Tag: mandatory vaccination

New York Fines Amish Schools After Ending Religious Exemptions from Vaccination

New York has fined three Amish schools a total of $118,000 for enrolling unvaccinated children. According to the Second Circuit opinion, the commissioner of health fined Dygert Road School $52,000; Twin Mountain School, also known as Pleasant View, $46,000; and Shady Lane School $20,000. The schools serve Amish settlements in Clymer, Heuvelton, and near Canajoharie. New York has approximately 25,000 Amish residents, the fifth-largest Amish population of any state.

Under New York Public Health Law § 2164, children attending public, private, or parochial schools for more than 14 days must be vaccinated against specified diseases unless they qualify for a medical exemption. Each violation carries a fine of up to $2,000, and the Department of Health counts each day an unvaccinated student attends school as a separate violation.

For Dygert Road and Twin Mountain, the department assessed $2,000 per unvaccinated student, counting one day of noncompliance for each. Shady Lane provided no student records, so the department calculated its fine based on one student attending for 10 days. The commissioner described the totals as “principled and conservative under the circumstances.”

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Idaho’s Landmark Medical Freedom Act Survives First Legal Challenge

A federal judge last week upheld the Idaho Medical Freedom Act, ruling that daycares cannot require children to receive vaccines or other medical interventions. Attorney General Raúl Labrador said the ruling confirms that “parents make medical decisions for their children. A daycare does not.”

A federal judge has upheld Idaho’s new medical freedom law, ruling that daycares cannot require children to receive vaccines or other medical interventions as a condition of attendance.

Chief U.S. District Judge Amanda K. Brailsford last week dismissed a lawsuit brought by a Boise-area daycare and three parents who challenged the Idaho Medical Freedom Act. The act, signed into law in April, prohibits most medical mandates, including vaccines.

Brailsford rejected the plaintiffs’ claims that the law is unconstitutionally vague, violates parents’ rights or infringes on the daycare’s First Amendment rights.

Leslie Manookian, president of the Health Freedom Defense Fund and author of the law, said the ruling confirmed what she intended the law to do.

“Medical freedom, the right to make one’s own medical choices, is such a sacred and basic human right it astounds me that anyone could see otherwise,” Manookian told The Defender.

She said the law “protects an individual from public and private actors bullying, coercing and intruding into their personal and private medical choices or punishing them for their choices.”

Manookian also said she was “delighted that the federal court interpreted the law … as a safeguard against overreach” by government and private actors, including daycares.

‘A daycare does not’ make medical decisions

Idaho Attorney General Raúl Labrador, whose office defended the law, said the ruling confirms that parents — not businesses — are in charge of their children’s health.

“Parents make medical decisions for their children. A daycare does not,” Labrador said in a Sept. 22 statement. “The Legislature protected that choice in the Medical Freedom Act, and the court upheld it.”

Labrador added that daycares can continue telling parents what they believe about vaccines and health, but “they cannot turn a child away because of a parent’s medical decision.”

The attorneys representing Le Soleil Child Care LLC and the parents said they may appeal.

“Our clients are obviously disappointed by the district court’s ruling and the narrow manner in which it interpreted the right at issue,” attorney Andrea Carone said in a statement to the Idaho Statesman.

Carone argued that the law leaves daycares unable to take what the plaintiffs consider “reasonable steps” to protect children from diseases that vaccines can prevent. She called it “a clear public health issue” that the Idaho Legislature must address.

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New York Teen Forced Out of School Again After 3 More Doctors Argue Vaccines Would Harm Her

Seventeen-year-old Sarah Doe is back in court seeking emergency federal court intervention so she can stay in school after three more doctors said the teen shouldn’t get the last two vaccines the state requires for school attendance.

The three medical opinions add to the seven the school district has received over the last two years. In each case, doctors argued that Sarah qualifies for a medical exemption. They said forcing Sarah to get the vaccines would put her already precarious health at increased risk.

