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Employer Vaccination Mandates Under Scrutiny Post COVID-19

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6 minute read

From Heartland Daily News

By Kenneth Artz

From presidential candidate Donald Trump’s promise to reinstate military members who were fired for not getting COVID-19 shots to a federal court decision favoring employee vaccination preferences, vaccine mandates at work appear to be coming to an end.

The Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago, Illinois ruled employees at Wisconsin health care system Aspirus, Inc. can go forward with their claim that they were unlawfully denied a religious exemption from having to accept a COVID-19 shot. Aspirus claimed the employees’ real reason for not wanting the shots was secular, not religious.

Public Employees Protected

In 2023, Texas updated Section 81B.003 of the state’s health and safety code prohibiting vaccination mandates for state and local government employees. Before the change, employees had to prove a health risk or religious convictions to be granted an exemption.

Texas has taken the lead in prohibiting government agencies from issuing mandates for people to get vaccinated. Similar laws have passed in Florida and 11 other states: Arizona, Arkansas, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Montana, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Tennessee, and Utah.

Private Employees’ Rights Unclear

Private employers are a different matter says Javier Perez, a board-certified labor and employment law attorney with Crain Brogdon LLP in Dallas

“Despite the new protective laws for [government] employees, unless there is a specific law prohibiting employer vaccine mandates, employers can still, generally speaking, impose workplace vaccine mandates so long as they do not discriminate,” said Perez, a board-certified labor and employment law attorney with Crain Brogdon LLP in Dallas. “The employer has wide discretion to decide what the rules of the road are in their workplace.”

The dynamics in the workplace have changed, says Perez.

“My sense of the job market is that employers can replace people who won’t comply,” said Perez. “But with a lot of jobs pivoting to remote work—more than we thought possible—it’s kind of an easy way, on a temporary basis, to work around those risks.”

Mandates ‘Have Backfired’

Despite the lack of clarity in employer-employee relations, the tide is turning against vaccine mandates and other COVID-related work rules, in particular failures to accommodate religious exemptions, says Douglas P. Seaton, J.D, Ph.D., president of Upper Midwest Law Center.

“These mandates, based on shoddy or no science, have backfired because they have resulted in serious levels of suspicion of the bona fides of all new government regulation, especially when ‘science’ is claimed to be the rationale,” said Seaton.

‘Simply Shut Up’

In 1905, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled Massachusetts could not pass a vaccination mandate to protect the individual but could do so “to protect the public from a dangerous communicable disease.”

Historically, the public health bureaucracy had been relatively circumspect in exercising that enormous power to control individual behavior, says Linda Gorman, director of the Independence Institute’s Health Care Policy Center. Things began to change in the 1990s when public health researchers and government health bureaucracies were captured by the notion that the British, Canadian, and European health care systems were better than the U.S. system because they were government-controlled.

“They apparently believed that health would improve, and costs would fall, if patients, doctors, and suppliers would simply shut up and do as they were told,” said Gorman.

‘Power Is Attractive’

The COVID-19 pandemic tested that power. Instead of systematically providing the best available information to individuals about the new COVID vaccine and allowing informed consent, the bureaucrats resorted to brute force to make people do as they were told, says Gorman.

“Power is attractive, and I see no sign that the health bureaucracy will give up its vast powers without a fight,” said Gorman. “The tragedy is the backfire has made people suspicious about all vaccine recommendations, and unknown numbers of people will die and suffer severe health consequences as a result.”

The COVID overreach made credentialed experts’ ethical failings evident, says Gorman.

“It is now obvious that government health bureaucracies see no harm in lying about efficacy, disease risk, and data quality in order to achieve their own end,” said Gorman.

“The first question is, ‘What do we do about it?’” said Gorman. “The second is, “Who should people trust for the accurate information they need to make informed decisions about their medical care?”

Kenneth Artz ([email protected]writes from Tyler, Texas.

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New York City workers fired for refusing COVID jab ask Trump, Vance, RFK Jr. to reinstate them

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From LifeSiteNews

By Doug Mainwaring

Their letter ‘brings attention to the fact that Mayor Eric Adams is the number one obstacle preventing unvaccinated workers from being brought back to their jobs and getting compensated.’

A group of former New York City workers representing thousands who were fired or displaced from their jobs for  declining the city’s unconstitutionally mandated COVID-19 vaccine based on religious or medical grounds sent a letter to President-elect Donald Trump, Vice President-elect J.D. Vance, and Health and Human Services Secretary nominee Robert F. Kennedy Jr., asking for help with being reinstated to their jobs.

“The letter (included below) draws attention to the plight they have been fighting for more than three years in the courts, in the streets, and in City Hall trying to get back to doing what they do best — working for the City of New York,” explained Michael Kane, writing at the Teachers for Choice Substack.

“Firefighters, cops, teachers, sanitation workers, medical professionals and more have asked the incoming presidential administration for help getting back to their employment,” Kane wrote. “The letter brings attention to the fact that Mayor Eric Adams is the number one obstacle preventing unvaccinated workers from being brought back to their jobs and getting compensated.”

