Jared Serbu: Last thing, theres a lot of these vaccine cases, even just military vaccine cases floating around in various district courts and circuits the moment. A group of lawsuit plaintiffs, including four Air Force officers and a Secret Service agent, have asked a federal court to block the Biden administration's coronavirus vaccination mandates,. The Navy on Wednesday announced it had granted one waiver to a member of the Individual Ready Reserve, a non-drilling service member, who would have to get vaccinated should he or she come on orders. Hes one of the attorneys representing the airmen challenging the mandate, and he spoke more to Jared Serbu on theFederal Drive with Tom Temin. Like the other service branches, the Navy required all active-duty service members to be fully vaccinated before Nov. 28 or risk a full range of disciplinary action. And now people will be able to take the analysis Supreme Court used and say, Okay, the way that they analyzed this issue, that might give us some indication of how they would analyze other issues, right. And to say, basically, no, you will do this because we said so and if you dont, were gonna kick you out. Copyright 2023 Military.com. The Catholic Churchs policy on derived fetal cells has been clear for decades: the sin of abortion is so far removed in pharmaceutical development that a Catholic is not violating any principles by getting vaccinated. The temporary restraining order means the military cannot punish airmen and Space Force guardians whose application for a religious exemption to one of the federally endorsed vaccines was denied or is still being processed. Just three days later, he issued a far more sweeping order granting 4,095 service members a religious exemption from the COVID vaccine. Follow him on Twitter @TomNovelly. The Heritage Foundation, a petitioner in the case challenging the private-sector vaccine mandate,has asked the courtto invalidate the governments order. Air Force spokesperson Ann Stefanek declined to comment on ongoing litigation and how it may affect how the service handles religious accommodation requests. The U.S . Related: Navy Lifts COVID-19 Vaccine Requirement for Deployments. The complaint also brings up the issue of Food and Drug Administration licensure. The same day the Pentagon set the deadline for the services, several of the branches -- namely the Army and Air Force -- began issuing their guidance, which stated they would remove or correct adverse actions in records related to vaccine refusal. Then in April, the WHO warned that. The NAVADMIN, referencing the injunction, prevents adverse action against sailors who will not get the COVID-19 vaccine and submitted a religious exemptions request. 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. Jared Serbu: I want to go back to what you said earlier about the process being a sham, because I want to try and draw how much of an issue that actually is, in these cases. Troops who refuse mandatory COVID-19 vaccines will likely also face courts-martial for the same offense, said Zaid, who represented Task & Purpose in a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit to force . The government burdens religion when it put[s] substantial pressure on an adherent to modify his behavior and to violate his beliefs.. While it allowed service members to apply for religious exemptions to the mandate, it has not granted a single one. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. The military across the board is discriminating discriminating against people of faith. As of Tuesday, the Air Force had denied about 6,800 initial religious waiver requests and 3,600 appeals, and has not ruled on nearly 3,500 more cases. Its just under 4,100. 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. The Florida case also expands the arguments past the religious exemption process, citing a handful of other arguments made by COVID-19 vaccine detractors. Assuming, maybe Im assuming too much. Similar to the Navy, the Marine Corps is no longer stopping unvaccinated Marines from deployments. Whats clear is that the COVID-19 has broken open a bit of a wormhole in the military. Another claimant, a Muslim Marine Corps captain, who said that his religious beliefs that require him to abstain from participation in that which is haram forbidden including the destruction and commoditization of innocent human life as exemplified by the use of human fetal cell lines derived from abortions, according to the lawsuit. Best listening experience is on Chrome, Firefox or Safari. Her work has appeared in Air Force Magazine, Inside Defense, Inside Health Policy, the Frederick News-Post (Md. Each of those shots also involves cell tissue derived from fetuses, as does one version of the rabies vaccine. 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. The vaccine mandate for military personnel was put in place in August, with a deadline of Sept. 15. Under the law, theres no requirement that you adhere to a major or even recognized faith tradition, he said. They argue that their. But their. Jehovahs Witnesses, who ban military service for their members, are probably the most prominent. 