In an emergency motion filed late last week in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York, Sarah and her mother Jane Doe asked for a temporary restraining order allowing the high school senior to attend school pending the district’s review of a new medical exemption request relating to a third hepatitis B (Hep B) shot and the meningococcal vaccine.

Children’s Health Defense is funding Sarah’s case.

The emergency motion followed a Sept. 23 ruling by U.S. District Judge Gary Brown. Brown declined to extend Sarah’s previous medical exemption, for the 2024-2025 school year, to the current school year. The district expelled Sarah from school the next day, Sept. 24.

A few days later, the district readmitted Sarah pending the outcome of a blood test, ordered by her doctor, to determine if she has hepatitis B titers from the first two shots she received, according to her attorneys.

However, Sarah still needed a medical exemption from the meningococcal vaccine — even though the district didn’t require proof of meningococcal vaccination for any student until Sept. 30. Many states don’t require this vaccine for secondary school.

At the time, Sarah had a medical exemption request pending from Dr. Michael Miller, a pediatric infectious disease specialist who also concluded that she shouldn’t be vaccinated.

On Sept. 28, the district denied Miller’s exemption request, according to court documents, citing three unsuccessful attempts by its reviewing physician to reach him by telephone.

According to Sarah and her mother, the court gave no other reason for denying Miller’s request. They said the school never sent Miller a HIPAA form, which he would need in order to share Sarah’s medical information with the district’s reviewing physician.

School officials notified Sarah’s family that as of Oct. 1, they again would not allow her to attend school unless she provided proof of vaccination or a valid medical exemption.

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Idaho’s Landmark Medical Freedom Act Survives First Legal Challenge

A federal judge has upheld Idaho’s new medical freedom law, ruling that daycares cannot require children to receive vaccines or other medical interventions as a condition of attendance.

Chief U.S. District Judge Amanda K. Brailsford last week dismissed a lawsuit brought by a Boise-area daycare and three parents who challenged the Idaho Medical Freedom Act. The act, signed into law in April, prohibits most medical mandates, including vaccines.

Brailsford rejected the plaintiffs’ claims that the law is unconstitutionally vague, violates parents’ rights or infringes on the daycare’s First Amendment rights.

Leslie Manookian, president of the Health Freedom Defense Fund and author of the law, said the ruling confirmed what she intended the law to do.

“Medical freedom, the right to make one’s own medical choices, is such a sacred and basic human right it astounds me that anyone could see otherwise,” Manookian told The Defender.

She said the law “protects an individual from public and private actors bullying, coercing and intruding into their personal and private medical choices or punishing them for their choices.”

Manookian also said she was “delighted that the federal court interpreted the law … as a safeguard against overreach” by government and private actors, including daycares.

‘A daycare does not’ make medical decisions

Idaho Attorney General Raúl Labrador, whose office defended the law, said the ruling confirms that parents — not businesses — are in charge of their children’s health.

“Parents make medical decisions for their children. A daycare does not,” Labrador said in a Sept. 22 statement. “The Legislature protected that choice in the Medical Freedom Act, and the court upheld it.”

Labrador added that daycares can continue telling parents what they believe about vaccines and health, but “they cannot turn a child away because of a parent’s medical decision.”

The attorneys representing Le Soleil Child Care LLC and the parents said they may appeal.

“Our clients are obviously disappointed by the district court’s ruling and the narrow manner in which it interpreted the right at issue,” attorney Andrea Carone said in a statement to the Idaho Statesman.

Carone argued that the law leaves daycares unable to take what the plaintiffs consider “reasonable steps” to protect children from diseases that vaccines can prevent. She called it “a clear public health issue” that the Idaho Legislature must address.

Parents don’t have ‘right to compel a third party to conform’ to their views

The Idaho Medical Freedom Act prohibits businesses, schools and government entities from requiring specified medical interventions as a condition of receiving services, employment or access to certain facilities.

The lawsuit centered in part on what the law means by a “medical intervention.” The law defines the term as a medical procedure, treatment, device, drug injection, medication or medical action used to diagnose, prevent or cure disease, or to alter a person’s health or biological function.