****

Dear President-Elect Trump and Vice President-Elect Vance,

In the Fall of 2021, thousands of well-performing New York City employees, including but not limited to firefighters, police officers, teachers, social workers, sanitation workers, medical doctors, nurses, plumbers and doormen were unlawfully placed on leave without pay and subsequently terminated by the duplicitous leaders of New York City for non-compliance with the unconstitutional COVID-19 vaccine mandate.

Many City workers had to choose under duress to take the shot in order to keep making a living. Others were coerced into early retirement, waiving their labor rights or resigning. This mass reduction in the City’s workforce has caused a critical staff shortage. Former Mayor Bill de Blasio, his then Health Commissioner Dave Chokshi, Mayoral Expert Advisor Jay Varma, Mayor Eric Adams and his then Health Commissioner Ashwin Vasan are only some of the political leaders and health bureaucrats who violated our constitutional and labor rights. The two former NYC Department of Education (DOE) Chancellors, Meisha Porter and David Banks, embraced the vaccine mandate and cooperated in removing DOE employees, as did the UFT President Michael Mulgrew and AFT President Randi Weingarten. Much has changed in the past three years, and there are many revelations now that we were lied to about almost every aspect of the COVID-19 vaccine.

Thousands of unvaccinated workers nationwide have gone through hell due to the COVID-19 vaccine mandates. For the past three years, New York City workers had our wages illegally seized, which has led to the loss of income, loss of property, loss of medical insurance, poverty, humiliation, emotional distress and family discord. Many of us have gone from having a good income with a plan for retirement to meet our basic needs and secure our family well-being, to living hand to mouth, losing our homes and other assets, having to move in with family, and even move to other states and countries. Some of us were foreclosed upon. Some ended up in the shelter and welfare systems. At least one committed suicide.

The morale and mental health of all City workers, both public and private sectors, have been dealt a severe blow by the vaccine mandate firings. Many City workers have taken legal actions against the City of New York and other parties involved in the hope of correcting the irreparable harm. Some courts and juries have rendered decisions in favor of the unvaccinated workers, but relief has not been awarded because the City of New York and Mayor Eric Adams keep appealing the decisions at the taxpayers’ expense, which is a reckless use of public funds.

According to available records, in 2023, Mayor Adams hired 30 additional attorneys at a taxpayer cost of $5,000,000.00 a year, just to keep up with the lawsuits filed by the fired employees who tirelessly worked during the COVID-19 pandemic, without vaccines and PPE. His actions are beyond outrageous and disheartening.

Based on Court decisions rendered in Michigan, California, Illinois and Colorado, New York seems to be the only state that has not awarded relief to the unlawfully terminated workers. Despite all the cruelty and financial hardship unvaccinated workers are faced with, we are standing firm in our pursuit of justice. We know that you are committed to uphold the Constitution as it pertains to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness for We The People.

Therefore, we respectfully ask that you please help City workers, members of the military and all other citizens who were unlawfully forced out and fired as a result of the vaccine mandate.

Sincerely,

****

The 250+ signatories of the letter, who have thousands of years of service to the city between them, have come together under the umbrella of “NY Workers for Choice,” representing Bravest for ChoiceTeachers for ChoiceFinest UnfilteredCourt Workers for ChoiceCops 4 FreedomEducators for FreedomStrongest for Freedom and Medical Professionals for Informed Consent.

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New book edited by Naomi Wolf exposes Pfizer’s ‘crimes against humanity’

Published on

From LifeSiteNews

By John Leake

‘The Pfizer Papers: Pfizer’s Crimes Against Humanity’ strikes me as one of the most impressive works of investigative scholarship in history. I strongly recommend the book to everyone in the world who is interested in truth and justice.

When I was born, my maternal great grandmother gave me a generous gift of Pfizer stock. She had been impressed by Pfizer’s key role in discovering how to mass produce penicillin during World War II (in which her son was killed in action). Eighteen years later her gift paid for my university education. And then, in 1998, Pfizer received FDA approval to sell Viagra.

Pfizer initially developed the drug to treat high blood pressure and angina pectoris. However, as Pfizer’s researchers discovered in clinical trials, the drug was better at inducing erections than managing angina. And so, the company repurposed the drug for erectile dysfunction and launched a massive, global PR and marketing campaign – including seeking moral approval from Pope John Paul II and contracting the war hero and 1996 presidential candidate Bob Dole to be the brand’s poster gentleman – that succeeded in making Viagra a blockbuster.

So, I learned why pharmaceutical companies seek to develop blockbuster drugs with fanatical zeal. Formulating a safe and effective new medicine to address a large, unmet need is very difficult and expensive. Performing clinical trials and obtaining FDA-approval is an arduous process that normally takes several years. Thus, if an opportunity for a new blockbuster presents itself, a big drug company like Pfizer will go to extreme lengths to seize it.

Three years after the release of Viagra, I learned that Pfizer was not the respectable company my great grandmother had believed it to be. I arrived at this realization through my interest in British spy novels. In 2001 I lived in Vienna, around the corner from the Burgkino (Burg Cinema) which still played the 1949 film noir classic The Third Man on its big screen every weekend. I spent many a dreary winter Sunday afternoon watching the film. Based on the novella and screenplay by Graham Greene, The Third Man is a crime story about Harry Lime – an American running a medical charity in Vienna, who makes a killing selling penicillin on the bombed out, impoverished city’s black market. To increase his profits, he cuts the drug with other substances, thereby destroying its efficacy and causing the patients (including children) to die horribly from their infections.

