailability of Comirnaty and Spikevax in legal actions against COVID-19 vaccine mandates.
One lawsuit, for instance, said that “the only currently available COVID-19 vaccines are authorized under EUA only, and therefore cannot be mandated.”
Thousands of Doses
U.S. regulators and health officials say the approved versions of the vaccines have the same formulations as the older versions, and that the versions are interchangeable. At the same time, the versions “are legally distinct with certain differences,” according to the letters of approval.
The FDA has declined to explain what that means, while a Pfizer spokesperson told The Epoch Times previously that it refers to the differences in manufacturing information included in the submissions for authorization and approval.
Military officials have defended the COVID-19 vaccine mandate despite Comirnaty and, later, Spikevax not being available by claiming that the older versions can be treated as if they’re the licensed versions, a claim challenged in legal cases.
They’re maintaining that position, but also asserting that objections to the mandate centered on the vaccines’ availability are no longer relevant.
“While it is the Defendants’ position that all EUA-authorized Pfizer-BioNTech doses for adults are interchangeable for the purposes of the mandate to vaccine, in order to address Plaintiffs’ assertions they were unable to obtain a Comirnaty or BLA-manufactured doses, I wanted to confirm in writing that any of the Plaintiffs still subject to the mandate may receive the Comirnaty-labeled vaccine,” Amy Elizabeth Powell, a government lawyer, said in an email in June to lawyers for service members challenging the mandate.
At the time, over 35,000 doses had been obtained by the military, with 3,300 available at specific bases.
The disclosures that Comirnaty has become available were made in the case Coker et al v. Austin et al.
States have also recently been able to start ordering vials of Comirnaty and Spikevax for the first time.
The Delaware Department of Health has ordered 300 doses of Comirnaty, but has not administered any due to lack of demand, a spokesperson for the department told The Epoch Times in an email.
South Carolina received over 38,000 doses of Comirnaty and nearly 53,000 doses of Spikevax, and has enabled health care providers to order them from the state, a spokesperson for the South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control told The Epoch Times in an email.
Providers in Arizona can also order the doses from the Arizona Department of Health Services, a spokesperson for the agency told The Epoch Times in an email, and some providers have already ordered some.
“There is supply to meet the demand. Because these vaccines are identical to the EUA-branded presentations, and because there are still large stocks available in the state, very few Spikevax/Comirnaty doses have been ordered,” the spokesperson said.
States order vaccines from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), which makes them available for no cost.
*****************************************************
Also see my other blogs. Main ones below:
http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)
http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)
http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)
http://australian-politics.blogspot.com/ (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)
http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)
https://immigwatch.blogspot.com/ (IMMIGRATION WATCH)
https://awesternheart.blogspot.com/ (THE PSYCHOLOGIST)
**************************************************
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment