A student at Union College was unenrolled and forced to leave the campus in upstate New York after she refused to take a COVID-19 booster shot. The pre-med biology and Spanish language student suffered severe adverse reactions after receiving the first series of Pfizer/BioNTech COVID shots in the fall.1
Sophomore Ellie Puentes is a first-generation student who attended Union College on academic scholarship. Puentes received the first set of COVID vaccines when the college required the shots in order to attend school. Immediately afterwards, Puentes suffered from sharp adnominal pain landing her in a hospital emergency room for hours. She still suffers from constant nausea, vomiting, chest pains and shortness of breath.2
Puentes said:
Just the other day I wake up randomly just puking and I don’t know what the cause of that is, and then on top of that, I have shortness of breath. I can’t work out like I used to. I’m getting chest pains where this never happened prior to the vaccine. And I don’t know what’s going on! “The puking happens more often than I would say the diarrhea and the shortness of breath. … I get these sharp pains in my chest and even my immune system, I believe, has just gone down. I’ve been more sick than I’ve ever been.3
College Rejects Medical Exemption to COVID Booster
When the college recently announced that boosters would be mandatory, Puentes e-mailed the school explaining her situation and the severe adverse reactions she had to the first series of COVID shots and asked to speak to the administrative staff in person about this issue. That request was denied, and Puentes was expelled from school and ordered to leave campus via e-mail. [4] The school refused a letter from Puentes long-time doctor who stated the COVID vaccine booster shot was “ill-advised”5 as well as the paperwork she received from the hospital after her visit post COVID vaccination.6
The letter Puentes’ doctor sent to the college read in part…
Ms. Puentes is a 20-year-old who has had severe, prolonged symptoms since receiving her COVID vaccines…She missed one week of school after the shot…it is my opinion that Ms. Puentes be granted an exception from receiving the booster COVID vaccine. She currently is in an unfavorable state of health, presumably caused by the vaccine itself and getting the vaccine is ill advised.7
Despite Union College purportedly allowing exemptions to vaccination for approved medical and religious reasons, the doctor’s letter was ignored by college officials.8
Both Puentes’ doctor and the doctors in the emergency room diagnosed her with gastritis. However, Union College denied that gastritis could be an adverse reaction to the shot. The school nurse told her to just get Moderna’s Spikevax COVID biologic this time, which uses the same messenger RNA (mRNA) technology as Pfizer/BioNtech Comirnaty COVID biologic, if she was concerned about the reactions she had to Comirnaty.9
Pfizer/BioNTech Confirms Reaction Was Likely from COVID Shot
Undeterred, Puentes reached out to Pfizer to inquire whether her severe symptoms could be due to the vaccines she was forced to get to attend college. Puentes said Pfizer confirmed her fears stating, “They confirmed that the symptoms I’m having could be or are related to the vaccine because they have seen others with the same reactions.”10
Union College officials discounted the vaccine manufacturer’s confirmation that other people were diagnosed with gastritis like Puentes and that her symptoms were likely from the Comirnaty vaccine. Puentes was denied a medical exemption to the COVID vaccine requirement and she was expelled from school.11
The school’s actions are not supported by government policy as the federal health officials consider individuals, who have received the initial two dose series of COVID shots, to be fully vaccinated and they have not changed the definition of “fully vaccinated” to include booster doses. However, despite the federal government stance, Union College is not alone in demanding receipt of COVID booster doses. A number of private businesses and schools are mandating the COVID booster shot as proof a person is “fully vaccinated.” New York University, Harvard, Princeton, Yale, the University of Notre Dame, the University of Michigan and Northwestern are among the other universities that require a COVID booster for attendance.12 13
Puentes’ friends started a GoFundMe account to help her pay for the remaining weeks she had on campus and to raise money for a lawyer.14 GoFundMe, an online fund raising platform, shut Puentes’ account down silencing her friends’ efforts to help the young college student.15>
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Click here to view References:1 Trigoso E. Union College Student Booted for Rejecting Vaccine Booster After Having Serious Side Effects. The Epoch Times May 3, 2022.
2 Ibid.
3 Ibid.
4 Ibid.
5 Schmidt D. EXCLUSIVE: Union College Sophomore Gets Expelled for Refusing Booster Shot, Despite Her Doctor Saying Her Getting Booster Is ‘Ill-Advised’. Chicago Thinker Apr. 28, 2022.
6 Schwartz I. Ellie Puentes: Union College Kicked For Out For Not Taking Booster After Adverse Reaction To Vaccine. RealClear Politics May 7, 2022.
7 Schmidt D. EXCLUSIVE: Union College Sophomore Gets Expelled for Refusing Booster Shot, Despite Her Doctor Saying Her Getting Booster Is ‘Ill-Advised’. Chicago Thinker Apr. 28, 2022.
8 Ibid.
9 Trigoso E. Union College Student Booted for Rejecting Vaccine Booster After Having Serious Side Effects. The Epoch Times May 3, 2022.
10 Ibid.
11 Schwartz I. Ellie Puentes: Union College Kicked For Out For Not Taking Booster After Adverse Reaction To Vaccine. RealClear Politics May 7, 2022.
