Tag: mandatory vaccination

U.S. Supreme Court Rejects New York Healthcare Workers’ Bid to Revive COVID Vaccine Mandate Lawsuit

The U.S. Supreme Court today declined for a second time to take up a case brought by New York healthcare workers who lost their jobs after the state denied their requests for religious accommodations from its COVID-19 vaccine mandate, SCOTUSblog reported.

The justices rejected a petition asking them to reconsider their June decision not to hear Does 1-2 v. Hochul, the lawsuit healthcare workers brought against the state. The court denied the request without asking New York Gov. Kathy Hochul to respond.

“This ruling is definitely a sad day for the workers who stood up and said no,” said Michael Kane, Children’s Health Defense (CHD) director of advocacy and member of New York’s Teachers for Choice, which also challenged New York’s vaccine mandate in the courts.

Kane said he was “not surprised” by the decision.

The plaintiffs represented a handful of healthcare workers, he said. “But over 30,000 were fired in New York state because of this horrendous policy from Gov. Hochul. The policy didn’t allow for any religious exemption from vaccination. On its face, it is illegal. It is unconstitutional, but the politics of the thing seems to be playing out instead.”

The workers filed their lawsuit in 2021, challenging a now-repealed New York state law mandating that workers in some healthcare-related positions get the COVID-19 vaccine.

In 2022, a federal court dismissed the lawsuit, and in 2024, the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the dismissal. In 2025, the workers appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court.

In an unusual move, the Supreme Court asked the U.S. Department of Justice solicitor general to weigh in. In May 2026, Solicitor General D. John Sauer wrote an amicus brief recommending the court deny the appeal.

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Italian Police in Schools: Hunt for Lists of Unvaccinated Kids

Starting on the first day of school, carabinieri will enter preschools and elementary schools in northern Palermo to identify pupils who are not up to date with mandatory vaccinations. Officers will obtain enrollment lists and, together with the schools and the ASP (Azienda Sanitaria Provinciale, or Provincial Health Authority), verify the children’s health status. The intervention, described as “extremely urgent,” was ordered by the minors’ prosecutor Claudia Caramanna following the death of Anna Rosa Bartolotta, the four-year-old unvaccinated child who was given a diagnosis of diphtheria. Before all aspects of the case have been clarified, the tragedy has become the pretext for launching an emergency operation.

The operation will begin on September 15, the date set by the Sicilian Region for the start of classes. Enrolled students are registered on the ministerial Sidi portal; schools transmit the lists to the ASP, and the health authority cross-checks them against the vaccination registry, returning the names of those not in compliance. Attention will initially focus on northern Palermo, but the ASP holds data for the entire metropolitan area. Also under scrutiny by the prosecutor’s office is a system used by some families to delay compliance: submitting an appointment booking, not having the child vaccinated, and then repeating the procedure later. “It may work at preschool, but in first grade the checks are strict,” explained Giusto Catania, principal of the Giuliana Saladino comprehensive institute. The Lorenzin law stipulates that compliance with vaccination requirements is a condition for access to nurseries and preschools; from age six onward, the pupil may attend classes, while parents face administrative fines ranging from €100 to €500 (approximately $110 to $550). If forms of “serious negligence” are established, such as failure to undergo pediatric check-ups, the consequences could extend as far as loss of parental custody. The checks, therefore, will not concern only the regularity of vaccination certificates but will also serve to identify possible situations of “health abandonment.”

The climate that developed during the pandemic thus seems to be reemerging, this time in school classrooms, through procedures that also find full support from part of the press. La Repubblica, for example, presents the initiative using a formula that closely echoes the language of the Covid emergency: “A virtuous machine has been set in motion to counter no-vax conspiracy theories in the protection of public health.” Giovanna Perricone, the regional ombudsman for children and adolescents, speaks of a “comprehensive and strategic operation”: from the checks, she explains, may follow reports on parents, fines, and the taking into care of families. Since “we cannot close social media,” she adds, it would also be necessary to counter their influence by disseminating messages on vaccines in a widespread manner, even through videos projected in supermarkets. The goal, in short, goes beyond verifying compliance with the law: it is about policing public space, re-educating parents so as to crack “conspiracy ideas.”

