Against University Mandates
By Tiff Mumma
December 2022
In the recent push to vaccinate and then boost young people with the Covid-19 vaccines, many scientists have stepped forward to inform and discuss the various risks that are apparent in emerging data from the newly released clinical trials, post-marketing surveillance by governments, and the voluminous work of researchers around the globe. Everyday there appear to be more questions than there are answers about the safety and efficacy of these novel biologics. While young people in particular are at very low risk of hospitalization and death from SARS-CoV-2 infection, they are being denied education, jobs, and community when they refuse immunization or boosters with products that are new to human use and have not undergone long term safety studies. In a surprising turn from the black and white approach to Covid vaccination, several high-profile physicians are either refusing or delaying their own booster shots, most notably Paul Offit of Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. Offit is perhaps one of the most visible faces of vaccinology, having written several books on the topic, been an advisor to the CDC, and invented the rotavirus vaccine for children. In a statement to Medpage, Dr. Offit said:
I have received three doses of the ancestral strain vaccine and contracted a mild case of COVID in May. As a result, all the evidence suggests that I have high frequencies of virus-specific memory B and T cells, which should protect me against severe disease this winter.
I do not plan to get another dose of SARS-CoV-2 vaccines until it is clear that people who have been primed, boosted, and naturally infected are nonetheless at high risk of serious illness when encountering the virus.1
Despite being in a high-risk age group, Offit referenced his previous immunization and infection as reasons to trust his body’s ability to withstand future infection without severe disease. This comment follows on the heels of another statement Offit made regarding the lack of efficacy of the new bivalent boosters, and their not having been tested on humans prior to their rollout to the general public. If this CDC advisor is using a degree of caution, why shouldn’t young people who are at little to no risk from SAR-CoV-2 infection make the same choice?
The terms “safe” and “effective” have been used ad nauseum in the promotion of Covid-19 vaccines. Despite their repetition by the media and government regulatory agencies, these words were never accurate. As became obvious in the early months of 2021, what efficacy these immunizations had was limited in duration and did not translate well to variants, especially omicron. In fact, the shots have not been preventing infection or spread as the public was told they would. The viral load in the nasopharynx of vaccinated and unvaccinated persons was the same for the delta variant, and higher in the vaccinated for the omicron variant.23 This means that the vaccinated were spreading the virus as readily as the unvaccinated and even more so in the case of omicron. Rochelle Walensky, M.D, director of the CDC,
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1 https://www.medpagetoday.com/special-reports/exclusives/100665
2 Puhach, Olha et al. “Infectious viral load in unvaccinated and vaccinated individuals infected with ancestral, Delta or Omicron SARS-CoV-2.” Nature medicine vol. 28,7 (2022): 1491-1500. doi:10.1038/s41591-022-01816-0
3 Riemersma KK, Haddock LA III, Wilson NA, Minor N, Eickhoff J, et al. (2022) Shedding of infectious SARS-CoV-2 despite vaccination. PLOS Pathogens 18(9): e1010876. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.ppat.1010876
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stated publicly that these vaccines currently do not stop the spread of SARS-CoV-2.4 Worse yet, in recent testimony during a European Parliament Hearing, Janine Small, President of International Developed Markets for Pfizer/BioNTech (Pfizer), confirmed that the Pfizer vaccine had not been tested at all for its ability to stop person-to-person transmission of the SARS-CoV-2 virus prior to being authorized for use.5 Without efficacy at preventing infection or transmission, the justification for mandatory mass vaccination is moot from a public health perspective. Any benefit conferred with regard to the mitigation of severe disease is of personal benefit only.
