George Mason professor wins Covid antibody lawsuit as vaccine exemption
nclalegal.org
nclalegal.org
So now we can refuse service to someone with a tattoo we dislike, but not because they're unvaccinated? We don't deserve to survive as a species if we're that fucking dumb.
[0] https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:AHnJsx...
Basically, if we let a pandemic kill millions because a fetish for personal choice prevents us from doing what's necessary to prevent it, we're too fucking stupid to survive as a species. That doesn't have to mean going to door-to-door with guns and needles; getting to the critical mass we need just means refusing to let the stupidly unvaccinated into a variety of public venues like airplanes and universities long enough to make them get the vaccine.
You shouldn't be able to spread a virus to others without consequences if there is a low risk way to completely eliminate that chance. Bodily autonomy is not an excuse to prolong a deadly pandemic especially because in this instance, this type of bodily autonomy doesn't come without large measurable consequences to society at large.
There’s no obvious way to draw a line, but you definitely need one.
That's why you look at the magnitude of the effect, not just the direction of the effect. Not all slopes are slippery. Our legal system does not collapse as soon as it is tasked with determining which harm is more important to prevent.
No, it just sucks at drawing lines and harms thousands if not millions of innocent bystanders.
To be honest, IMHO both smoking tobacco and sports that cause a lot of concussions (eg. Rugby, American Football) are not going to last in the long term, or become marginal not mainstream activities.
This might involve legislative pressures on them, as well as a decline in social acceptance. In the case of Tobacco, we see this drop well advanced already. This is no bad thing, considering the outcomes from these activities.
Likewise with smoking.
But neither of those activities has that level of impact on public health. So, the measures to be taken to curtail that kind of activity likewise should not be as strong.
But COVID is that bad. So, yes — vaccinations should be mandatory. Masking in public should be mandatory. At least, until the pandemic is over and we have sterilizing vaccines as well as medications that are proven to help cure the disease. And yes, this period could last years.
And if you don’t want to be vaccinated and you don’t want to wear a mask in public, then you don’t have to go out into public. You can stay home. And if you want to violate that rule too, then we should be able to lock you up in a COVID hotspot jail.
I'm in agreement with you on COVID and the necessary public health measures during an active pandemic.
I'm 100% for vaccine mandates iff vaccines significantly reduce R0.
I'm 100% against them if they do not. Once my vaccination stops affecting the public health, it's my choice.
Banning unsafe things IS a mistake. Yes, I ought to be able to sword fight on a tightrope with sharp swords and no protection over a pit of alligators, if I decide that's what I want to do.
If that's the concern, then triage the unvaccinated COVID19 patients last. But in the long term, capacity expands to meet demand, and it's perfectly okay to change insurance premiums for anti-vaxers, smokers, or otherwise (or sword fighting over a pit of crocodiles, for that matter).
This is an ethics violation.
I don't really get your argument on risk. Non-vaccinated people with natural acquired immunity each got their special card rights by having caused a definite risk to everyone because they computed potential mutations perpetuating the pandemic and most likely perpetuated them. We have too high a population compared to 1918 to even have a that rough equivalent of what happens with a new virus in a pool of any more than 2 billion who aren't vaccinated.
All I hear when I hear anti-vax arguments is a freeloader who refers to natural things that are completely unrelated to the life science is letting them live. If you don't like artificial vaccination, you need to propose how you want to lower the population to pre-science era levels.
In this case, if you choose not to get the vaccine and then through contact tracing or some other mechanism an outbreak is traced to you when you could have gotten a vaccine? Assault sounds correct to me and if you killed someone through inaction, then something equivalent to negligent homicide sounds correct to me. You're not necessarily malicious but I'd say fairly negligent.
Not that that's what is currently the case, but it seems fair to me and in that world, rolling the dice on criminal charges instead of just getting a vaccine that 169million people in US alone currently have taken with no issue seems like a dumb dice roll to me, but most people have steadily proven to me over the last few years that they're not great at risk calculation over and under.