The Palermo case thus reproduces the polarization mechanism already tested during the pandemic. Diverse situations are folded into the undifferentiated category of “no-vax conspiracy theories.” Beyond the specific incident, the label allows attention to shift from the merits of individual cases to the alleged irresponsibility of families and to present as necessary an operation involving schools, the ASP, the prosecutor’s office, and law enforcement. Anna Rosa’s death has become the starting point for blanket checks and a cultural campaign extended even to supermarkets. The entry of carabinieri into schools is thus normalized as a tool of health protection, while the invocation of “conspiracy theories” once again serves to preemptively neutralize doubts and possible objections regarding the proportionality of the measures adopted.

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Shapiro Tries To Arm Pennsylvania Health Bureaucrats With Warrantless Entry Powers And Forced Vaccine Databases — Voters Already Said No Once

Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro is pursuing autocratic powers for public health that Pennsylvania voters removed five years ago, and he is doing it behind the scenes through regulations not legislation.

A 502-page proposal for modifications to the Pennsylvania health code, published on August 8, grants the Pennsylvania Department of Health vast new powers to enter premises without warrants, access medical records without consent, direct a statewide vaccine data system, impose masking mandates during an outbreak, as well as masking mandates in an effort of “prevention” for any “condition” the department has determined warrants an intervention.

It is important to digest the implications of this. The proposed regulations define “condition” to mean “noninfectious medical ailment or other health-related event”. That gives far reaching powers to the department of health in the guise of public health.

“The administration’s draft rules on masks and infectious diseases are deeply troubling,” said Pennsylvania lawmaker Michele Brooks. “These include standards that establish ‘rule by fiat’ for the imposition of masking, distancing, and virtually any other disease control measures; a state vaccine registry with mandatory reporting; the power to control attendance at funerals; and the broadest powers to track and collect private health information and to enter private property.”

Pennsylvanians know where this goes. Former Governor Tom Wolf instituted some of the most draconian COVID-19 lockdown orders in the U.S. from March 2020 to June 2021. Shapiro, then Attorney General, issued the mandates, and in defense of the state’s school mask mandate, called concerned parents “self-centered” in a 2021 filing to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court.

The Supreme Court ultimately handed down a judgment against Shapiro, ruling the Department of Health acted outside of its authority. However, the Court did write that the Department of Health had the ability to change its own rules. Shapiro seems to have taken this to heart.

In May 2021, Pennsylvanians passed a constitutional amendment constraining governors’ emergency powers to three weeks. Shapiro’s regulatory maneuver is designed to circumvent this democratic outcome entirely, granting a permanent, non-emergency power to a department he controls.

Randall Wenger, chief counsel of the Independence Law Center, fearful that health care workers will be allowed to access schools and interrogate children in private, said that parents deserve the right to care for their children as they see fit. “These regulations allow a bureaucrat to go into a school to meet with a child without parents’ knowledge and telling the school officials that they can’t even interfere with this. That’s unconscionable,” Wenger told The Daily Wire.

Shapiro comes from the Democrat buzz saw of presidential candidates and is potentially running in 2028. What he is doing in Pennsylvania is not public health — it is building a system of surveillance and compliance to be used nationwide. Pennsylvania did not vote for this system. Shapiro is doing it anyway, and whether the legislative branch steps in tells us how much the voters value the limits to power they voted for this year.

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SUCH A FRAUD: Margaret Brennan Says Biden Regime Did Not Mandate Vaccines for Children – Then This Previous Video of Margaret Brennan Surfaces

It must be difficult being a mainstream media mouthpiece these days. You have to sort through the all the lies from yesterday to promote the newest set of lies you promote to the American public.

