I think that a process that is not a sham looks a little bit something like the military regardless of what branch were talking about, takes an honest look and says okay, what is this persons job or their function? The government responded to the lawsuit by pointing out that immunization requirements are common in the military beginning with the Continental Army under George Washington and that vaccines and are essential to preventing the transmission of diseases in close quarters. Two staff sergeants, one Army, one Marine, have filed a lawsuit against three federal agencies, challenging plans to conduct mandatory COVID-19 vaccinations of military troops. Law firms Latham & Watkins LLP Follow Siri & Glimstad LLP (Reuters) - The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, facing a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit seeking a vast trove of data. WASHINGTON (AP) A bill to rescind the COVID-19 vaccine mandate for members of the U.S. military and provide nearly $858 billion for national defense passed the House on Thursday as. Based on his Roman Catholic Christian faith and absolute opposition to abortion, he cannot accept a vaccine that has been manufactured, or whose efficacy has been tested and proved, using aborted fetal cells, the Florida lawsuit alleges, on behalf of a Coast Guard pilot. OConnor ruled that the blanket denial of their religious waiver requests amounted to a violation of the service members rights under the First Amendment andthe Religious Freedom Restoration Act. It took four years and was licensed in 1967. The story seems pretty similar to whats going on with these airmen. When you treat people who have a medical exemption for more favorably than you treat somebody who has a religious exemption, that is textbook discrimination, and thats whats happening. Nearly 1,500 more people are exempt for medical or administrative reasons, such as severe allergic reactions or upcoming retirement. ), the Washington Post, and others. There are fresh concerns that public support for ongoing military assistance may be waning. Pope Francis has called vaccination against COVID-19 a moral obligation and an act of love., Frequently people let themselves be influenced by the ideology of the moment, often bolstered by baseless information or poorly documented facts, he said in January, adding that vaccines are not a magical means of healing, yet surely they represent, in addition to other treatments that need to be developed, the most reasonable solution for the prevention of the disease.. Read Next: The Navy's Top Enlisted Sailor Is Ready for You to Ask Him Anything. Plaintiffs, therefore, do not object to safety measures that reduce the transmission of COVID-19 in the workplace, it reads. And really, the greatest harm here is not just to our members of the military who are suffering under this, but its actually to our nation. That means that this is quickly becoming a national security concern. All of the military services have released vaccine refusal policies, none of them involving judicial or non-judicial charges for simply staying unvaccinated. Yes, many of them have brought that and its a rubber stamp rejection, he said. NEW ORLEANS Federal appeals court judges closely questioned a Biden administration attorney Monday on the consequences military personnel might face for refusing COVID-19 vaccinations, even. The lawsuits dont mention other vaccines these troops received either in their childhoods or during service the chicken pox, rubella and hepatitis A vaccines are all required that used descendent fetal cells in development. Kevin Stitt with Fox News ads The NAVADMIN, referencing the injunction, prevents adverse action against sailors who will not get the COVID-19 vaccine and submitted a religious exemptions request. Judge Matthew McFarlands decision brings the case, Doster v. Kendall, closer to trial as a class-action lawsuit. A vaccine lawsuit is filed in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims, instead of regular state or federal courts like other drug injury claims. All told the lawsuit includes 26 SEALs from the original complaint, plus five special warfare combatant crewmen, five divers and one explosive ordnance disposal technician who joined the case in late January. He has criticized the Air Force for what he sees as a failure to carefully consider the merits of each exemption request and instead sweepingly reject them. A federal judge granted a preliminary injunction on Monday blocking the Defense Department from taking action against a group of 35 Navy sailors who had refused to get a coronavirus vaccine,. The Pentagon formally dropped the requirement in January following a December vote in Congress to end the mandate. 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The Florida case began with a Navy and Marine Corps officer in 2021, but has soon ballooned to 36 plaintiffs from all military branches as well as some civilian Defense Department employees. Unlike VARES that is questioned a lot by the totally compromised medical establishment for accuracy, the U.S. military DMED (Defense Medical Epidemiology Database) reporting system is only submitted by military doctors and qualifies every single ICD (International Classification of Diseases) code in the military for Tricare billing to Humana Insurance covering over 6 million military personal. Biden appointee behind unlawful military vaccine mandate to step down. And both lawsuits include arguments that the plaintiffs prayed on the issue and came to the conclusion that vaccination would violate their principles. Everyone who joins the military must receive a slate of several vaccines to enter, including chickenpox, rubella and hepatitis A. Another lawsuit, first filed by troops attached to Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio, has led to temporary protections for around 10,000 active-duty, Active Reserve, reserve and National Guard members of the Air Force and Space Force who