Le Soleil argued that definition was so broad that it could cover routine health and safety practices, including handwashing and sending sick children home. Brailsford rejected that interpretation.

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Another Incredible Win Against the Covid Tyrants: New Jersey Jury Delivers Unanimous 8–0 Verdict for Christian Groundskeeper Fired Over a Religious Exemption — Awarded $671,000

A New Jersey jury just delivered a message that the Democrat machine in Essex County did not want to hear.

On Friday, an Essex County jury returned a unanimous 8–0 verdict for Theodore “Teddy” DeBlasio, a longtime groundskeeper at Essex County Hospital Center who was fired after the county denied his religious exemption from the COVID-19 vaccine mandate.

The panel awarded him more than $670,000 for economic and emotional harm. Attorneys’ fees are still to come. Punitive damages are next.

Attorney John D. Coyle of Coyle Law Group called it New Jersey’s first jury verdict in a COVID-19 religious exemption case.

DeBlasio, raised Catholic and now a Christian, objected to taking a shot tested or developed using aborted fetal cell lines. That is a sincerely held religious belief millions of Americans share. Essex County treated it like a punchline.

According to trial evidence cited by Coyle Law Group, in February 2022 the county denied every religious exemption request submitted by Christian and Catholic employees, and approved every request submitted by Muslim employees.

Coyle put it bluntly on X:

“It was revealed at trial that Essex County denied each and every request from a Christian employee and granted every Muslim exemption. That isn’t an exaggeration.”

“Catholic groundskeeper could not safely test and mask but a Muslim NURSE could test and mask.”

“Essex County determined that Teddy DeBlasio—with the crown of thorns tattooed on his wrist to remind him to think of Jesus with his actions—did not have sincere beliefs but a Muslim employee who photocopied another Muslim’s exemption, did.”

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New York Teen Forced Out of School After Judge Denies Medical Exemption

A senior at a New York high school can no longer attend class as of today, after a federal judge declined to extend a medical exemption from the school’s vaccine mandates for the current school year.

Last year, U.S. District Judge Gary Brown of the Eastern District of New York ordered a New York school district to allow Sarah Doe, who had obtained a medical exemption, to attend high school during the 2025-2026 school year.

But in a ruling issued late Wednesday in Jane Doe v. Oceanside Union Free School District, Brown denied the renewed medical exemption request for the 2026-2027 school year.

Last year, Brown granted an emergency preliminary injunction allowing Sarah to attend 11th grade without receiving the third dose of the hepatitis B (Hep B) vaccine — the only recommended shot she hadn’t taken at the time — because her severe reactions to previous doses had left her sick and disabled.

When the lawsuit was filed, at least six treating physicians certified to the school district that Sarah could be harmed by taking the shot, according to court documents. The district nonetheless repeatedly denied her exemption requests. Since then, more doctors have affirmed that assessment.

Brown said last year’s decision rested in part on a physician’s report that Sarah experienced an anaphylactic reaction to an earlier dose, and evidence she had received the first two doses and had some immunity.

Brown also based his previous decision on an appeals court precedent stating that there had never been definitive proof that hepatitis B could be transmitted through “non-parenteral” routes like saliva — meaning passed in ways not transmitted through blood or broken skin.

After attending school last year under the court order, Sarah applied for a medical exemption from the Hep B vaccine and also the second meningococcal vaccine required for this school year.

The school district again denied her request. Sarah’s lawyers responded by filing an emergency motion seeking a new court order allowing her to return to school this year.

Explaining his latest decision, Brown said this year’s circumstances were “substantially different.” This year, Sarah would be attending school without two of the mandated vaccines, instead of one. And, he said, there was insufficient medical evidence showing that she could not receive the meningococcal vaccine.

“At the end of the day, Sarah is a child who just wants to go to school,” her attorney, Sujata Gibson, told The Defender.

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Army flight surgeon drops bombshell: 29 troop deaths after COVID shot, 55,000 adverse-events, and 2,500 death files now under review

A bombshell sworn declaration filed in federal court is raising new questions about the Biden-era COVID-19 vaccine mandate imposed on America’s military.