Take for example, Margaret Brennan.

The silly CBS News anchor thinks we forgot about the BS she was shoving down our throats about COVID not so long ago.

On Sunday, Brennan lectured the brilliant Dr. Mehmut Oz, the current administrator of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), that the COVID vaccines were NOT forced on American children.

This proves she has no respect for the American public to push such trash on her audience.

Here is Margaret Brennan with Dr. Oz on Sunday:

Dr. Mehmut Oz: “The question again, this comes back to a much more fundamental issue, Margaret. Do parents have the right to ask questions? We already experienced what happened during COVID when we took away that right from parents. They were forced to give their kids COVID vaccines.

Margaret Brennan: (interrupting) They were not forced to give their kids vaccines…

Dr. Mehmut Oz: Well, they were pushed hard and oftentimes hindered from doing what they wanted to do, like going out socially if their kids were not included in these programs…

Margaret Brennan: (interrupting) No, of course it’s not up to the state.

Dr. Mehmut Oz: It’s not up to the federal government. It’s up to the states. States do this. The request of the president is to make sure that states offer parents either eligibility because of religious beliefs or other reasons why they may not want to have their kids take all the vaccines in order. Let’s pick a specific example. Hepatitis B. Hepatitis B vaccine I happen to like. I got the hepatitis B vaccine, but it helps adults avoiding issues if they’re involved. For example, in my case as a doctor, if I were to hit myself with a needle with a patient, but it usually is for drug abusers and for people who are involved in — or infants who could be exposed by a caregiver, by someone in their house, by parent unwittingly, which is why it is provided extraordinarily.

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Federal Court Rules For Woman Fired For Refusing COVID-19 Vaccine

Kaiser Permanente wrongly fired an employee who declined to receive a COVID-19 vaccine because she gave proper notice to the company of her religious objection to COVID-19 vaccination, a federal appeals court has ruled.

Mimi Weiss, who worked for Kaiser Permanente’s The Permanente Medical Group for 20 years before being fired, “plausibly alleged that she provided notice of her religious conflict with the mandate in her initial request for a religious exemption,” Circuit Judge Danielle Forrest wrote on July 24 for a unanimous panel of judges on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.

Weiss was working fully remotely, or off-site, in August 2021 as a senior managerial consultant when Kaiser Permanente imposed a COVID-19 vaccine mandate. Weiss, a Christian Jew, within weeks filed for a religious exemption, and Kaiser Permanente initially approved the request.

In September 2021, though, Kaiser Permanente said employees had submitted religious accommodation requests with identical language. Expressing concern that some of the requests were not legitimate, the company asked employees to file fresh requests using their own words. Officials then asked Weiss new questions, including, “What else besides the COVID-19 vaccine do you refuse to put in your body as a result of your religious belief?”

Weiss said she would not provide private information. Kaiser Permanente placed her on unpaid leave. Then it fired her for not complying with the mandate, prompting a lawsuit by Weiss.

A federal judge in 2024 ruled against her, concluding that Weiss had not provided Kaiser Permanente with sufficient notice of the conflict between receiving a vaccine and her beliefs.

The Ninth Circuit ruling overturns that decision, pointing to a previous opinion in which the appeals court said that to provide notice, an employee must only give “enough information about [her] religious needs to permit the employer to understand the existence of a conflict,” and that requiring any more details “would permit an employer to delve into the religious practices of an employee in order to determine whether religion mandates the employee’s adherence.”

Applying that framework to the current case means that Weiss did give adequate notice, the panel said, because she identified herself as a Christian Jew, listed specific doctrines that she said barred her from receiving a COVID-19 vaccine, and outlined her belief that she should not “introduce foreign substances” into her “body temple” that would “change how [her] Creator designed it.”