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. Nov. 2, 2021. Theyre not following their own regulations. The lawsuit is one of two that have grabbed headlines in recent months, as the military has imposed mandatory vaccination deadlines that have since lapsed for all of the services and their components, save the Army National Guard and Army Reserve. They had been told to get certain vaccines or other things without even be notified of a religious objection.. Mike Barry:Well, First Liberty Institute represents nine Air Force members who are challenging the Air Forces enforcement of its vaccine mandate. The story seems pretty similar to whats going on with these airmen. You got a preliminary injunction in that case and a favorable ruling from the Fifth Circuit. Well, what if somebodys not really sincere? 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. Yes, many of them have brought that and its a rubber stamp rejection, he said. CBC News reached out multiple times to Galati, who is listed as the spokesperson for the lawsuit in a press release issued by Vaccine Choice Canada. Thats really prohibited by the by the courts considering these types of cases. And so all of them have requested religious accommodations from the vaccine mandate, which is, of course, something that DoD regulations and even federal law, clearly permit and allow. The Justice Department intends to appeal the Texas ruling, while a temporary injunction in the Florida case expires Friday. To date, no members of the Army or Space Force have received a religious exemption, though nine airmen and three Marines have been approved. So if they work Sunday afternoon, or if theyre scheduled to work a particular Sunday afternoon, they say, Well, Im a Sabbath observer on Sundays. Technology Artificial Intelligence Ask the CIO Automation Big Data CIO News Cloud Computing Cybersecurity IT Modernization Open Data/Transparency Reporter's Notebook Defense On DoD Army Navy Air Force Jared Serbu: Got it. And at least in the Starbucks is that Ive been in recently where theyve been packed in like sardines. 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. 26 Feb 2023 11:38:25 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 Marine Corps had fielded 3,500 religious waiver requests, granting three, in addition to about 250 medical waivers and 400 other administrative approvals. Everyone who joins the military must receive a slate of several vaccines to enter, including chickenpox, rubella and hepatitis A. The lawsuits do not offer details from these meetings, nor do they state that the plaintiffs consulted with experts in their own religious communities before making their decisions to refuse vaccination. In a hypothetical alternate universe where it were the Navy and the Air Force, the rest of the services had an exemption process or a waiver process that did look more credible to you and to the court, do you lose these cases? The group includes 14 men and two women. DoD, for its part, settled its own policy with a memo from Assistant Defense Secretary for Health Affairs Terry Adirim last fall. In one of many ongoing federal lawsuits challenging COVID-19 vaccine mandates across the country, Judge Reed O'Connor of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas issued a group . But although the Air Force has approved hundreds of medical and administrative exemptions, they have only approved a very small handful of religious exemptions and even the ones that theyve approved by their own admission, they are only for Air Force members who are basically already separating or are already on their way out. 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. 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. 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. 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. So that, right now that number is several thousand. All rights reserved. In the filing, attorneys argue that the plaintiffs are facing criminal conviction and dishonorable discharge, which would strip them of any veterans benefits. And in one instance, I saw one of the head people for recruiting in the military said, Were having a really hard time identifying, basically people who are eligible to serve in the military. Ho and Judge Kyle Duncan noted that the administration had only reluctantly ended the military mandate after December congressional action, but Ross assured the panel that there are no plans to bring back the requirement. We are hemorrhaging people like crazy, and were having a really hard time recruiting capable people to join our military. A federal judge in Cincinnati has expanded a temporary exemption to a Department of Defense COVID-19 vaccine mandate to cover thousands of service members in the U.S. Air Force and Space Force,. The goal, representatives for the plaintiffs say, is to at least secure religious exemptions for their clients, but potentially see a Supreme Court ruling that would apply to all service members. Adam Rawnsley. Ryan Bruce, a Marine Corps spokesman, told Military.com. Simply put, no actual fetal cells were used in the development of any of the COVID-19 vaccines the cells in question were replicated by scientists, in labs, from tissue harvested previously. Subscribe on PodcastOne or Apple Podcasts. Fox News U.S. U.S. Military Service Members with Natural Immunity File Lawsuit over COVID Vaccine Mandate. COVID-19 vaccines are proven to be very safe and effective at preventing COVID-19 hospitalizations and deaths. Just because the plaintiffs identify as a member of one religion or another doesnt mean they need to follow every tradition, according to Griffin, the former Coast Guard lawyer, nor would they need