According to TrialSite News, Army Lt. Col. Theresa Long, a retired Army flight surgeon now serving as senior medical military adviser to Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and reporting to War Secretary Pete Hegseth, filed a sworn declaration in Adirim v. U.S. Central Intelligence Agency et al., in the Eastern District of Virginia.

Long told the court she has firsthand knowledge of more than 29 service-member deaths after COVID-19 vaccination and that she has been tasked with examining roughly 55,000 military-linked adverse-event reports, including 2,544 death reports in the federal Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS).

“I have first hand knowledge of over 29 deaths of servicemembers after vaccination with the COVID-19 vaccines. I am currently tasked with investigating the 55,000 vaccine adverse event reports filed on individuals identified as members of the U.S. Armed Forces, this includes 2544 deaths.

“As the first aviation brigade surgeon I had one servicemember die of rapid onset and progression of esophageal cancer after COVID vaccination and one in which a student pilot who had never been COVID positive, who experienced sudden cardiac death at the controls of a helicopter during a training flight.

“An independent cardiologist evaluated all imaging, labs and history on the student pilot and determined that myocardial injury secondary to the COVID-19 vaccines was the most likely cause.

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Ohio Schools Can Send Unvaccinated Kids Home for 25 Days — Even If They’re Not Sick

Ohio’s new policy forcing healthy, unvaccinated children out of school for 21 to 25 days after a confirmed case of measles or rubella is drawing fire from parents, lawyers and scientists.

Critics say the policy isn’t needed to protect public health, it could harm children and it may be illegal.

The policy, part of a public health order signed in February by Ohio Department of Public Health (ODH) Director Bruce Vanderhoff, is enforceable even if the unvaccinated student shows no signs of illness or infection.

The policy also applies whenever a mumps or chickenpox outbreak occurs — and it extends to sports and extracurricular activities, not just classroom attendance.

The 21-to-25-day quarantine resets every time a new case or outbreak is reported at the student’s school.

Jeffrey Tucker, president and founder of the Brownstone Institute, called the policy “cruel and discriminatory” and a violation of the rights of children and their parents or guardians.

“If the policy is to protect the unvaccinated children, the parents should be the ones to decide,” Tucker said.

Karl Jablonowski, Ph.D., senior research scientist for Children’s Health Defense (CHD), said the “contrast between medical freedom and medical tyranny is blatant” in the policy, which he said “discriminates against people based on medical choice … with zero evidence that they pose a risk.”

Policy could lead to ‘serious risk of vaccine injury’

Ohio’s school vaccine mandates require students to receive routine childhood vaccinations for 10 diseases: diphtheria, hepatitis B, measles, meningococcal, mumps, pertussis (whooping cough), polio, rubella, tetanus and varicella (chickenpox).

Earlier this month, Ohio school districts sent letters to parents warning that children who haven’t received two doses of the measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccine will be “excluded from school” for 21 days whenever the school confirms a measles case.

According to the policy, any vaccine doses children received five or more days before the minimum interval or age are “invalid” — so those students are classified as unvaccinated and required to be re-vaccinated.

That could put those children “at serious risk of vaccine injury,” according to Ohio Advocates for Medical Freedom, which called for the “immediate repeal” of the policy.

In a letter to leaders and members of the Ohio Senate and House of Representatives, the group said Ohio’s policy amounts to a “coercion tactic to bully parents into submitting to vaccination against their conscience out of desperation.”

Most families will be unable to find solutions to keep their unvaccinated children at home for several weeks or months, the letter noted.

Leslie Manookian, president of the Health Freedom Defense Fund, agreed that the policy appears deliberately designed to “coerce busy parents into vaccinating their children so they won’t be excluded from attending school and any school-related activities.”

However, Manookian questioned whether the policy will change the minds of parents who have chosen not to vaccinate their kids.

“This policy misses a larger point, which is that many parents would prefer to take the risk of their child contracting measles than to subject their child to the potential risk of the measles vaccines,” she said.

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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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