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 […]
The cell phones of tens of millions of Americans were tracked by U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) officials, who used location data to ensure compliance with COVID-19 lockdowns and vaccination campaigns according to Vice, which was able to obtain internal documents through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).1 The CDC used the […]
Robert M. Califf, MD was confirmed by the U.S. Senate to be commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) by a vote of 50-46 on Feb. 15, 2022. Dr. Califf’s financial ties to the pharmaceutical industry was cited by some Senators as a reason they could not support his appointment. Similar concerns were expressed […]
In April 2021, the Biden administration made an announcement that the federal government would not be mandating a vaccine passport system in the United States. White House press secretary Jen Psaki stated: Let me be very clear on this, I know there’s been lots of questions. The government is not now, nor will we be, […]
Many workers in the United States have been fired from their jobs in recent months for not complying with employer COVID-19 vaccine requirements.1 2 3 Every state has its own eligibility guidelines for unemployment benefits. The benefits are generally available to those people who are unemployed due to circumstances beyond their control, such as a […]
On Jan. 4, 2022, one of the top ranked hospitals in United States, Mayo Clinic, terminated 700 of its employees for refusing to get COVID-19 vaccinations. The 700 terminated employees represent approximately one percent of the hospital’s workforce.1 The hospital issued the following statement: While final numbers are still not available, nearly 99% of staff […]
Opinion | As the concept of vaccine certificates began tickling the fancy of certain segments of the public last spring and summer, opponents reliably invoked Orwell in response to what came to be called “freedom passports,” “green passes,” or other such cute names. The public intellectual that came to my mind, though, was Marshall McLuhan. […]
Opinion | Increasingly, vaccination is no longer a matter of choice. Hundreds, perhaps thousands, of workplaces and schools are instituting COVID-19 vaccine mandates, with more expected following formal FDA licensure of the vaccines. But mandating people and their children who have consciously chosen not to get vaccinated—a group that tends to be younger, less educated, […]
A judge in Cook County, Illinois took away a mother’s parental visitation rights to see her 11-year-old son when he learned that she did not get the COVID-19 vaccine. The mother, Rebecca Firlit said that the judge, James Shapiro told her she could not see her son until she received the COVID-19 vaccine.1 Firlit and […]
The National Football League (NFL) has announced they will enforce strict new COVID vaccination, masking and testing rules this football season due to the availability of experimental COVID-19 vaccines, which are currently being distributed under an Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) granted by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. The NFL lost an estimated three to […]