Dorit Rubinstein Reiss

Vaccine court myths – instead, here are facts about the NVICP

by Michael Simpson
2022-11-03
2 Comments
Autism, COVID-19 vaccine, Law, Smallpox vaccine, Tdap/DTap vaccine, Vaccines

The anti-vaccine world loves its myths, because, lacking any real scientific evidence supporting their outlandish claims, fairy tales are all they have. Not that I like picking and choosing the worst of the anti-vaccine urban legends, but the vaccine court myths are among the most egregious and ridiculous.

Although there are a lot of vaccine court myths, I wanted this article will focus on just three critical points:

The vaccine court vs. civil courts for plaintiffs.
Vaccine manufacturers are immune to lawsuits.
Billions of dollars have been paid out to “victims.”
The vaccine court said that vaccines cause autism.

Let’s get to the article.

Legal challenges to remove religious exemptions to school vaccine mandates rejected by Courts

This article challenges to stricter school vaccine mandates was written by Dorit Rubinstein Reiss, Professor of Law at the University of California Hastings College of the Law (San Francisco, CA), who is a frequent contributor to this and many other blogs, providing in-depth, and intellectually stimulating, articles about vaccines, medical issues, social policy, and the law.

Professor Reiss writes extensively in law journals about the social and legal policies of vaccination. Additionally, Reiss is also a member of the Parent Advisory Board of Voices for Vaccines, a parent-led organization that supports and advocates for on-time vaccination and the reduction of vaccine-preventable disease. She is also a member of the Vaccines Working Group on Ethics and Policy.

On December 3, 2019, Judge Denise Hartman, from the New York Supreme Court in Albany (see Note 1), rejected a claim challenging the removal of the religious exemption from school vaccine mandates.

Judge Hartman has previously, in a careful decision upheld on appeal, rejected plaintiffs’ request for a preliminary injunction on stricter school vaccine mandates. In this decision, she provided a well-reasoned, thoughtful analysis of the constitutional issues.

Judge Hartman found that the change in the law in New York was based on public health, not hostility to religion, and fits well within the extensive precedent upholding mandates without requiring a religious exemption.

This lawsuit was the strongest, best-argued challenge to the New York law on religious freedom grounds. Unless plaintiffs appeal, this is likely the end for any serious chance opponents had at overturning the law, and even on appeal, their chances are likely low.

California medical board attacked by anti-vaccine activists

Civility in American politics has gone the way of the dodo bird, which has led to attacks and intimidation of the Medical Board of California by anti-vaccine crackpots. Because these anti-vaxxers lack any scientific integrity or evidence, they resort to mob tactics in trying to get their way.

This is happening across America, especially with school boards. The cowardly right-wing, emboldened with conspiracy theories and their prominent hatred of science, no longer rely upon the ballot box to get their way, they now try to scare hard-working people, like at state medical boards, to push their nonsense agenda.

Although I’m going to focus on what happened with the Medical Board of California, it’s not going to be unique to the Golden State. As these violent activists learn about what’s being done in California, I’m sure they’ll move on to other states. But for now, I’ll focus on the great state of California.

close up photo of a lined up covid vaccines

Review of religious exemptions to the COVID-19 vaccine mandate

After President Joe Biden issued a mandate for the COVID-19 vaccine, many anti-vaxxers looked for religious exemptions so that they would not have to get the vaccine. Although no major religion is opposed to vaccines, people have used religious exemptions to avoid vaccinations in the past, it’s just become more serious these days with the COVID-19 vaccine mandate.

In the USA, people will use this as a “freedom of religion” cause, claiming that they have some constitutional right to avoid the COVID-19 vaccine with a religious exemption. This is a legal issue, which Professor Dorit Rubinstein Reiss has addressed these issues several times recently. Although I am not a legal expert, blanket religious exemptions can be rejected without worrying about violating someone’s freedom of religion.

In my previous article about religions and vaccines, it is clear that almost every mainstream religion, from almost all Christian sects to Judaism to Islam, shows unambiguous support of vaccines. And for completeness, I’m going to go through each of these religions and describe their support of the COVID-19 vaccine.

How does the vaccine court deal with SIRVA claims? A review

This article about the vaccine court and SIRVA claims was written by Dorit Rubinstein Reiss, Professor of Law at the University of California Hastings College of the Law (San Francisco, CA), who is a frequent contributor to this and many other blogs, providing in-depth, and intellectually stimulating, articles about vaccines, medical issues, social policy, and the law.

Professor Reiss writes extensively in law journals about the social and legal policies of vaccination. Additionally, Reiss is also a member of the Parent Advisory Board of Voices for Vaccines, a parent-led organization that supports and advocates for on-time vaccination and the reduction of vaccine-preventable disease. She is also a member of the Vaccines Working Group on Ethics and Policy.