In a split 2-1 decision, the panel also said that Weiss has shown sufficient evidence to bring forth allegations that Kaiser Permanente violated her right to privacy.

Kaiser Permanente did not return a request for comment by publication time.

“I never imagined my faith would end up costing me my job,” Weiss said in a statement.

“I wasn’t asking Kaiser for special treatment, just the freedom to live according to my conscience. After 20 years of service, I didn’t think that was too much to ask.

“I’m grateful the court recognized that religious employees should not have to give up their beliefs or their privacy to keep their jobs.”

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Sen. Mike Lee Files Bill to Defund Schools that Ban Religious Vaccine Exemptions: ‘We Don’t Worship Fauci’

A bill that would block federal tax dollars from schools that refuse to allow religious exemptions for vaccinations has been introduced by Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT), who argued that educational institutions “need to learn we don’t all worship Fauci.”

The proposed legislation, dubbed the Guaranteeing Religious Accommodation in Childhood Education (GRACE) Act, is cosponsored by Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) and was introduced in the House by Rep. Greg Steube (R-FL). It is endorsed by over fifty organizations, including Children’s Health Defense, Moms for Liberty, and the Autism Action Network. 

Not only would the bill defund schools that do not allow religious vaccine exemptions, but it would also prevent institutions from requiring documentation from students or parents in order to justify receiving such an exemption. 

The Democrat-led states of California and New York both removed their religious freedom exemptions in recent years, impacting thousands of families who are now blocked from attending the schools their tax dollars pay for. 

“Schools are discriminating against religious kids and targeting their families over vaccine exemptions,” Lee said in a statement to Breitbart News. “Keeping a kindergartner out of class over a vaccine is cruel – and it’s unconstitutional when the reason is their family’s religion.”

“The GRACE Act will keep federal tax dollars out of schools that refuse religious exemptions for vaccines, and will outlaw targeting families to prove their beliefs,” the senator added. “These schools need to learn we don’t all worship Fauci.”

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the controversial former National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases director, infamously argued that the government must “use lockdowns to get people vaccinated.”

Tuberville told Breitbart News in a statement, “This is a free country and parents have every right to make personal decisions about what vaccines they choose to give their children.”

“Last time I checked, parents are in charge of a child’s healthcare decisions, not the federal government,” the lawmaker continued. “Taxpayer funded K-12 schools have no right to turn students away at the door because of their vaccination status — especially if they have a religious exemption. The GRACE Act is an incredibly important bill that protects religious liberty and puts parents back in charge.”

Steube concurred, and added that “Freedom of speech and religion is the most sacred right guaranteed under our Constitution.”

Lee has shown his support for medical freedom on multiple previous occasions, including when he fought against the Biden administration’s COVID mandates, and more recently cosponsoring the End the Vaccine Carveout Act with Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) to remove special liability protections that shield Big Pharma from civil claims when customers are harmed by their products. 

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Federal Court Rules Against Amish Families in Religious Exemption Case — Will Supreme Court Have the Last Word?

A federal court last week ruled against a group of Amish parents who sought religious exemptions from school vaccination requirements for their children — a ruling that legal experts suggest may lead to a U.S. Supreme Court showdown that could determine the future of religious exemptions nationwide.

In its ruling in Miller v. McDonald, the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said New York State’s law eliminating religious exemptions from school vaccination requirements is “neutral and generally applicable,” doesn’t discriminate against specific religious practices and furthers the state’s interest in protecting the public from disease.

The plaintiffs, a group of parents and representatives of Amish schools in New York, sued New York’s Department of Health and Department of Education in 2023, alleging the state’s law barring religious exemptions violates the U.S. Constitution’s Free Exercise Clause under the First and 14th Amendments.

The parents face $118,000 in fines for noncompliance with the state’s vaccination requirements.

Last week’s decision was the second time the 2nd Circuit ruled against the plaintiffs. The same court previously dismissed the suit in 2024, upholding a decision by another federal court earlier that year.