12 Durkee A. Booster Still Not Required To Be ‘Fully Vaccinated,’ CDC Says. Forbes Jan. 5, 2022.
13 Miller K. Some Colleges Are Now Requiring COVID-19 Boosters. Verywell Health Dec. 22, 2021.
14 Trigoso E. Union College Student Booted for Rejecting Vaccine Booster After Having Serious Side Effects. The Epoch Times May 3, 2022.
15 Schwartz I. Ellie Puentes: Union College Kicked For Out For Not Taking Booster After Adverse Reaction To Vaccine. RealClear Politics May 7, 2022.
17 Responses
This is criminal–so much for American medicine. It must be a lousy medical school, too. Are there any med schools and/or colleges not being so reactionary? As a Naturopath and a former pre-med who didn’t make the quota for females in med school many years ago, I would like to meet her to offer some support.
STAND YOUR GROUND!
God is with you all the way!
Freedom of Vaccination Choice NO . . . MATTER . . . WHAT!
Just another reason to use Bitcoin for politically unpopular causes like this poor girls’ case.
I am amazed that Pfizer would admit that their vaccine could cause any side effects. Especially in light of this, the college should have zero case to throw this student out. People who are fully vaxxed are still getting sick, and hospitalized, and the vaccine is by no means complete insurance against contracting, or spreading, covid. So there is no reason for any organization to insert themselves into anyone’s medical decisions. This madness has got to stop!
Sorry, I know I am preaching to the choir here..
This is absolutely infuriating! What can we do to support this poor student and others like her?
She should try the FLCCC for help or react 19
How much were these colleges paid to FORCE this on students?
Have her reach out to the Alliance Defending Freedom, they will often take cases probono.
[email protected]
© 2022 Alliance Defending Freedom
15100 N. 90th Street, Scottsdale, Arizona 85260
providing an option is one, but mandating a healthy kid who proved to have side effects is way beyond.
According to your article Union College is in New York State, a part of the United States. I question your use of the brand name Comirnaty being applied to this woman’s situation. Comirnaty is not available in the United States. Ah, but the EUA vaccine is the same thing as Comirnaty, say the soothsayers. No, it’s not. I recently asked a local pharmacist (in Arizona) if he had Comirnaty available for vaccinations. His reply: What is Comirnaty? He didn’t know what it was. Since it’s not available in the US, his ignorance is understandable. The reason it’s not available is LIABILITY. The vaccines being used in the US are only authorized under an Emergency Use Authorization, which allows the manufactures freedom from liability. Comirnaty, on the other hand, is fully approved by the FDA (though intentionally not available in the US) and does subject the manufacturer to liability for harm done by its product. Most of the rest of the world has moved on, but the US is delaying cancellation of the “emergency” in order to keep using the EUA vaccines with no manufacturer liability. Actually, the reason there is such a push to get children EUA vaccinated is to get the vaccine on the required vaccination list for children. Why? Because vaccines on this list are also liability-free.
I was aware universities would mandate Covid vaccine in order to enroll classes, but I wasn’t aware they also mandate booster shot. That’s beyond outrageously sickening. My heart goes out to Ellie Puentes, I’m sure she’s not alone. So sad she’s been going through severe adverse reaction from Covid vaccine. That’s a crime to deny her medical exemption.
Instead of funding a layer her friends should discontinue going to a school that requires dangerous medical procedure .
A degree from Union universe show compliance not wisdom or intelligence.
Shamefull. It’s like the law of the jungle. So her life doesn’t matter. Seems like they want her to suffer further?
I wouldn’t trust Go Fund Me. They’re very political. GiveSendGo is a better option.
People are so clueless about the corruption, until it happens to them. Then like moths to a flame, they walk down well tread avenues with an idea of activism and reform, only to be seen coming a mile away and stopped with the same old tricks. Welcome to the joys of socialism as you’re slowly conditioned to look the other way and deal with an increasing volume of heavy handed edicts commands and new societal standards.
But what’s new? This has been the game for generations. Big pharma has been running big medical education for a very long time already. Anyone whom resists has already long since lost this battle, they just don’t know it yet. We can see this discrimination standing by and ready to be applied on a moments notice, and we can see this a mile away. Which is why it’s damned near impossible to get into advanced medicine degrees without a vaccine in the first place. No, I do not feel sorry for the student whom tried to comply but it did not work out for her. What about the rest of us whom were stopped at the door because we simply opted out of all vaccinations on principal? We’ve been getting denied access for a very long time. So have our children from a very broad range of youth activities they’d like to participate in. Fundraising support DENIED on this one. If you’d care to recommend a higher education community whom accepts students whom never receives vaccines, we’re all ears. Looking for RN but I’d bet it’s even more difficult for MD’s. Anyone have a pitchfork I can borrow?
? COVID ?!
COVID has mutations and is less dangerous then ?.
No one should get COVID ? under current conditions.
Schools don’t have the authority to mandate vaccinations, especially experimental treatments. I know the world has become insane. It is clear that the rule of law, like informed consent, is scoffed at by those in authority.
Here we see a school forbidding a student from following sound medical advice.
If a patient develops swelling, redness, and itching around the head, neck, and shoulders which intensifies after the second dose, they should stop taking the medicine and contact their physician.
But they should apparently avoid any doctor that graduated from Union College as they might insist that the patient take a third dose.