In the film’s most iconic scene, the good guy (played by Joseph Cotton) meets his old friend Harry Lime (played by Orson Welles) on the Giant Ferris wheel in the Vienna Prater amusement park and tries to appeal to his conscience. At the wheel’s apex, the charismatic Harry opens the door, points down to people walking on the ground below, and says:

Look down there. Would you really feel any pity if one of those dots stopped moving forever? If I offered you twenty thousand pounds for every dot that stopped, would you really, old man, tell me to keep my money, or would you calculate how many dots you could afford to spare? Free of income tax, old man. Free of income tax. … Nobody thinks in terms of human beings. Governments don’t, why should we? They talk about the people and the proletariat; I talk about the suckers and the mugs. It’s the same thing. They have their five-year plans, and so have I.

READ: Study showing ‘high likelihood’ of link between COVID vaccines and death republished in peer-reviewed journal

I sensed that Graham Greene might have based the story on something he’d witnessed or heard about. Doing some research, I learned that Harry Lime was probably based on the British spy Harold “Kim” Philby, with whom Greene worked in British intelligence during World War II. Greene, it seems, discovered that Philby was a Soviet double agent long before he was exposed as such in 1963. Instead of ratting out his friend, he kept it to himself and left the intelligence service in 1944. Several pieces of evidence suggest that when he wrote The Third Man a few years later, he based it on his conflicted friendship with Philby.

John le Carré was also fascinated by Graham Greene and Kim Philby, and his thriller Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy – one of my all-time favorites – was inspired by the Philby story. His novel The Constant Gardener was published in 2001, and I read it with great interest. The story wasn’t set in Cold War Europe, but in Kenya, where a British diplomat’s wife is brutally raped and murdered. Upon closer examination, the diplomat realizes that she was about to reveal a horrifying crime committed by a pharmaceutical company, which murdered her in order to prevent the exposure.

The novel’s plot was reminiscent of a controversial drug trial performed by Pfizer in Kano, Nigeria in 1996 during a meningococcal outbreak. For the trial of its new antibiotic, trovafloxacin, Pfizer gave 100 children this new drug. The control group of 100 other children received the standard anti-meningitis treatment at the time – a drug called ceftriaxone. However, for the control group, Pfizer administered a substantially lower dose of ceftriaxone than the drug’s FDA-approved standard.

In his author’s note, le Carré claimed that nobody and no corporation in the novel was based on an actual person or corporation in the real world.

But I can tell you this. As my journey through the pharmaceutical jungle progressed, I came to realize that, by comparison with the reality, my story was as tame as a holiday postcard.

In 2009, the same year that Pfizer settled with the trovafloxacin plaintiffs, the New York Times reported that a U.S. federal judge assessed Pfizer with the “largest health care fraud settlement and the largest criminal fine of any kind ever” for its illegal marketing of Bextra and three other drugs. The U.S. Department of Justice was unequivocal in characterizing Pfizer’s officers as guilty of grave criminal conduct at the expense of the American public.

As I have long known all of the above, I wasn’t surprised by the gross criminal conduct revealed in The Pfizer Papers: Pfizer’s Crimes Against Humanity, edited by Naomi Wolf with Amy Kelly and a foreword by Stephen K. Bannon. The 366-page hardcover book – beautifully published by War Room Books, an imprint of Skyhorse Publishing – is a meticulous analysis of Pfizer documents the FDA was forced to release as a result of Aaron Siri’s lawsuit.

The book strikes me as one of the most impressive works of investigative scholarship in history. As Dr. Peter McCullough described it in his praise (printed on the book’s first page):

This is a comprehensive, organized, and compelling presentation of vaccine safety data that has accumulated after mass and indiscriminate administration of the Pfizer mRNA COVID-19 vaccines. Sadly, a large group of vaccine recipients have become injured, disabled, and many have died after the ill-advised injections. The data with histopathological evaluation at necropsy and autopsy with expert analysis is presented so you can evaluate it for yourself. Never before has there been a class of products with this wide range and extended duration of injury to the recipient.

On Saturday, November 16, I attended the official launch of this magisterial work of what I believe falls squarely within the true crime genre of literature. It was a great honor for me to attend the gathering with the book’s editors and authors. It seemed to me that I was witnessing history being made.

I strongly recommend the book to everyone in the world who is interested in truth and justice. The book should be required reading by everyone in the legislative and executive branches of the U.S. government, especially President-elect Trump’s staff.

Please purchase your copy today by clicking here. Producing the book was a Herculean effort. Never before have a book’s authors and publisher been so deserving of compensation for their work. I agree with Dr. Peter Breggin’s sentiment that they, as well as editor Naomi Wolf and project director Amy Kelly, “should get the Nobel Prize for medicine and the praises of a grateful humanity.”

Reprinted with permission from Courageous Discourse.

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