The numbers still work that we should get vaccinated, but it’s unclear if people who have the worst side effects from the vaccine would be the same ones who would have suffered the worst effects of COVID (death).
So I get it - if you’re young, healthy, and unlikely to die from COVID, it is a non-zero (very, very small) risk from talking the vaccine. But I still think people should get the shot.
There seems to me to be a gap between what people think is happening, and what is actually happening. How exactly are people who haven't tested positive for Covid (either through a negative result, or simply avoiding testing altogether) going to be identified as the source of an outbreak if they're also not engaging in contact tracing in the first place?
As it stands, it seems to me like the most likely people to be contact traced are those who are also testing regularly, and are also the most likely to be vaccinated. I would be surprised if non-vaccinated people are anything but rarely identified as the source of an outbreak, precisely because they're also much less likely to ever get tested (unless seriously ill) or engage in contact tracing.
People want bodily autonomy.
People want to be free of the 2nd order harms of the medical decisions others make.
Private institutions. George Mason University is a public school and the situation for this professor is actually the exact opposite of what you seem to be claiming here.
If en employee there notified them that they had been infected with a highly infectious disease (think smallpox) and still wanted to go to work, would they have a right to deny that person? If so, what specifically constrains them in a situation like this that wouldn't in a situation like that?
Would you deny a person entrance to your building because they weren't vaccinated against Ebola or rabies?
Why the different answers?
For example, I generally support laws that let people go topless or nude in public. But I’m okay with places banning people due to clothing choices… like all white conical hoods.
That’s absolutely not new in any way? Public health has always been a force majeure trigger.
> Why is one of those OK and the other isn’t?
They’re not, but it can be quite difficult to impossible to push back against religious communities as they’ve managed to carve out lots of assumptions that you’re supposed to respect whatever they choose out of nowhere.
Non-COVID vaccinations are not the same thing here. The typical American booster shots are administered far, _far_ less frequently. They don't require yearly (or every 6mo) shots to be effective.
These non-COVID vaccinations also don't require me to, say, not participate in society (per the recent vaccine mandates in swaths of Western Europe). As for schools, I knew many kids whose parents chose not to get them vaccinated when I was growing up. It was tougher to get those exemptions at the University level, but still not impossible. The way these vaccination rules are playing out, thus far anyway, are trying to make it impossible to not be vaccinated no matter what the reason. Nobody cares what your reason is, even if its medically related. [0]
Also of note is that those non-COVID vaccinations work really really well. The COVID vaccinations are far less effective, as the increasing rates in places like Israel or Gibralter show. It should be noted that, at least thus far, its better to be vaccinated than non-vaccinated as the former are less likely to have severe symptoms battling the disease. But these are hardly the polio vaccine, _at least not yet_ as a better vaccine may come along.
[0]: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9806345/Incoming-fr...
Vaccinating someone who has already had covid is thornier and less clear. Medically it is certainly advisable a rerun isn't always mild and studies have shown individuals who are previously infected have twice the chance of reinfection compared to those who are also vaccinated.
The chance of misadventure from being vaccinated is fantastically low and the risk of reinfection while a lot smaller than in a naive individual is a long way from zero. I have substantial doubts regarding any immunologist would say
>and that it violates medical ethics to order unnecessary procedures.
Unless he had been in a coma and had just woken up yesterday.
What he is fighting for then is the right to undertake a course of action that is both meritless and brainless but I don't think we have a right to protect him from himself so the problem becomes is he risking others to an unacceptable degree. I'd say no. If he becomes infected he could infect others including the ample unvaccinated so he IS risking others by his actions but the risk is probably at this juncture small although this could change and he would be stupid to delay.
Importantly the test needs to be one with an acceptably low false positive rate performed by a legitimate lab. Not a self test for practical purposes lest people find a way to foul the test (see the soda issue where kids found out that an acidic liquid led to a positive test) or sell each other spit over the internet or something equally stupid.