In December 2025, the Supreme Court sent the case back to the 2nd Circuit, asking it to review constitutional questions arising out of a separate ruling, Mahmoud v. Taylor, in 2024. In that case, the Supreme Court found that parents have the right to request an exemption for their children from LGBTQ curriculum on religious grounds.

According to The Washington Post, last week’s ruling in Miller v. McDonald may “set the stage for a potential Supreme Court battle over vaccine mandates,” citing legal experts who suggested the court is likely to accept the case for review on constitutional grounds and in light of the Mahmoud v. Taylor decision.

Lawrence Gostin, a Georgetown University professor of health law and an outspoken vaccine proponent, told the Post he expects the Supreme Court to “reverse the appellate court’s decision” if it chooses to review the case.

A review could result in a ruling that would “allow religious vaccine exemptions nationwide,” the Post reported.

The Post reported last month that the Supreme Court has signaled that it “may be open to a constitutional claim based on the lack of a religious exemption for vaccine mandates in New York.”

A Supreme Court ruling in favor of the Amish plaintiffs would be “the anti-vaccine movement’s biggest win,” the Post wrote.

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The Last Nurse Standing

There are court cases that arrive dressed as employment disputes but carry the weight of an era. Adams et al. v. Mass General Brigham is one of them.

On paper, it is a federal discrimination case in Boston involving three remaining plaintiffs, Tyler Adams, Michelle Orfanos, and Jamie Steverman, against Mass General Brigham, the most powerful hospital system in Massachusetts. In reality, it is a post-pandemic reckoning over institutional power, religious liberty, scientific certainty, workplace coercion, and who gets to write the official history of the mandate years.

Mass General Brigham is not some minor regional employer. It is the largest private employer in Massachusetts, a Harvard-affiliated medical empire with tens of thousands of employees and annual revenue measured in the tens of billions. Its own public materials describe the system as having 82,000 employees and $23 billion in annual revenue, while its CEO profile states that Anne Klibanski leads an 85,000-employee system with $22 billion in revenue and $2.7 billion in annual research funding.

In June 2021, MGB announced that all 80,000 employees would be required to receive a COVID-19 vaccine once the FDA granted approval to one of the vaccines. “The evidence of COVID-19 vaccine safety and effectiveness is overwhelming,” Klibanski said in the announcement. Employees, MGB stated, would be able to request medical and religious exemptions.

That promise, that exemptions existed, is where the story begins.

More than 2,400 employees sought exemptions. MGB granted only 234. In a 2023 federal order, Judge F. Dennis Saylor wrote that MGB had “effectively made a determination that some level of risk, eventually involving 234 unvaccinated individuals out of approximately 93,600 employees… was tolerable.”

For the plaintiffs, that fact is not incidental. It is central. Their argument is not that MGB granted no exemptions. Their argument is that MGB granted some exemptions while allegedly denying others through a secretive, discriminatory, and uneven process that favored certain religions and disfavored others.

The most vivid remaining face of that fight is Michelle Orfanos, a registered nurse who had worked for MGB since 2012. According to her state-court complaint, Orfanos worked throughout the pandemic unvaccinated, including as a homecare nurse and as a volunteer in the Boston COVID field hospital. She says she had received religious exemptions to flu vaccines for years, only to have her COVID religious exemption denied in 2021, resulting in her termination.

Then came the second firing.

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Europe’s Highest Court Rules Against Military Member in COVID Vaccine Mandate Case

A military officer failed to convince Europe’s highest court that Italy’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate for military members discriminated against military members because the mandate didn’t also apply to civilian employees.

The officer, identified by the initials B.G., served in Italy’s Army Engineer Corps. He was suspended without pay in January 2022 for refusing to comply with the mandate.

Earlier this month, the European Court of Justice ruled that opposition to vaccine mandates based on policy disagreement, rather than sincerely held belief, is not protected under European Union (EU) anti-discrimination law.

