As committed, Houston Methodist Hospital tossed their anti-vaxxer staff members out. Added bonus, no sane medical practice will ever employ them in the future. Amusement - One anti-vaxxer clown whines about how many patients they had during the pandemic. 178 health care workers suspended from Houston Methodist hospital system for refusing COVID-19 vaccination https://news.yahoo.com/178-health-care-workers-suspended-143430831.html Scores of workers at a Houston hospital system have been suspended and face being fired for refusing the COVID-19 vaccination, a controversial company mandate that has drawn protests and an outcry from those facing termination. Houston Methodist CEO Marc Boom said the 178 workers represent less than 1% of almost 25,000 employees. "We are nearly 100% compliant with our COVID-19 vaccine mandate," Boom said in an email to staff Tuesday. "Houston Methodist is officially the first hospital system in the country to achieve this goal for the benefit of its patients." Boom said that 27 of the 178 suspended workers have received one dose of vaccine and that he is hopeful they will get the second dose. All are suspended for two weeks and are set to be fired if they fail to be fully vaccinated. "I wish the number could be zero, but unfortunately, a small number of individuals have decided not to put their patients first," Boom said. An additional 285 employees received a medical or religious exemption, and 332 were granted deferrals for pregnancy and other reasons, Boom said. "I feel betrayed a little bit," Amanda Rivera told KHOU-TV as she left the building Monday. "I worked in the ER. It was crazy during the pandemic. We were short-staffed. The hospital was over capacity with patients. It was just a lot. Now for them to come and do this is like a slap in the face." Hospital workers across the nation risked their lives during the pandemic, and many died of the virus. Yet a recent USA TODAY survey of some of the largest hospital networks and public hospitals in the country reveal staff vaccination rates vary widely, from 51% to 91%. Last week, Indiana University Health announced that it would require its 36,000 employees to be vaccinated against COVID-19 by September, calling the mandate a "safe and effective way to protect patients" and protect the community. "Requiring vaccinations for health care employees is not new or unprecedented," IU Health said in a statement. Hundreds of colleges and universities are requiring vaccinations for the coming school year. Many nursing homes, hot spots early in the pandemic, also are requiring inoculation from the coronavirus. The Houston Methodist controversy "foreshadows the coming months," said Ogbonnaya Omenka, an associate professor and public health specialist at Butler University in Indianapolis. Mandates that may seem like the obvious choice to many people must be "implemented within a human context," he told USA TODAY. "As businesses and schools return to full operations, they have to decide what to do about their vaccination policy," he said. "It is not going to be an easy process." Mandatory vaccination is not popular with lawmakers in Texas. Gov. Greg Abbott signed a law Monday denying state contracts to businesses that require customers to be vaccinated. Vaccine "passports" also are prohibited. “Texas is open 100%, and we want to make sure you have the freedom to go where you want without limits,” Abbott said. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has issued guidance saying employers have the right to require COVID-19 vaccination, citing a "direct threat" to others in the workplace. Still, more than 100 Houston Methodist employees filed suit against the hospital system last month, saying that the vaccines are "experimental" and that the mandatory vaccination policy is unfair. The suit notes that the vaccines have emergency use authorization from the Food and Drug Administration but have not yet won full approval. "I cried the whole way out," Jennifer Bridges, a nurse involved in the lawsuit, told KHOU-TV as she left the hospital Monday. Boom said the science, along with data from 300 million doses already distributed in the U.S. alone, proves the vaccines are safe and necessary "if we are going to turn the corner against COVID-19." The number of positive cases and hospitalizations continue to drop across the nation continue to decline, he said, proving the vaccines’ effectiveness. Boom said the mandate has been challenged by the media and some outspoken employees. But he said several other major health care centers have followed Houston Methodist's lead. "As the first hospital system to mandate COVID-19 vaccines we were prepared for this," he said. "The criticism is sometimes the price we pay for leading medicine."
LOL... being fired for not getting vaccinated in a medical facility where vaccination is clearly outlined as a requirement for the job is not Cancel Culture. You really need to improve your understanding of what Cancel Culture is. For example if a staff member of a business expresses an opinion outside of work on a political matter and all sorts of "woke" people contact the employer demanding the individual be fired and raise mobs to chase the person out of their home -- then this would be an example of Cancel Culture.
So a woke employer that demands employees take vaccines, or be fired, isn't an example of cancel culture. He didn't have to raise a mob ... because he could just fire you. But that's not included in your definition of cancel culture? Are boycotts cancel culture too? What if they also include a mob? What if they don't include a mob? Whose houses did the Dr. Seuss mobs descend upon? Were there mobs? How many defines a mob? Is gathering on public streets and sidewalks now illegal? Even if legal, it's still wrong under your definitions? Where is the official definition that YOU USE to determine what is, and isn't part of cancel culture? I've searched the manual below, and can't seem to find what authority you are using.