The two most obvious examples are drug usage and abortion.
Why do we accept that but are suddenly outraged by vaccination? Vaccination mandates aren't new either: many countries will not even let you enter unless you are vaccinated against yellow fever.
I think there are valid arguments opposing vaccine mandates but the "this is an unprecedented infringement on freedom" isn't one of them.
You're only applying this argument in one direction, but it works in both directions. Most people who want the vaccine to be mandatory disagree with the state restricting drug usage and abortion. If you disagree with some policy and want to get it overturned, it seems wrong to try to use it as precedent to set new policies in the meantime.
What I don't like is the pretence that this is suddenly a brand new unprecedented invasion on privacy. It builds outrage and fear off the idea what the state is doing is completely unprecedented. However, that's not entirely true. That's what I find intellectually dishonest.
Fair, although there is one other angle from which I think this is unprecedented: aren't those other restrictions all things that you can't do, with this being the first one that's something that you have to do? For example, consider freedom of speech. Exceptions that compel speech are much rarer than exceptions that prohibit speech.
This is like the train trolley: where you can either phrase it as doing nothing, or pushing a lever. People apply much more stringent moral codes when there is action involved, or even when the fat man is actually pushed by hand.
I think this is coming into conflict with rising a utilitarism and consequentialist ethical worldview in the united states. Neither system is perfet, but one challenge of the consequentialist worldview is that it holds people accountable for sub-optimal behavior. (e.g. it is murder to not pull the lever, or not donate to save that starving child in Africa).
Without getting too off track, I think the conflict between these two ethical views is a big driver of the tone of discusource and current ideological conflicts in the US, be it public health, racical justice, and the role of the government.
First it's easy to turn it around, it seems wrong to shout now about "infringing my freedom" if you have been pushing to infringe other people's freedom for a long time (I'd say most antivaxers are conservatives at the moment).
And second is that people oppose restricting drug use and abortion for other reasons than simply it is telling someone what to do or not do with their body.
BTW there are many other examples so it's just plain stupid to argue telling me what to do with my body is wrong on principle.
We're certainly not "suddenly outraged by vaccination". In fact, vaccines and anti-vaccine sentiment have historically gone hand in hand[1]. The historical reaction to vaccines _is_ worsened when mandated. The Anti-Compulsory Vaccination League was formed in 1866 in reaction to the British compulsory vaccination order for smallpox.[2] Would smalpox have been eliminated if people could have chosen for themselves?
[1] https://www.historyofvaccines.org/index.php/content/articles... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Anti-Vaccination_Leag...
In regards to drugs - I think any sort of government interference is horribly wrong. Likewise, if I want to kill myself, that's on me.
Firstly, the US has always granted special exceptions to religion for many public policy requirements. You can complain about how it's unfair, but it's likely that the public needle of opinion won't budge past a threshold within this lifetime.
Secondly, there have already been widespread medical requirements for all sorts of aspects of public life, and this hasn't been controversial. Immigrants are required to be immunized. Churches may require missionaries to be immunized. Schools may require children to be immunized.
At least since Jacobson v. Massachusetts (1905).
> granted special exceptions
This podcast: https://www.npr.org/2021/08/12/1027132680/can-the-government... explained the "religious exception" quite well.
My paraphrasing is horrible, but the gist was something like: "religion has a sort of 'most favored' status, so if there's ever a secular exception to a rule, there must also be a religious exception".
Personally, I think that's absurd, but I'm less upset about it after hearing the explanation. I highly recommend listening to the 18 minute episoide.
You aren't required to get immunized for H1B and a number of other visas, but for green card (aka permanent resident card), you are absolutely required to get a general medical exam + screen for TB + get up to date on all your vaccinations. You need to do it shortly before the green card interview, because you are expected to bring those papers with you for the interview.
Every day, we all make tradeoffs as part of the price to pay for living in society. This is not a new thing. (and I assert it's counterproductive and anti-social behavior (harmful to society, the opposite of pro-social, not meaning "introverted") to assert that it is.)