requested a religious exemption from the COVID vaccine, although only those who have been denied an exemption would face immediate action. Each week, Defense Reporter Jared Serbu speaks with the managers of the federal government's largest department. Other plaintiffs focus not on the abortion issue, but on several Bible passages that refer to the body as a temple. It also allows them to restrict sailors' movement "in order to comply with host nation quarantine regulations.". A ruling in that case, issued this past November by the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati, upheld previous wins by attorneys representing the service members over the last year and took aim at the Air Force's process of approving religious exemptions. And yet people who work and I mean, youre coming in very close proximity with thousands of people per day, hundreds of people per hour. The Navy has, however, granted medical exemption requests submitted by other personnel. [Many] didnt even know that there was a religious exemption option, because they had never been informed of it, Staver said. The Pfizer and Moderna COVID-19 vaccines do not need fetal cell lines for development or production but were tested on fetal cell lines replicated from a fetus aborted in the 1970s to ensure their efficacy. We took a very intentional approach of maintaining a laser-like focus on religious liberty, because we believe that that is the strongest legal basis, he said. The new policy guidance to the services makes no mention of reinstating service members who were separated from the military for refusing the shot. Pfizer Inc wants to intervene in a Texas federal lawsuit seeking information from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration used in licensing the company's COVID-19 vaccine, a litigation move that . Editors note: This story has been updated with information from the hearing. The government really cant scrutinize belief very far.. In fact, as of Dec. 17, the religious accommodation requests of at least 29 of the 35 naval plaintiffs had been flatly denied. Similar to the Navy, the Marine Corps is no longer stopping unvaccinated Marines from deployments. That leaves around 14,400 airmen and guardians less protected in the COVID-19 pandemics third year. The Florida filing also spends much more time on the biographies of the complainants. The Navy lawsuit is one of several ongoing legal challenges to the military branches' policies on religious exemptions to the DoD COVID-19 vaccine mandate. By Bethany Blankley (The Center Square) Military leaders will testify on Tuesday before the Military Personnel Subcommittee of the House Armed Services Committee about the impact of the Department of Defense's COVID-19 vaccine mandate on DOD employees and military service members. This disparity of treatment between medical and religious exemptions was constitutionally prohibited,Judge Reed OConnor said. The judge recognized that when he granted our [temporary restraining order] on Feb. 2 because toward the end, he said the public has an interest also in this because these are courageous skilled, individuals who are not easily replaceable, Staver said. Otherwise, the courts are going to be flooded with thousands of lawsuits, he said. She covers operations, policy, personnel, leadership and other issues affecting service members. Members of the U.S. military who haven't been vaccinated against COVID-19 are starting to face the consequences. Because of those peoples religious beliefs and religious convictions. Night shifts arent popular, especially on Friday night, and things like that. The next stop in the litigation is likely to be an appeal by the Department of Defense and the Biden administration to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit. If you want to swap with me, and they do that through the employer, or their employer offers that. However, vaccine opponents note that commanders can still make decisions on how and whether to deploy unvaccinated troops, under a memo signed last month by Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin. Under the law, theres no requirement that you adhere to a major or even recognized faith tradition, he said. More than 1.14 million out of the 1.4 million active military members have been fully vaccinated as of Wednesday, according to DoD data. In the filing, attorneys argue that the plaintiffs are facing criminal conviction and dishonorable discharge, which would strip them of any veterans benefits. Fox News U.S. Rachel Cohen joined Air Force Times as senior reporter in March 2021. All of the military services are currently reworking their policies to adjust separation and promotion records for service members who refused to get the COVID-19 vaccine, after the Pentagon ended the inoculation mandate last month. Telling Plaintiffs they must accept or receive a shot they oppose according to their sincerely held religious beliefs, or face court martial, dishonorable discharge, and other life altering disciplinary measures, disgraces the sacrifices these heroes have made, according to the lawsuit. Already, a soldier and Marine have filed a lawsuit arguing that service members who have already recovered from COVID-19 and therefore have natural immunity should be exempt from vaccine mandates, according to the Army Times. On Feb. 17, the service lifted its policy of banning unvaccinated sailors from deploying. Theyll accept that alternative and say, okay, you know, Im willing to do that instead. The lawsuit also fails to mention an established precedent regarding vaccines in religious traditions. They argue that their. Why is the DoD ignoring natural immunity when the CDC and other epidemiologists and medical experts have all generally agreed natural immunity is a real thing. Johnson & Johnson uses cells replicated from a fetus aborted in 1985 to produce its vaccine, but those cells are filtered out from the final product. Staver believes the Florida case case has a good