At the start of the 2023 school year, the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) decided it was time to end the covid vaccine mandate it had imposed on its employees.
Two years ago, the L.A. Unified School District set a high bar for COVID safety, telling employees: Get vaccinated or lose your job. That vaccine mandate — which achieved a 99% compliance rate among teachers — ended this week after a 6-1 vote by the Board of Education….“Yes, this board approved, required vaccinations, as a means of reducing transmission, reducing the severity of a disease that in this community, across this country and across the world killed millions,” L.A. Unified Supt. Alberto Carvalho said. “This was a necessary requirement, and it was adopted so that schools could reopen safely based on information that was known, then accepted, then verified, then validated … not by speculation, but by scientists.“In 2023,” he added, “we face vastly different circumstances.”
A lawsuit accusing the district of violating workers’ rights has been moving through the court system despite the rollback of the mandate. The U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruling also targets the definition of a vaccine, indicating the mRNA vaccine does not meet the criteria because it fails to “prevent the spread.”
The panel held that the voluntary cessation exception to mootness applied. LAUSD’s pattern of withdrawing and then reinstating its vaccination policies was enough to keepthis case alive. The record supported a strong inference that LAUSD waited to see how the oral argument in this court proceeded before determining whether to maintain thePolicy or to go forward with a pre-prepared repeal option.LAUSD expressly reserved the option to again consider imposing a vaccine mandate. Accordingly, LAUSD has not carried its heavy burden to show that there is no reasonable possibility that it will again revert to imposing a similar policy.Addressing the merits, the panel held that the district court misapplied the Supreme Court’s decision in Jacobson v. Massachusetts, 197 U.S. 11 (1905), in concluding that the policy survived rational basis review. Jacobson held that mandatory vaccinations were rationally related to preventing the spread of smallpox. Here, however, plaintiffs allege that the vaccine does not effectively prevent spread but only mitigates symptoms for the recipient and therefore is akin to a medical treatment, not a “traditional” vaccine. Taking plaintiffs’ allegations as true at this stage of litigation, plaintiffs plausibly alleged that the COVID-19 vaccine does not effectively “prevent the spread” of COVID-19. Thus, Jacobson does not apply.
The plaintiffs’ argument that since the covid vaccine was essentially therapeutic rather than preventative was a key element to the decision.
They argued that by requiring employees to get the COVID shot, the school district was interfering with workers’ right to refuse medical treatment.“No one with any credibility would tell you that the vaccine prevented COVID or stopped the spread,” said John Howard, a San Diego attorney who argued the case on behalf of a handful of Los Angeles Unified employees and an Idaho-based group called the Health Freedom Defense Fund that’s filed several other COVID vaccine lawsuits.“But when the hysteria was going on, that’s exactly what pharmaceutical companies and others said,” Howard said. “It was false.”
The lawsuit was filed by the Health Freedom Defense Fund and other plaintiffs. As one of the judges indicated, forcing a treatment on someone unwilling to accept infringes on fundamental rights.
The court, which covers nine states and two territories to include Alaska, agreed with the plaintiffs and stated this “crucial distinction undermines the foundational premise of the vaccine mandates enforced by various governmental and educational institutions.” Judge Collins went on to say forcing people to get something for their alleged health benefits infringes on “the fundamental right to refuse such treatments.”
As the “experts” seem to be revving up to use the covid-tactics for bird flu, the importance of this ruling cannot be over-stated. Individuals should have the right to refuse treatments, especially those being thrust on the public in response to ginned-up fears being spread by bureaucrats connected to Big Pharma.
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