I can't build a DIY rocket powered car and drive it around town. It might hurt people, regardless of my intentions or competence.
I can't even drive a store bought car without a drivers license. It might hurt people, regardless of my intentions or competence.
I can't open a restaurant and sell food without some sort of license/permit from the city. It might hurt people, regardless of my intentions or competence.
(I recently learned the hard way that) I can't even build a new wall in my home without having the design approved and permitted. It might hurt people, regardless of my intentions or competence.
I can't attend school (public or private) without DTaP, Polio, and MMR vaccines, making it a de facto requirement of life.
These are all restrictions on personal liberty that we accept up as part of the social contract.
And yet, somehow, there is this (literally!) sickening idea going around that it's a "new thing" to require _this specific_ vaccine. Considering the fact that we know that being un-vaccinated will eventually hurt people (by increasing transmission, and hastening the onset of a disastrous mutation), I'm terrified and enraged that it's not being treated similarly to driving drunk.
> These are all restrictions on personal liberty that we accept up as part of the social contract
Historically it had been trivially easy to fill out a form and go to public school without vaccines everywhere I've lived.
The purpose of the form is to know who to send home from school if there is a break out of a disease that is relevant to those who choose not to vaccinate. A very accommodating position.
This policy is now potentially being changed to hard requirements with no escape valve for good or ill. It is factually incorrect to say it had always been this way. This is a material change to policy, fights in legislatures about vaccine mandates have been brewing for at least two decades that I have seen. You can expect a lot of lawsuits and legislative battles along these lines as well.
I can't rely on my naturally acquired immunity with 80+> efficacy instead of a vaccine with 90% efficacy to go to work. It might hurt people, regardless of my intentions or competence.
The CDC claims being unvaccinated was associated with 2.34 times the odds of reinfection compared with being fully vaccinated. Most vaccines are 90+ effective. Say for example moderna is 95.3% effective, natural immunity would be 89% (100% - 4.7% x 2.34)
https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7032e1.htm
>Do they go into detail regarding how long the immunity lasts, and whether it covers varients?
There is a lot of information missing on duration, but we know people who were infected with SARS-CoV-1 still have antibodies 20 years later. Natural infection triggers an immune response on many more parts of the virus than the vaccine, so protection against variants should also be good or better than the original vaccine, but not better than a booster vaccine tailored specifically to a given variant.
Your statement is missing the sorely needed nuance that individuals with immunity acquired through natural infection are at least equally well protected as vaccinated individuals. That is the consensus in the scientific consensus literature right now.
This fact is the central argument of the lawsuit presented in the OP.
It's imperative to move beyond the dualistic framing of these discussions as "vaccinated versus unvaccinated". At this point it's borderline misinformation to continue with such rhetoic.
If you are a corporation or business, that is generally true. If you are using a conveyance in your personal capacity, then you are not regulated unless you voluntarily sign up to be licensed. Your choice.
"For while a citizen has the right to travel upon the public highways and to transport his property thereon, that right does not extend to the use of the highways...as a place for private gain. For the latter purpose, no person has a vested right to use the highways of this state, but it is a privilege...which the (state) may grant or withhold at its discretion..." State v. Johnson, 75 Mont. 240, 243 P. 1073 (1926)"
I don't have a drivers license. I always assumed driving a car without a license, registration, and proof of insurance was illegal and would get me in trouble. I admit, I didn't research this aspect before writing my above comment (tho I did research the vaccine requirements, my source is a government website).
Now I don't quite know what to think! Can I legally drive a car on public roads in California?
Religion exemptions exist only because of the political power of religious groups. They should be abolished.
Imagine of they required the guy to wear clothes or something ridiculous like that.
What do you think employment, literally, is? A gives B money and direct’s what B does (of necessity, with B’s body), both positively and negatively, within some agreed (mixed between explicit agreement and implicit agreement via governing law) parameters.
We regulate your ability to punch, to bite, and to infect. Simple as that.