B.G. challenged his suspension, arguing that regular COVID-19 tests were an acceptable alternative to compulsory vaccination and that workers in other sectors were given this choice.

Italy’s Constitutional Court ruled against him, finding that the military vaccine mandate was an appropriate measure for military personnel.

On appeal, Italy’s Council of State, the country’s highest administrative appeals court, asked the European Court of Justice to clarify several legal questions.

The European Court of Justice found that B.G. did not demonstrate a sincerely held religious, spiritual or philosophical belief protected under EU law.

“Judges found BG was not expressing a protected religious, philosophical or spiritual belief but challenging Italy’s public health policy,” Courthouse News reported. His objections “focused on vaccine effectiveness, possible side effects, testing as an alternative and the way the mandate was implemented.”

In its ruling, the European Court of Justice wrote that B.G. “does not seek to oppose the compulsory vaccination at issue in the main proceedings on the basis of his own beliefs, but to challenge, as such, the choices made by the Italian authorities in the field of public health.”

Those objections “constitute opinions” on public health, and as such, are not protected. Aside from sincerely held beliefs, EU law also protects against discrimination based on age, disability or sexual orientation.

Dutch attorney Meike Terhorst called the ruling “unfortunate and disappointing,” as the legal protection of personal beliefs in the EU “appears to be an empty shell.”

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Court-Martial: Military Records Board Fails Service Member Amid Ongoing COVID-19 Shot Mandate Fallout

The Board of Corrections for Military Records once again failed another service member. This systemic failure highlights a troubling trend of neglect and indifference toward those who have stood firm in their convictions and have been retaliated against for it.

Who will right the wrongs this time? War Secretary Pete Hegseth? Under Secretary of War for Personnel and Readiness Anthony Tata? Secretary of the Air Force Troy Meink? Anyone?

The bigger question of the day: Why are service members still experiencing negative impacts on their careers due to the military’s now-rescinded 2021 COVID-19 shot mandate? This mandate was rescinded in January 2023 and was later declared “unlawful as implemented” across all departments of the military in May 2025.

The Gateway Pundit spoke to Davis Younts, legal counsel for Major Matt Murphy, who he feels was “railroaded” toward Administrative Separation as a result of his 2021 religious objections to the shot. The retired Air Force Lieutenant Colonel and former Judge Advocate General (JAG) officer said his client, a U.S. Space Force officer at the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) in Virginia, had the integrity to do what was right, yet after all these years, it has cost his career.

On June 11, 2026, Murphy was mainly accused of “failing to attend a physical training (PT) session for which he had already faced administrative punishment, despite documented evidence indicating that his attendance was not necessary,” Younts shared. “Coincidentally, the individuals overseeing him were the same ones who attempted to remove him during the COVID pandemic.”

“They’ve made remarks regarding COVID and his religious beliefs, and I firmly believe he is being targeted for issues like missing a PT session, which no officer would typically receive a career-ending Letter of Reprimand for,” he added.

For Younts, this situation raises significant alarms about retaliation. It also brings into question whether the Department of War is genuinely committed to supporting service members who have been coerced, mistreated, and retaliated against regarding the shot.

Murphy admitted to The Gateway Pundit that this journey has been one of the toughest multi-front battles of his 15-year career. In 2020, he and his wife moved to New York to pursue a PhD at Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) as part of an Air Force Institute of Technology-Civilian Institution program. In 2021, pregnant with their second child, the family was confronting the draconian measures enforced in the Empire State.

Murphy was barred from the RIT campus due to the institute’s shot mandate policies, which ultimately led to his disenrollment. All the while, he was also engaged in a separate struggle with the Department of the Air Force. With a second child on the way, it was almost too much to bear.

Amid the turmoil and stress, and after the birth of their third child, what mattered most to Murphy was finding “time for peace and quality time with my family during these precious years,” he confessed.

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