In this article, we are going to take a look at how “shoulder injury related to vaccine administration” (SIRVA) relates to the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (NVICP) claims. In 1986, the United States Congress passed the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act, which among other things created the NVICP, sometimes called the Vaccine Court. The act’s main goal was to protect vaccine manufacturers from vaccine injury claims and liability–but not for the reasons you might think.

Congress was rightly concerned that the costs for these legal actions were going to drive most, if not all, manufacturers from the USA market. That would have been a horrific problem for the country, with no ability to protect children from deadly and dangerous diseases.

The NVICP provides a no-fault program to resolve vaccine injury claims – “quickly, easily, with certainty and generosity.” The program was (and continues to be) funded by a tax on all vaccines sold in the country. Moreover, using a system of expert administrative “judges” (called Special Masters), a petitioner seeking to establish causation-in-fact must show, by a preponderance of the evidence, that but for the vaccination, they would not have been injured, and that the vaccination was a substantial factor in bringing about their injury.

Pfizer COVID vaccine received full FDA approval – expect new mandates

Today, 23 August 2021, the Pfizer/BioNTech COVID-19 mRNA vaccine received full FDA approval for individuals 16 years and older. This should stop the claim by anti-vaxxers claimed that these vaccines were “experimental,” because they had an Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) in the USA and other countries, despite the fact that the EUAs required just as rigorous analysis as a typical New Drug Application.

Let’s examine what this Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine FDA approval means practically.

Sharyl Attkisson says science-based websites are astroturfers

by Michael Simpson
2021-05-31
15 Comments
Andrew Wakefield, Autism, Science journalism, Vaccines

Once upon a time, I was told of an article published on the website of “journalist” Sharyl Attkisson where she accused a lot of people of being astroturfers, including this old snarky feathered dinosaur. Now I admit to not being up-to-date on every cultural term that flows through the internet every day (who could?), but I had to find out more.

Well, what is an astroturfer? Supposedly, it’s a pejorative term that describes a fake grassroots effort. Astroturf is fake grass, so that’s its roots (pun intended).

I’m not really sure of the logic of placing science writers and evidence-based websites into the “astroturf” category, but she does it. It’s like the Big Lie, I guess if she keeps repeating it, people will think it’s true.

Of course, let’s not forget that if we’re going to accuse any person or group of being astroturfers, we should straightaway look at anti-vaccine groups led by Del Bigtree and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. I mean they are the epitome of astroturfers. To quote Inigo Montoya, “You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.”

European Court of Human Rights upholds compulsory vaccination laws

This article the European Court of Human Rights upholding compulsory vaccination laws was written by Dorit Rubinstein Reiss, Professor of Law at the University of California Hastings College of the Law (San Francisco, CA), who is a frequent contributor to this and many other blogs, providing in-depth, and intellectually stimulating, articles about vaccines, medical issues, social policy, and the law.

On April 8, 2021 the European Court of Human Rights, in a 16:1 decision, held that the Czech’s Republic vaccine mandate did not violate article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which protects the “right to respect for private life”, because the mandate is within the range of reasonable options available to a country to protect the important interests of the general health and children’s best interests, and its interference with individual rights is proportional.

This is an important decision, since it gives states leeway to enact mandatory vaccination schemes, within certain limits. The quotes here are from the summary, which, from my skimming of the full decision, captures the majority’s decision well.

COVID-19 vaccine mandate challenge from a corrections officer

This article about a challenge to a COVID-19 vaccine mandate was written by Dorit Rubinstein Reiss, Professor of Law at the University of California Hastings College of the Law (San Francisco, CA), who is a frequent contributor to this and many other blogs, providing in-depth, and intellectually stimulating, articles about vaccines, medical issues, social policy, and the law.

In late February, a lawsuit challenging an employment mandate, that county officers in New Mexico receive a COVID-19 vaccine, was filed in a district federal court. Although there is some uncertainty on whether an Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) vaccine mandate is legal, this lawsuit is not well-founded, and the county’s response very well-argued. Hopefully, the court will reject this claim.

Employer vaccine mandates for COVID-19 – a legal and ethical discussion

A recent article about employer COVID-19 vaccine mandates, by Professors Dorit Rubinstein Reiss and Arthur Caplan, examined its legal and ethical issues. Their thought-provoking analysis should be part of our discussions about the new vaccines.

I think that employer vaccine mandates, especially during this COVID-19 pandemic, are something that should be considered everywhere. However, employer mandates are very controversial, with ten states already considering prohibitions to them.

I am going to excerpt some of their points in the article while adding my own thoughts on the topic. I think this is worthy of a wide discussion.