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Speaker 0 and Speaker 1 discuss a set of legal actions taken by Health Freedom Defense Fund against the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) over COVID-19 vaccination mandates.
- Health Freedom Defense Fund sued LAUSD in 2021 over an EUA vaccine mandate. They claim the district initially had a mandate, then appeared to repeal it, leading the court to dismiss that case as no longer ripe. Seventeen days after the dismissal, LAUSD implemented a new mandate stating employees could not test and subsequently fired a number of employees, with more than a thousand affected in total. Many faced loss of pensions, seniority, and employment.
- A second lawsuit was filed in November 2021 arguing that the vaccines do not stop transmission or infection, a position the group says was supported by statements from the CDC in 2021 and by CMS in October 2021. Based on this, they argued that the vaccines are a private matter and should be treated as therapeutic rather than a public health issue. They also asserted that natural immunity is real and that Jacobson v. Massachusetts does not apply because the smallpox vaccination was assumed to be safe and effective only under historical conditions, which they argue do not hold for COVID-19.
- The group reports strong initial success. Their argument won at first instance, and they achieved a favorable ruling on appeal before a three-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit. This led to an en banc review (broader panel) of the Ninth Circuit. Although typically taking many months, the en banc decision came after three months, and on July 31, the Ninth Circuit ruled against them. The court stated that what mattered was the existence of a public health emergency, rather than whether the vaccine stopped transmission or infection. The group contends this is a dangerous precedent and maintains that COVID-19 is not the same as smallpox, which had a 30 percent death rate; they reasoned that by August 2021, four percent of Los Angeles County residents had already been exposed and recovered, indicating the situation did not constitute the same emergency as smallpox.
- The group notes that an appeal to the Supreme Court may be possible, and they are considering pursuing it. They emphasize that the court’s decision focused on the public health emergency rather than vaccine effectiveness against transmission or infection, which they argue is a troubling position.
- The speakers discuss the potential implications and the perceived terrifying precedent, with the possibility of further appeals to higher courts being contemplated.