As a follow-up. The judge is not having any of the nonsense from these idiot employees and their lawyers. And by the way -- this case is expected to set a precedence that employers can require you to be vaccinated for safety in the workplace. Actually it should be noted this is the law already. Judge tosses Houston Methodist vaccine mandate lawsuit https://www.houstonchronicle.com/ne...ouston-Methodist-vaccine-mandate-16244629.php A federal judge has tossed a lawsuit against Houston Methodist over its policy to terminate workers who refuse to get the COVID vaccine, calling it “reprehensible” that plaintiffs compared the requirement to those made under Nazi Germany. In the lawsuit on behalf of 117 Houston Methodist employees, lawyers likened the vaccine requirement to the Nuremberg Code, a set of medical ethics standards created at the end of World War II following medical experiments by the Nazis on German citizens. U.S. District Judge Lynn Hughes heavily criticized the comparison in a decision Saturday. “Equating the injection requirement to medical experimentation in concentration camps is reprehensible,” Hughes said. “Nazi doctors conducted medical experiments on victims that caused pain, mutilation, permanent disability, and in many cases, death.” Houston Methodist is one of the first hospitals in the nation to require employees to be vaccinated. The hospital system allows employees to opt out of the vaccine requirement if they provide a medical or religious exemption. The health system’s human resources policy required employees to be vaccinated against COVID-19 by June 7, or risk suspension and eventual termination. About 25,000 Houston Methodist employees are fully vaccinated against COVID-19. More than 170 employees were suspended for two weeks without pay and face termination on June 21. Jennifer Bridges, a Houston Methodist Baytown nurse who originally circulated a petition in April asking the hospital’s executives to reconsider the policy, said the plaintiffs plan to appeal. “This will go all the way,” Bridges said. “This is only the beginning.” Occupational Safety and Health Administration officials issued guidance on Thursday outlining new COVID-19 precautions and procedures to prevent the spread of the virus in health care workplaces. Under the new rule, health care employers must provide paid time off for workers to receive COVID-19 vaccinations and recover from the side effects. Federal regulators in May issued guidance allowing employers to require proof of vaccination as a condition of employment. Hughes wrote in the dismissal order that the vaccinate mandate “was not coercion.” “Methodist is trying to do their business of saving lives without giving them the COVID-19 virus,” the judge wrote. “It is a choice made to keep staff, patients and their families safer.” He also denied a request for a temporary restraining order to block the hospital from suspending the 178 employees who have not received a shot. Many of the employees who joined the lawsuit said they are not opposed to vaccinations. They just want the chance to research the vaccine’s side effects and development, and for the clinical trials to progress further, before agreeing to take it. “We’re just leery because it’s such a brand-new vaccine,” Bridges said. “There’s not enough research yet and it’s not fully FDA approved. There’s no research out there on long-term effects.” Pfizer, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson, the manufacturers of the three COVID-19 vaccines authorized for emergency use in the U.S., have all produced clinical safety data showing the vaccines are safe to administer. Clinical trials will continue for at least another year as researchers study how long it provides antibodies. The COVID-19 vaccine policy falls in line with the hospital’s required annual flu vaccine unless they have a medical or religious objection qualifying them for exemption. Houston Methodist CEO Marc Boom wrote in a letter addressed to staff in April that the “best shot” at ending the pandemic was immunizing as many people as possible. In a memo to the staff, Boom said 27 employees — about .01 percent of their workforce — had received at least one shot of the Pfizer or Moderna vaccines and have time to go for their second and retain their jobs. “Our employees and physicians made their decisions for our patients, who are always at the center of everything we do,” Boom said in a Saturday statement. “They have fulfilled their sacred obligation as health care workers, and we couldn’t ask for a more dedicated, caring and talented team.”