chance of making it to the Supreme Court, potentially invalidating all government mandates for COVID-19 vaccination. A federal court in Ohio on Thursday blocked the Air Force from enforcing the militarys coronavirus vaccine mandate for two weeks, a short-term win for airmen fighting multiple legal battles against inoculation. And they recognize that theres almost a presumption of belief. The Pentagon has not provided any public updates or said when the formal policy will be issued. Thomas Bruns, a Cincinnati-based attorney with Bruns, Connell, Vollmar & Armstrong representing the service members, told Military.com on Monday that the service members in that case are promised full relief from any harms caused by the mandate. All 16 service members joined the lawsuit anonymously, listing in the filing only their currently assigned bases and statuses in the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, or reserve components. Our lawsuit is certainly centered on religious exemption, but our lawsuit is broader than that to block the mandate in general of a non-FDA approved product, Staver said. Assuming, maybe Im assuming too much. And well be back week after week.. So everywhere else in society has been able to figure this out, but our military hasnt because they take such an iron fisted, draconian approach to everything. In January of last year, a federal judge in Texas barred the Navy from taking any action against the Navy plaintiffs for being unvaccinated. So for example, in a different context, somebody who says that theyre a Sabbath observer, and they cannot work on the Sabbath, but that theyre willing to trade ships with somebody, most of the cases Ive seen, theyre actually willing to take, what most people consider be a less favorable shift. Indeed, Defendants employed such measures during the prior year before COVID-19 vaccines were made widely available.. Just because of the just incredibly political nature of, of all of it, from the virus to the vaccine to the mandates, Marshall Griffin, a retired Coast Guard judge advocate who now practices privately, told Military Times on Monday. OConnormade note of thisin his order, calling the process for seeking a religious exemption nothing more than theater, stating that the Navy merely rubber-stamps each denial, and stressing that the record overwhelmingly demonstrates that the Navys religious-accommodation process is an exercise in futility.. According to the First Liberty Institute, the public interest law firm representing the service members, each of the denials appeared to be identical, suggesting the Navy had not taken any of the religious exemption requests seriously. T he MAGA medical group that spent the pandemic pushing horse paste and malaria meds as quack COVID cures has a new crusade: suing the Pentagon to stop its vaccine mandate. Mike Barry: I think theres almost 30 now. I think we win under the First Amendment, because you have individualized exemptions with medical exemptions, but not religious exemptions.. The "rule" and the ways it will be fought 1:43:40 How to fight the NFA and its unconstitutional rule about barrel lengths. The latest class action targets the Air Forces religious accommodation process, arguing that process is set up in such a way that getting a religious exemption to the vaccine is almost impossible. Is there any assurance on the record, that there will be no deployment decisions based on vaccination? Judge James Ho, one of three judges hearing the case asked Department of Justice lawyer Casen Ross. As part of the exemption process, service members are required to meet with a chaplain to work through their concerns. According data submitted in the Florida case on Feb. 8: The services have declined to provide any details about the circumstances of the religious approvals, but both lawsuits allege that at least one of those Marines is due to leave service later this year. The Texas lawsuit argues that the Navy Department is blanketly denying all religious requests, making the process a sham. In response to Military.com stating that the COVID-19 "vaccines have some rare side effects, including heart inflammation that has affected at least 22 service members, according to a study from the JAMA Network," an attorney working with U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wisconsin, and whistle blowers in the U.S. military are pushing back against . "Marines will defer to Combatant Command policies regarding deployments.". Jared Serbu: Got it. So I think that if one of these cases does end up in front of the Supreme Court, it will probably be addressed just on the narrow vaccine issue. Well, the good news is the law is set up so that the government actually can win those cases, when all they have to do is demonstrate that they have a compelling interest. I think one of the militarys concerns is whats the limiting principle here? This piece originally appeared in The Daily Signal. For the Texas case, its more likely those sailors will receive religious exemptions, but that they wont necessarily change the way the military mandates vaccines or reviews exemptions. The Army also announced in a Friday press release that ongoing reviews of COVID vaccine exemption requests, records of soldiers who requested COVID vaccine exemptions, vaccine requirements for accessions or pre-commissioning programs, and travel restrictions based solely on COVID vaccination status will be removed or amended. The prospect of dishonorable discharges has been a concern for some against vaccine mandates, but that type of discharge can only be handed down through a court-martial conviction. The question is, whats the bigger risk to readiness: Discharging skilled, expensively trained service members for refusing to get vaccinated, or allowing them to continue serving with the potential to become infected with COVID-19, experience serious illness and potentially long-lasting side effects?
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