The greater concern of safety was likewise never answered prior to the roll out of these biologics. Not only was there insufficient time to fully assess their safety profiles before initiating the vaccination program to proclaim said safety, but also the placebo cohort was vaccinated after only 40 days. In addition to being bad science, this act eliminated the ability to provide further comparisons within the context of the trial. Given the novelty of the vaccine technology and first use in humans, prudence would demand long term safety studies before mass vaccination, and those studies would require the continued presence of a placebo group. Similarly, no studies on the short or long-term effects on repeated vaccination with mRNA biologics or spike protein vaccines has been conducted. Despite this lack of evidence, boosters are being encouraged and touted as safe. What evidence there is for the minimal efficacy of boosters also shows that subsequent doses of the vaccines have rapidly waning effectiveness.6 Not surprisingly, a recent article in the Washington Post cited that the vaccinated now account for 58% of Covid deaths.7
As of December 7, 2022, over 700 million doses of Covid-19 vaccine have been administered in the United States, all under emergency use and none approved by the FDA.8 During the timeframe of the active vaccination campaign—December 2020-present—the U.S. has experienced an excess of mortality unrelated to Covid-19 disease. During that same time frame the CDC passive reporting system for vaccine adverse events (VAERS) has collected reports of over 32,000 deaths; 184,796 hospitalizations; 15,672 heart attacks; 41,623 severe allergic reactions; and 35,616 cases of myo/pericarditis from the collective Covid-19 vaccines.9 This list is by no means an exhaustive accounting of the number or variety of AEs reported. Extensive review of the VAERS system has shown that only a fraction of adverse events is reported using this system, and even still there are more reported AEs for these vaccines than there have been for all other vaccines combined in the last 3 decades.10
More alarmingly, v-safe data, retrieved through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), presents an even bleaker picture in some regards. Of the approximately 10 million vaccinees who signed up and used the v-safe app, 1.3 million missed work or school from vaccine adverse events and 800,000 required medical care following vaccination.11 Of those requiring medical care, 9.6% were hospitalized (76,800). The CDC has yet to release the information from the field that allows users to report symptoms
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5 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mnxlxzxoZx0
6 https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMc2211283
7 https://www.stripes.com/covid/2022-11-23/vaccinated-people-majority-covid-deaths-8165574.html
8 https://www.statista.com/statistics/1198516/covid-19-vaccinations-administered-us-by-company/
9 https://openvaers.com/covid-data
11 https://icandecide.org/article/v-safe/
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and diagnoses that are not listed in the general adverse events list. [It is worth noting that the general pre-populated list of AEs did not include the adverse events of interest as listed FDA’s CBER Surveillance Program.12 Therefore, the self-reported symptoms and diagnoses are especially important to transparency and informed consent.] At no point in modern history has the United States allowed a vaccine with such a record of AEs to remain in the market. For comparison, the swine flu vaccine of 1976 was pulled from the market after only 25 deaths and a little over 500 cases of Guillain-Barre syndrome.13
Of adverse events most concerning to the young, myo-/pericarditis stands out. Myocarditis is inflammation of the heart muscle. Pericarditis is inflammation of the heart lining. Myopericarditis is when both areas are inflamed. When the Covid-19 injections were first released, the public was told that the vaccine would stay localized in the deltoid muscle of the upper arm. Since that time, Pfizer and Moderna trial data, as well as independent data have shown that this is not the case. Rather, the vaccine contents travel throughout the body, concentrating in specific organs. When the mRNA contents enter the cells of those organs, they begin to produce spike protein, which then leaves the cells and travels the body attaching to areas of high ACE2 receptor population such as the vascular system—heart and blood vessels. The spike proteins stud these tissues causing the immune system to attack and kill, what were, normal, healthy cells. In addition to the destruction of heart and blood vessel cells, the immune system secretes various chemicals that initiate inflammation resulting in addition damage. Because the heart muscle does not regenerate, the damage done by these vaccines in these instances is permanent. For many, it accelerates existing heart disease causing severe cardiac events and death. In response to the “84% increase in the relative incidence of cardiac-related death” among the young, Florida Surgeon General, Joseph LaDapo, issued a statement advising young men between the ages of 18 and 39 to not get vaccinated with the Pfizer or Moderna vaccines.14
A Thai study from earlier this year corroborates the findings in Florida. In the 301 adolescent male participants, “cardiovascular manifestations were found in 29.24% of patients, ranging from tachycardia or palpitation to myopericarditis.”15 While there is conflicting evidence of myocarditis following natural infection with Covid-19, it is not appearing in the age group that is clearly being affected by post-vaccination cardiac illness, the young. A review of emergency services data from Israel shows a direct correlation between the number emergency calls for cardiac events in young adults (under 40) and the rollout of the Pfizer vaccine in that age group. The number of calls was excessive, more than a 25% increase.16 There are several other studies from around the world with similar findings. Based on the evidence of harm in this instance alone, it would be reasonable to err on the side of caution in administering these injections to young adults in this nation. However, this is not the only adverse event being reported, nor the only way in which the right to informed consent is being violated
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15 Mansanguan, S.; Charunwatthana, P.; Piyaphanee, W.; Dechkhajorn, W.; Poolcharoen, A.; Mansanguan, C. Cardiovascular Manifestation of the BNT162b2 mRNA COVID-19 Vaccine in Adolescents. Trop. Med. Infect. Dis.2022, 7, 196.