And this last was formally established by the SCOTUS 116 years ago.
IMO the presented argument is valid and well supported scientifically and legally. It will be very interesting to see if this sets any precedent for other institutions.
> GMU and other universities must stop ignoring science and cease forcing mandatory vaccines on even those with naturally acquired immunity
> Strangely, despite solid scientific evidence, GMU continues to refuse to recognize that Covid-19 vaccination is medically unnecessary for ALL students, faculty, and staff with naturally acquired immunity demonstrated with antibody testing.
> NCLA filed Professor Zywicki’s complaint in the Eastern District of Virginia on August 3, 2021, challenging GMU’s “reopening policy.”
> The policy, announced June 28, requires all faculty and staff members, including those who can demonstrate natural immunity through recovery from a prior Covid-19 infection, to disclose their vaccination status as “a prerequisite for eligibility for any merit pay increases,” unless they obtain a religious or medical exemption.
> On July 22, GMU emailed the policy to students and employees and threatened disciplinary action—including termination of employment—against any who do not comply with the vaccine mandate.
> Prof. Zywicki’s immunologist, Dr. Hooman Noorchashm, has advised him that, based on his personal health and immunity status, it is medically unnecessary to get a Covid-19 vaccine—and that it violates medical ethics to order unnecessary procedures.
> As a result of the exemption it granted, GMU is permitting Prof. Zywicki to remain unvaccinated for medical reasons.
> "Nevertheless, NCLA remains dismayed by GMU’s refusal — along with many other public and private universities and other employers — to recognize that the science establishes beyond any doubt that natural immunity is as robust or more so than vaccine immunity.”
GMU maintained their policy that everyone must be vaccinated regardless of their antibody status.
Seems really strange.
> the Policy is unmistakably coercive and cannot reasonably be considered anything other than an unlawful mandate. And even if the Policy is not deemed coercive, it still represents an unconstitutional condition being applied to Professor Zywicki’s constitutional rights to bodily integrity and informed medical choice, respectively.
> GMU’s Policy infringes upon Professor Zywicki’s rights under the Ninth and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution
> In sum, the Policy violates both Professor Zywicki’s constitutional and federal statutory rights
Not sure what the downvotes are for folks, I'm just the messenger - leave a comment if you don't like what you're seeing here so we can at least discuss it.
[1] https://nclalegal.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/Zywicki-Com...
In the 19th century, yellow fever survivors were considered to be “acclimated citizens” who were more eligible for jobs, because the employer didn’t have to worry about them catching and dying of yellow fever. The position has historic precedence and seems to stand up, according to current scientists’ analysis of immunity after covid-19 infection being 80% or greater, similar to the J&J vaccine.
In the 21st century we have safe vaccines so if someone is not “acclimated” or immune to a virus, they can gain the status easily via a free and safe vaccine. This removes the problems.
In any case, the discussion here is not about immunity passports themselves. It’s about whether only a vaccine should count, or if proof of natural infection should also count as equivalent to a vaccine record.
It would be silly to risk altering one’s broad-based, naturally acquired immunity by taking an unnecessary vaccine dose. Just like no one got a chickenpox vaccine after contracting the disease there is no need to get a COVID vaccine after contracting the disease.
https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/vpd/shingles/public/shingrix/in...
Looks like the UK NHS recommends the shingles vaccine for all 70-79 year olds for instance. https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/vaccinations/shingles-vaccinat...
France recommends for ages 65 to 74 https://www.prnewswire.co.uk/news-releases/french-national-h...
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-021-01377-8/figures/1
"You get a broader immune response after being infected with the virus than vaccination.
Whether you've had Moderna or Pfizer or Oxford-AstraZeneca, your body is learning to spot just one thing - the spike protein.
This is the critical part of the virus to make antibodies to, and the results - by keeping most out of hospital - have been spectacular.
But having the other 28 proteins to target too, would give T-cells far more to go at."
Down-voted because this is misinformation.