Mandated vaccinations have historic — and legal — precedent https://thehill.com/opinion/healthc...accinations-have-historic-and-legal-precedent The trend seems to be going in the direction of requiring and approving compulsory vaccinations as a condition of employment. A Texas federal judge recently required a nurse at Houston Methodist Hospital either to be vaccinated or to lose her job. He correctly characterized as “reprehensible” the nurses’ argument that a vaccination requirement is akin to medical experimentation done during the Holocaust. The medical experimentation done by Dr. Josef Mengele and others in Auschwitz was designed to kill the patients, not to help them. Vaccines are designed to save lives. To make any analogy to the Holocaust is to suggest that the Holocaust was no worse than vaccination. That is a form of Holocaust denial, deserving only of condemnation. But even without that exaggerated, bigoted hyperbole, the argument offered by the Houston nurse and her fellow plaintiffs is not constitutionally sound. The United States Supreme Court, more than 100 years ago, ruled that the public health power of government extends to mandating vaccines against highly communicable and often lethal diseases. In that case it was small pox. In this case it is COVID-19. It’s up to the government to determine the safety requirements for vaccinations, and here it has been determined that, in the light of the seriousness of the current pandemic, the vaccine is safe enough. The Texas court went out of its way to emphasize that nobody is threatening the nurse with imprisonment. She has a choice: She can refuse to be inoculated, but she cannot work in the hospital if she makes that decision. That is a perfectly rational judicial conclusion. The hard case may never come. That would be if all Americans were required to be vaccinated without regard to religious or philosophical beliefs. We haven’t reached that point yet because there are still more people who want to be vaccinated and haven’t received their doses than there are conscientious objectors. It is unclear whether we will be able to reach herd immunity without some kind of compulsory vaccination, but we can come a lot closer than we now are. During the Revolutionary War, Gen. George Washington required all of his troops to receive the primitive vaccinations then available to prevent the spread of small pox. I am aware of no objection to that order, nor to the modern-day mandate that all American military personnel must be vaccinated against multiple diseases. Even for those who oppose vaccination on medical or ideological grounds, sacrifices are often required as a condition of living in a free and democratic society. Many people don’t want to pay taxes, or to send their children to school, or to show ID when they get on airplanes. But the law requires them to do so. In general, our nation has provided exceptions for conscientious objections, based on religion or closely related philosophical beliefs. But this doesn’t mean that conscientious objectors for vaccination should be allowed to endanger others. Recall that the vaccine is only about 95 percent effective. No one would get on an airplane if there was a 5 percent chance of a crash — nor should a vaccinated person be required to encounter an unvaccinated person. So perhaps conscientious objection should be permitted, but it should be conditioned on not exposing others. The issue of mandatory vaccination is emotionally wrought. Unfortunately, like everything else in America today, it has been caught up in politics. Extremes on both sides of the political spectrum are more opposed to it than people at the center, and people on the center-right seem more skeptical than people on the center-left. Skepticism is healthy in a democracy. As the great jurist Learned Hand once said, “The spirit of liberty is the spirit that is not too sure that it is right.” But, in a democracy, emotional issues are resolved under the rule of law — by legislation, executive orders and judicial review. That process is now going forward. There will probably be decisions both ways, and they will vary with the facts of each case. In the end, public health considerations almost certainly will prevail over any individual preferences. That is not a sign of tyranny. It is a sign of democracy at work.
How COVID-19 vaccine policies have triggered lawsuits and workplace showdowns Experts say such lawsuits have little legal standing. https://abcnews.go.com/Business/cov...awsuits-workplace-showdowns/story?id=78204107
Anti-vax group mounts legal blitz to sow disinformation against vaccinations Texas group the Informed Consent Action Network has capitalized on fear surrounding supposed vaccine mandates https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jun/22/anti-vax-group-legal-blitz-deter-vaccinations Just as the Covid-19 vaccine rollout began in earnest in the United States, the Informed Consent Action Network (Ican) sent its subscribers a “legal update” on its war against employers and schools planning to require the shots. An unspecified number of organizations had supposedly dropped their mandates – one just after Ican took them to court – and the Texas-based anti-vaccination nonprofit was prowling for more plaintiffs. “If you or anyone you know is being required by an employer or school to receive a Covid-19 vaccine, Ican is pleased to offer to support legal action on your behalf to challenge the requirement,” read the January email. Ican was founded in 2016 by one of the loudest voices in the US anti-vaccine movement, Del Bigtree, who produced the widely discredited propaganda movie Vaxxed: From Cover-Up to Catastrophe. For the last year, the nonprofit has capitalized on fear surrounding supposed vaccine mandates, going on the offensive months before any lifesaving vaccines became available to the public. Now, as vaccine hesitancy persists, Ican’s legal blitz has fueled disinformation, using costly legal threats to deter schools and businesses from implementing vaccination requirements. “If you have a limited budget to deal with litigation, it doesn’t matter if you might win at the supreme court level,” said Margaret Foster Riley, a professor at the University of Virginia School of Law. “The costs of that litigation are so existentially threatening that you’re not going to take the risk.” Ican did not return the Guardian’s request for comment. The