16 Sun, C.L.F., Jaffe, E. & Levi, R. Increased emergency cardiovascular events among under-40 population in Israel during vaccine rollout and third COVID-19 wave. Sci Rep 12, 6978 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-022-10928-z
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in this demographic. Increased susceptibility to HIV-1 infection after adenovirus vectored vaccination (AstraZeneca and J&J)17 , shingles, Guillain-Barre syndrome, POTS, blood clotting disorders, and congregation of mRNA and spike protein in the gonads are among the dozens of health concerns not being disclosed.
This begs the question, “Is it ethical to continue vaccinating the young given that they are at little risk from Covid-19, but are subject to severe, lifelong adverse events from the vaccine?” This question was explored by Bardosh, Krug, Jamrozik in their article published December 2022 in the British Medical Journal’s Journal of Medical Ethics. In it, they conclude:
Based on public data provided by the CDC,19 we estimate that in the fall of 2022 at least 31 207–42 836 young adults aged 18–29 years must be boosted with an mRNA vaccine to prevent one Omicron-related COVID-19 hospitalisation over 6 months. Given the fact that this estimate does not take into account the protection conferred by prior infection or a risk adjustment for comorbidity status, this should be considered a conservative and optimistic assessment of benefit. Our estimate shows that university COVID-19 vaccine mandates are likely to cause net expected harms to young healthy adults—for each hospitalisation averted we estimate approximately 18.5 SAEs and 1430–4626 disruptions of daily activities—that is not outweighed by a proportionate public health benefit. Serious COVID-19 vaccine-associated harms are not adequately compensated for by current US vaccine injury systems. As such, these severe infringements of individual liberty and human rights are ethically unjustifiable.18
They continue by recommending that mandates for all young adults be repealed.
So why are Penn, Brown, Harvard, and hundreds of other universities still pressing for compliance given no public health benefit and the risk of harm? It is incumbent on institutions of higher learning to protect the interests of future generations by providing quality education, safety, and critical thinking skills to all students. And yet, many universities, with the assistance of government agencies, have done the opposite with regard to Covid-19. They have forced students to choose between education and safety, and denied them the right to informed consent. Is it possible to undo the damage already done to the young people in this country? No. What’s done is done and it will be many years before we know what exactly has been done. However, moving forward, it is essential that these institutions be pressured to make the policy changes necessary to protect the lives and health of this demographic, and to honor their right to govern their own bodies and make their own medical choices based on real world data.
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17 Buchbinder, S, McElrath, M, Dieffenbach, C, Corey, L. Use of adenovirus type-5 vectored vaccines: a cautionary tale. The Lancet, Vol 396, Issue 10260, E68-E69, October 31, 2020
18 Bardosh K, Krug A, Jamrozik E, et al. COVID-19 vaccine boosters for young adults: a risk benefit assessment and ethical analysis of mandate policies at universities. Journal of Medical Ethics Published Online First: 05 December 2022. doi: 10.1136/jme-2022-108449
