More than 450 U.S. colleges and universities are mandating that all students be fully vaccinated against COVID-19 before the fall 2021-22 semester. This is both unethical and dangerous. Some are even requiring vaccines for summer classes.
Though the FDA has issued emergency authorizations (EUA) for the Pfizer, Moderna, and Johnson & Johnson vaccines, none of the three have actually been FDA approved. That is a legal and ethical problem for schools that want to force student to get the shots.
In my practice, I see 10% of those getting the vaccines having significant reactions, some of which last over 6 months. I’ve written about those side effects here. Of greatest concern to me is the potential for spike protein induced sterility, preterm births, and other adverse pregnancy outcomes in our young men and young women as the long term effect on conception & pregnancy has still not been deemed “safe” and scientifically cannot be for at least another year.
In a statement taken directly from the CDC website: “Observational data demonstrate that, while the chances for these severe health effects are low, pregnant people with COVID-19 have an increased risk of severe illness, including illness that results in ICU admission, mechanical ventilation, and death compared with non-pregnant women of reproductive age. Additionally, pregnant people with COVID-19 might be at increased risk of adverse pregnancy outcomes, such as preterm birth, compared with pregnant women without COVID-19. . . Based on how mRNA vaccines work, experts believe they are unlikely to pose a specific risk for people who are pregnant. However, the actual risks of mRNA vaccines to the pregnant person and her fetus are unknown because these vaccines have not been studied in pregnant women.”
I do not understand how school administrators, in the institutions that actually teach ethical fundamentals, can take such an unethical position on this, not allowing free choice and/or medical exemption. Whoever the school’s medical advisers are are blatantly ignoring the massive share of college students who have already recovered from COVID-19 and have natural immunity. Studies suggest that immunity formed from natural COVID-19 infection is MORE robust and durable than vaccine immunity. I am just dumbfounded by the medical ineptitude these people have.
Then there is problem that the schools’ vaccine policies would subject populations that were deliberately excluded from clinical trials to “experimental risks,” including people who have recovered from infection, actively pregnant women, and breast-feeding women. Schools are pushing mandates that violate basic principles of medical ethics.
Even if the vaccines receive full FDA approval, no sensible understanding of herd immunity can justify forcing vaccinations on healthy young adults who are at minimal risk of hospitalization or death from COVID-19, especially those who already had COVID. We don’t immunize children against diseases that primarily harm the elderly in hope of reducing transmission risks for the elderly. That would use the recipients as a means to another end, which is blatantly unethical.
To quote Dr. Aaron Kheriaty, a professor of psychiatry and director of the Medical Ethics Program at the University of California, Irvine, and Gerard V. Bradley, a law professor at Notre Dame in their Wall Street Journal OpEd:
“Consider the analogy of nontherapeutic research, from which the research subject doesn’t stand to benefit directly. The central canon of medical ethics in this situation is the free and informed consent of the research subject, as articulated in the Nuremberg Code and the Helsinki Declaration. Informed consent is likewise required for medical decisions in all adults of sound mind. This is arguably the most deeply rooted doctrine in contemporary medical ethics.
“A person may freely choose to accept medical risks for the benefit of others, as when one donates a kidney for transplant. But there is no moral duty to do so. This is why we don’t harvest organs without consent, even if doing so would save many lives. Those who make such sacrifices for others must truly be volunteers, not conscripts drafted by college administrators.”
Yea, but the school administrators claim that if people are vaccinated then “everyone will feel safer.”
Yet, it’s wrong to risk harming healthy people so that colleges can peddle a psychological placebo. There is nothing about this or any other issue that justifies coercive policies to steamroll fundamental liberties.
