The hearing came after the U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey in September 2022 dismissed a lawsuit filed in August 2021 by Children’s Health Defense (CHD) against the university on behalf of 18 students challenging the mandate.
During Tuesday’s hearing before a three-judge panel for the 3rd Circuit in Philadelphia, attorney Julio C. Gomez argued Rutgers’ policy is unconstitutional because COVID-19 vaccines are experimental and administered under an Emergency Use Authorization (EUA), and because students had the right to refuse an unwanted and potentially unsafe medical procedure.
“This appeal raises a very important question: whether a college or a university in New Jersey has the legal authority during a public health emergency to coerce the student’s consent to a highly invasive injection of a yet to be fully investigated vaccine,” Gomez told The Defender.
The New Jersey and Pennsylvania chapters of Children’s Health Defense hosted a rally in front of the courthouse to support CHD’s legal team and stayed for the hearing.
During oral arguments, Gomez asserted, “There’s a fundamental right for the student to make the decision that is permitted under that statute freely, without coercion. The threat of not being able to attend the university imposes coercion. And that coercion essentially eliminates or obliterates the right. The student needs to be free to decide, when dealing with that statute, whether to accept or refuse without any coercive element.”
Because science. (brought to you by Pfizer, Moderna and J&J)
That’s called “pulling a fast one” where I come from.
Interestingly, Jeffrey S. Jacobson, the lawyer representing Rutgers, seemed to rest his entire argument on the ACIP recommendation.
“Rutgers is empowered to follows the guidelines of the ACIP, which is exactly what Rutgers did. Period. Full stop.”
Judges pushed back on this. (In fairness, they pushed back on everything… it appears to be part of the job.) Judge Jordan questioned the rational basis of the mandate and asked Jacobson to address assertions from the plaintiff that Rutgers was not acting in good faith due to a disabling financial interest that may have impacted its decision. Jacobson responded:
So what they’re saying is, because Rutgers participated in the clinical trials, that ACIP then based its recommendation on, Rutgers has a conflict. What Judge Koreshi did was he looked at that and said, wait a minute…Ok, so Rutgers was one of many sites that participated in the trial. The data went to ACIP. ACIP made the recommendation. Rutgers followed the recommendation. So whatever conflict allegations the plaintiffs are making became irrelevant once ACIP made it’s recommendation. So I’m sorry that I have to keep going back to it, but that’s why Judge Koreshi said that the allegations of a financial interest don’t matter because all of the data fed up to ACIP, which made its recommendation. (empasis mine)
I don’t know how this lands with the judges, but it doesn’t sit well with me.
Rutgers made bank coming up with the data that then went towards the ACIP recommendation. Anyone following ACIP meetings witnessed how flimsy the data was. And, since Rutgers was conducting clinical trials, it should have been well-versed in the shortcomings of the vaccines and the limitations of the available data. They should have known better than anyone that these shots did not demonstrate an ability to stop infection or transmission.
Furthermore, I would think that if Rutgers was acting in good faith, it might choose someone with a public health background to make decisions about vaccine requirements and lead the Rutger’s COVID-19 Task Force .
Instead these roles were assigned to Rutgers COO and Executive VP of Strategic Planning and Operations, Antonio Calcado, who helped broker the $1B partnership with RWJ Barnabus, enabling Rutgers to host Covid vaccine clinical trials in its new state-of-the-art facilities. That COO later boasted on his Linked in profile that he was “instrumental in implementing the first university COVID vaccine mandate in the country.”
Judge Jordan also questioned the rational basis that supported treating faculty and staff differently from students, since faculty and staff were not initially required to be vaccinated. Jacobson pointed out that the faculty were subject to “collective bargaining”, to which the judge responded, “We’re talking about rational basis to deal with the vaccine and once again the virus doesn’t much care about union rules does it?”
Circling Back to the ACIP
I wonder if Jacobson realizes that ACIP recommendations sometimes serve a dual purpose. In this clip, Dr. Rochelle Walensky explains why the ACIP had to recommend the COVID-19 vaccine for the pediatric schedule.
"The reason ACIP recommended and CDC put forward getting the COVID-19 vaccine on the pediatric schedule, it was ONLY because it was the only way it could be covered in our 'Vaccines for Children' program. It was the only way that our uninsured children would be able to have access to the vaccines. That was the reason to able to put it on the schedule. It can’t be eligible for Vaccines for Children (VFC) program, to be available to the uninsured, unless it is on that schedule. That was the reason to put it there.”
The Vaccines For Children (VFC) program is a federally funded program that provides vaccines at no cost to children who might not otherwise be vaccinated because of inability to pay. The CDC buys vaccine at a discounted rate for distribution to registered VFC providers. Children who are eligible* for VFC vaccines are entitled to receive those vaccines recommended by the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP)
In other words, according to Walensky, the ACIP recommended the shots for kids, not because the committee believe that all children needed the shots, but because it wanted to make sure all children had access to the shots.
What other ways can the CDC justify adding shots to the ACIP schedule?
Rutgers is Leading the Way… to What?
Here’s what Rutgers Biomedical Health Sciences (RBHS) spokesperson, Neal Buccino, told the Daily Targum about Rutgers’ $1B public-private partnership with RWJBarnabas Health, the largest healthcare system in New Jersey:
“The Rutgers-RWJBarnabas Health partnership brings together two higher education and healthcare leaders to create the largest academic health system in New Jersey — one that will fundamentally change healthcare in New Jersey and beyond… It will be a force for change and innovation, shaping the future of the healthcare delivery system.”
“With the investments from RWJBarnabas Health, Rutgers will lead an effort to recruit additional, high-caliber principal investigators and to increase grant applications with the goal of substantially increasing the amount of NIH and other federal grant funding we bring to New Jersey.”
Rutgers is also home to a Center for COVID-19 Response and Pandemic Preparedness (CCRP2), an institutional research hub created to “provide quick response and transformative solutions at the local, national and international levels.” This further indicates that the university seeks to set precedents for the country and the globe. So we need to be paying close attention to how it wields its authority.
Rutgers continues to mandate Covid vaccines, even as one of its own scientists admits “We need a better vaccine.” Perhaps this is because the institution is working on a vaccine of its own.
According to a recent study published in Vaccines, a novel Covid vaccine developed at Rutgers, dubbed MT-001, may provide longer-lasting protection in humans against some variants of the virus. “May” being the key word as the study was done on mice and hamsters.
So will students be forced to take the available sub-par, obsolete shots until the ACIP approves Rutgers’ new and improved shots (based on the data it provides)?
Rutgers claims it has the authority to mandate experimental vaccines…while it profits from conducting the experiments. It also claims to have rational basis for these mandates. And good faith.
These are not vaccines, these are WMD’s!