US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has already given the go-ahead to employers who want to require vaccines for employees in the workplace, according to recent guidance. However, the idea of a “vaccine mandate” is misleading, as students and workers still have the right to refuse a jab and won’t be involuntarily vaccinated, said Y Tony Yang, a professor of health policy at George Washington University. Those who forgo a shot may be barred from some opportunities, although there’s still the possibility of waivers, exemptions and other work-arounds. Plus, they’ll likely have the ability to choose education or employment alternatives that don’t require vaccines. “Sure, that’s a different school, might not be the school you want,” Yang said. “That’s the option.” Vaccine requirements are already commonplace in academic settings and among healthcare workers in the US. But the specter of Covid-19 vaccine mandates nevertheless became a “calling card” for anti-vax groups like Ican – a lightning rod to “rally people” and “sow a lot of contentiousness”, said Rekha Lakshmanan, director of advocacy and public policy at the Immunization Partnership. “There’s a theme of being very pre-emptive and opportunistic to sort of lay this foundation and seeds of doubt,” Lakshmanan said. In fact, Ican may have targeted mandates so strongly because the Covid-19 vaccine – which has already reached more than 64% of US adults – represents “an existential threat” to its mission, Riley said. “The more used to vaccination people are – and this is a population-wide experience – the less traction Ican has as an anti-vax organization,” she added. If the anti-vax movement is a pyramid scheme, Ican sits at the top among the well-funded organizers and creators of misinformation, explained Dorit Reiss, a professor at the University of California, Hastings College of the Law. Some of the nonprofit’s staff may be “true believers”, Reiss allowed. But as a whole, the institution is largely “cynical” and “manipulative”, far removed from the grassroots activists who act as door-to-door salesmen, spreading misinformation to friends and neighbors. Since Ican’s inception, its leaders have attracted a substantial fan base through its pseudo-talk show hosted by Bigtree, established a strong relationship with the New York-based attorney Aaron Siri and fundraised millions for their mission. “They are much better at promoting their message comparatively than many of the organizations that are in the public health space,” said Ana Santos Rutschman, an assistant professor at the Saint Louis University School of Law. “They have resources directed at them. They are savvier.” The nonprofit has made a home in Texas, where deeply rooted conservative beliefs around liberty and freedom have sprouted an active, sizable anti-vax community, including a political action committee that advocates for “vaccine choice”. This week, a federal judge in Texas dismissed a lawsuit brought by employees of Houston Methodist hospital who had challenged the hospital’s Covid-19 vaccination requirement, in one of the first rulings of its kind. The hospital suspended 178 staff for refusing the shot, which some have described as “venom”. “The political environment here was unfortunately prime and ripe for individuals and organizations like Ican to kind of set up shop in Texas,” Lakshmanan said. Ican’s tactics and reliance on expensive legal services predates the pandemic, but threats of litigation became central to its strategy as it took on Covid-19 vaccine requirements. In 2019, $1.26m of the nonprofit’s $3.5m total expenses went to Siri’s law firm, Siri and Glimstad, and this year, the nonprofit described Siri as its legal team leader. In February, Siri published a warning that organizations with Covid-19 vaccine requirements would “run afoul of the law”, which could land them in court. “Such potentially costly lawsuits can be avoided by refraining from adopting policies that require vaccination or penalize members for choosing not to be vaccinated,” he wrote for Stat, a health-focused outlet produced by Boston Globe Media. Siri’s incendiary op-ed focused on the vaccines’ emergency use authorizations (EUAs), which have allowed Americans to access the shots for months even though the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has yet to fully approve them. As with any products approved for emergency use, US code requires that patients be informed of their choice to “accept or refuse administration” of the Covid-19 vaccines, and “of the consequences, if any, of refusing”. In recent months, Siri’s firm has leaned on that provision along with other, weaker claims to lodge a barrage of attacks against an eclectic group of organizations requiring Covid-19 vaccinations, including New Jersey universities, a Wisconsin nursing home and a North Carolina sheriff’s department, the Washington Post reported. “It’s these subliminal messages that are being issued out to entities,” Lakshmanan said. “‘Hey, if you’re going to even consider this, this is what we’re going to do, and this is what we already started to put into motion.’” But in May, Ican at least pressed pause on actively recruiting plaintiffs and announced it would no longer accept cases fighting vaccine requirements. Although there’s still a legal grey area around mandates for EUA-authorized vaccines, experts are increasingly confident that, on balance, the courts would likely uphold them. Meanwhile, with Pfizer, BioNTech and Moderna already applying to get their vaccines fully approved by the FDA, companies and institutions will likely benefit from over a century of judicial precedent defending mandatory vaccinations in coming months. And, for employers, the prospect of a Covid-19 outbreak after a year of unexpected closures may now outweigh any hypothetical litigation. “The risk of losing the lawsuit is probably smaller, even if it means that the mandate will only be in place for six months,” Reiss said. “That’s already a lot.” Still, Ican isn’t going away. During this legislative session, Bigtree testified in front of Texas lawmakers to push for a bill that would have scared and confused patients. More recently, the nonprofit has tried to discredit Dr Anthony Fauci after obtaining a series of his emails through the Freedom of Information Act. “They attract a lot of traffic,” Santos Rutschman said, “wherever they decide to go.”