to justify why they are religiously opposed to the COVID-19 vaccine in particular. Lawyers are waiting to see if a federal court in Georgia will stop the vaccine mandate nationwide through another class-action preliminary injunction as well. The suit was initially filed by a group of Navy SEALs but later expanded to include all vaccine-refusing sailors. The service members sued this week to vacate a Pentagon vaccine mandate for all those in the military, arguing they face imminent harm if a court order isn't issued temporarily blocking the. That includes protection from an adverse action while their exemptions are in process, a key part of the complaint, according to one of the attorneys on the lawsuit, which alleges that the plaintiffs have been removed from their jobs, flagged for promotion or otherwise hampered during the exemption process. Pfizer and Modernas mRNA products used cells replicated from a fetus aborted in the 1970s to make sure the vaccines worked in human cells. "There are no current COVID-19 vaccine restrictions on deployments or assignments for the Marine Corps as a service," Capt. Trident Order #12 also implemented the COVID-19 vaccine mandate at the command level for Naval Special Warfare forces, setting a deadline of compliance for October 17, 2021," the SEALs' legal team . "It hasn't done it yet. The lawsuit emerges as the latest development in an ongoing fight between state leaders and the federal government as Gov. In the Navy, none of more than 4,000 religious exemptions had been approved, but there were about 252 temporary and 11 permanent medical exemptions. Of course, that came because of a federal judges ruling. From this foundation they make studied and reasonable decisions about what is good and what is not good or may not be good for their bodies.. The Navy granted another 500 administrative exemptions, including temporary waivers for sailors planning to leave the service or in the middle of a permanent change-of-station move, for example. Dr Terry Adirim, the government bureaucrat behind the infamous and unlawful Pentagon vaccine mandate, will "leave her post in the coming days," reports FedScoop. Lawmakers expressed frustration with the news . A federal appellate judge has dealt another blow to the military's coronavirus vaccine mandate by allowing a high-profile class-action lawsuit against the Air Force to move forward. 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. Im very confident that this case going to the Supreme Court, Mat Staver whose Liberty Counsel represents plaintiffs in the Florida case told Military Times on Tuesday. The Army reported about 1,300 religious requests, none of which have been approved, as well as six medical exemptions. Kevin Stitt has pushed back on the COVID-19 vaccine mandate for the military that would apply to the Oklahoma National Guard. "This guidance is a promise of what the Air Force is saying it will do," Bruns told Military.com. But if they eventually get consolidated in the Supreme Court grants cert [writs of certiorari] on something that considers the issue more broadly, would you expect that well get a case or a ruling that goes beyond the narrow issue of vaccines and gives the military some guidance as to how RFRA and broader religious accommodation issues apply to the military? The Air Force number is probably in the same ballpark. I know, off the top of my head, the number in the Navy is somewhere near 4,100. The first lawsuit to garner national attention, filed in Texas late last year, made a splash because its plaintiffs include SEALs, among the most elite of the militarys special operations forces. US Military To Face COVID-19 Vaccine Lawsuit February 18, 2023. They are, theyre ignoring the law, theyre ignoring the Constitution. Theyll accept that alternative and say, okay, you know, Im willing to do that instead. Starbucks, for example, doesnt have a vaccine requirement. Religious freedom laws are set up to avoid a circumstance where the Navy, or the military or the government, is doing a faith test, to determine whether or not you really believe what youre supposed to believe, Griffin said. Editors note: This story has been updated with information from the hearing. The Florida case, in a 187-page complaint, takes measures much further. The latest data from the military show that roughly 30,000 active-duty service members remain unvaccinated against COVID-19, despite a Defense Department mandate issued in August and deadlines. The military's COVID-19 vaccine was repealed after the National Defense Authorization Act passed and was signed into law this month. Are there major differences here? When they inquired about seeking religious accommodation for the vaccine, the Navy informed many of them that they could face court-martial or involuntary separation if they refused to take the vaccine. Their objections to the vaccine fall into one of four categories, according to their complaint, including opposition to abortion and the use of fetal cell lines in pharmaceutical development, belief that body modification violates their religious principles, direct, divine instruction not to receive the vaccine, or declining to inject trace amounts of animal cells into ones body.. The World Health Organization approved Covaxin for emergency use in late 2021, making it a viable option for airmen who object to the three main U.S. shots.
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