First of all the citation you provided does not support your claim at all.
Second, a large body of literature suggests that vaccination and natural infection induce a robust and durable immune response that is mostly similar [1][2], but slightly different. One of the primary differences is that natural infection induces an immune response that includes nucleocapsid protein antibodies, whereas vaccination with the current spike protein focused mRNA vaccines does not [3]. Another significant difference is that vaccination induces an immune response that is more highly targeted toward the spike protein RBD compared to natural infection [4].
There is absolutely no scientific consensus that vaccination offers better protection than natural infection, or vice-versa. None of the papers cited in either of our comments make that claim.
[1] Longitudinal analysis shows durable and broad immune memory after SARS-CoV-2 infection with persisting antibody responses and memory B and T cells https://www.cell.com/cell-reports-medicine/fulltext/S2666-37...
[2] Rapid induction of antigen-specific CD4+ T cells is associated with coordinated humoral and cellular immune responses to SARS-CoV-2 mRNA vaccination https://www.cell.com/immunity/fulltext/S1074-7613(21)00308-3
[3] Distinct SARS-CoV-2 Antibody Responses Elicited by Natural Infection and mRNA Vaccination https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.04.15.440089v4
[4] Antibodies elicited by mRNA-1273 vaccination bind more broadly to the receptor binding domain than do those from SARS-CoV-2 infection https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34103407/
Yes [4] does kind of say that - but it does not claim that this provides better protection or benefits individual health outcomes.
Here are a few key nuances and limitations:
> We found that the specificity of the mRNA-1273 vaccine-induced RBD-binding antibody response often narrows over time. In contrast, the infection-elicited RBD-binding antibody response often broadens over time.
> Additionally, the overall antibody response is more homogeneous for vaccinated than convalescent individuals.
> another recent study suggests that mRNA vaccination elicits a different distribution of isotypes and fewer antibodies that cross-react to common-cold coronaviruses as compared to infection
> we did not examine effects of mutations or deletions to the N-terminal domain of the spike protein, which can also affect neutralization by vaccine sera.
> Our experiments assayed binding of antibodies to isolated RBD expressed by yeast, and so cannot capture mutational effects on trimer conformation or antibodies with quaternary epitopes
These nuances have implications for viral evolution, and are particularly important in the context of discussions around compulsory mass vaccination and vaccine resistance.
> Down voted because this is misinformation
I would hope you might agree that term is better reserved for bullshit conspiracy theories and not peer reviewed research published in one of the most cited journals in the world.
> the citation you provided does not support your claim
Upon re-reading the paper I still find that my claim is supported.
"Although antiviral T and B cell memory certainly contribute some degree of protection, strong evidence of a protective role for neutralizing serum antibodies exists. For example, passive transfer of neutralizing antibodies can prevent severe SARS-CoV-2 infection in multiple animal models,12,13 and Regeneron has recently reported similar data in humans14. We therefore focus our studies on in vitro virus neutralization titers reported in studies of vaccinated and convalescent cohorts"
"To compare neutralization titers across studies, we determined the mean and standard deviation (on a log scale) of the neutralization titer in published data from seven vaccine studies (mRNA-1273, NVX-CoV2373, BNT162b2, rAd26-S+rAd5-S, ChAdOx1 nCoV-19, Ad26.COV2.S and CoronaVac) and one convalescent study3,16,17,18,19,20,21,22"
" This model assumes that there is a protective neutralization level, T, above which individuals will be protected from infection and below which individuals will be susceptible. The protective efficacies observed in phase 3 clinical trials of vaccinated individuals (and another large cohort study of convalescent individuals1; "
[data shows higher level of neutralizing antibodies from four of the vaccines compared with convalescent studies]
It is possible -- even likely -- that I have misunderstood the paper. And both you and the paper I cited agree that more research is needed to establish the correlation between levels of neutralizing antibodies and protection from infection and disease. But my claim was _about_ the levels of neutralizing antibodies and as I understand it that claim is supported by the paper.