Tag: supreme-court

Its been a bad month for public health.

On August 14, the World Health Organization declared mpox as an international health emergency, given the unprecedented spread of a new, more deadly variant. In the United States, bird flu, formally known as H5N1, has spread to 10 agricultural workers in Colorado, an alarming development since only three other cases have been reported this year.

Mpox and bird flu are distinct infectious diseases; however, they have been united by assumptions that containment is easily achievable and thus a complacent public health response. Indeed, almost 100,000 people got infected with mpox after the 2022 outbreak, and while the disease shrinked away from public view, mpox continued to spread and evolve into deadlier variants. Similarly, while bird flu first jumped into mammals around the same time in 2022, the response in the U.S. was anemic with little consistent messaging or concrete action.

This is part of a larger inertia around infectious diseasesone we believe is driven by two key factors.

First, public health leaders have grown overly cautious after the COVID-19 pandemic, seeing how bold efforts to contain the pandemic were met with anti-science aggression, populist outrage, relentless lawsuits, and at least 30 states limiting public health powers. The impending U.S. elections have added to the polarization and disinformation. As such, instead of proactive action, we are seeing trepidation.

Second, there is a sense that another pandemic cannot happen so soon after COVID-19that these infectious diseases will inevitably burn themselves out like before. This is a gamblers fallacy, and because of it, the U.S. may be underestimating the risks posed by mpox and bird flu, allowing two potential pandemics to brew on the global stage.

This has manifested in several failures for both diseases. For instance, the U.S. saw 1800 mpox cases between October 2023 and April 2024, while the more dangerous Clade 1b variant, which combines efficient sexual transmission with high mortality, started to spread in Africa. However, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) stopped updating their mpox outbreak case count in January, downplaying this added threat since case counts were not yet increasing. The CDC restarted the public reporting in May, suggesting its discontinuation may have been overly expedient and optimistic.

Our mpox global health response mirrors such underestimation and delayed action. On August 7, the U.S. announced that it was donating 50,000 vaccines to the Democratic Republic of the Congo, almost a year after Clade 1b was first reported there. For reference, Africa CDC estimates it needs 10 million doses to control the current outbreak on the continent. In 2022, the U.S. failed to tackle mpox while it was confined to Africa, dragging its feet until the disease was spreading uncontrollably at home; we are seeing history repeat itself in 2024.

Read More: Health Experts are Watching a More Dangerous Version of Mpox

For bird flu, the mortality rate can be as high as 52%, given WHO case data. But as the New York Times noted, Only recently has the [CDC] begun to mobilize real funding for a testing push, after a period of months in which various federal groups batted around responsibility and ultimate authority like a hot potato. In the U.S., ignorance is bliss, with our public health leaders rolling the dice that this too shall pass.

So, perhaps we shouldnt be surprised that the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) detected bird flu in cattle four months after it happened, or that the agency has not required routine testing of cattle (unless they cross state lines) nor vaccination of farmworkers. While decisions to leave these programs voluntary are multifactorial, they are likely influenced by political reticence after COVID-19 and recent Supreme Court rulings striking down vaccination requirements.

To be clear, the pandemic risk of mpox or bird flu is currently low. The transmission dynamics of mpox, requiring very close contact, make it more difficult to spread than SARS-CoV-2. Similarly, cases of bird flu have thus far been mild and limited in number. However, these are not absolute truths, but day-by-day assessments, which require real preparednessmeasured in testing, ongoing surveillance, and forward planning.

We have no easy answers for overcoming public health paralysis. But at minimum, the U.S. needs better public health communication that not only emphasizes transparency but also holds our leaders accountable. Bringing this COVID-19-era lesson to mpox and bird flu is one way to give Americans a new, positive memory of public health, fostering early, decisive action and realistic risk assessments.

With two rapidly evolving outbreaks, we cannot afford trepidation and false optimism. And, even as we work to make the U.S. safer, we cannot forget our global obligations to share vaccines, medicines, and resources. Global crises require global solidarity and collective action.

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Its Time to Start Taking Mpox and Bird Flu Seriously - TIME

A Guilford County teenager and his mother challenge the argument that a federal law blocks their lawsuit over the teens forced COVID vaccination. They filed a new brief Tuesday with the North Carolina Supreme Court, which agreed in May to hear the case.

Mother Emily Happel and son Tanner Smith sued the Guilford County school board and Old North State Medical Society over the forced vaccination in 2021.

Lower courts have ruled against Happel and Smith. Those courts have determined that the federal Public Readiness and Emergency Preparedness Act offered immunity to the school board and medical society.

In the instant case, the particular facts and circumstances do not give rise to the types of liability for which Congress was attempting to provide immunity, wrote David Steven Walker, the mother and teens lawyer. The PREP Acts purpose was to provide for quick action when all the answers may not be readily apparent during a time of emergency. It was to promote that by providing immunity for negligent acts, for unknown side-effects, and for other matters directly related to the countermeasures (such as breakdowns in crowd control).

However, in this case, defendants assert immunity for a willful act the administration of a medical procedure without the required consent of the patient or the patients parent, Walker added. This was not the type of act for which Congress was seeking to provide immunity, and this Court should find that immunity does not exist.

Congress made this clear in the Emergency Use Authorization Act, when it required as a condition for authorization of an unapproved product [a]ppropriate conditions designed to ensure that individuals to whom the product is administered are informed of the option to accept or refuse administration of the product, he wrote.

Happel and Smiths brief also highlighted state law.

Just as Congress envisioned individuals to be able to refuse administration of a EUA vaccine, the General Assembly made it crystal clear that parents could also make that decision for their children, Walker wrote. At the time of the vaccine administration to Tanner, the law of the land of North Carolina required parental consent.

Defendants view of the PREP Act is so sweeping that it would sweep this important act of the General Assembly into the dustbin as a statute that states nothing more than an aspirational goal, rather than a concrete and enforceable mandate, Walker added.

The intent of Congress, when reading the Act as a whole, was to limit the liability for adverse effects and promote the quick development and deployment of the countermeasure, not to give carte blanche to medical providers to perform medical procedures without consent, Walker wrote. To hold otherwise would violate the canon against absurdities.

A May 23 order confirmed that the state Supreme Court would take up the case from Happel and Smith, who was 14 when he faced the forced vaccination. Justices signaled that they would consider a single issue: Whether the trial court and the Court of Appeals erred when they determined that the PREP Act provided immunity to the defendants for constitutional violations and pre-empted all state law claims.

The case has attracted attention from eight Republican members of North Carolinas House of Representatives. They filed a brief on April 12 urging the high court to take the case.

They have a special interest in protecting the fundamental rights of the parents they represent and for whom the General Assembly has recently enacted legislation on the very subject embraced by this appeal, wrote Tyler Brooks of the Thomas More Society, who represents the eight legislators.

As members of the General Assembly, they have a unique role in ensuring that local governmental bodies, particularly those charged with public education or who otherwise interact with children, abide by and are governed according to North Carolina state law, Brooks added. In this same vein, they further have a strong interest in ensuring that the enactments of the General Assembly are upheld against erroneous findings of federal preemption, as occurred in the instant case.

The Guilford school board and Old North State Medical Society filed separate documents asking North Carolinas highest court not to take the case.

The school boards court filing asked the court to reject claims from Happel and Smith on the grounds that the alleged constitutional questions are not real and substantial and that the subject matter of this case does not involve legal principles of major significance to the jurisprudence of this State or raise issues of significant public interest.

[T]he direct issue before the Court of Appeals is not a substantial constitutional question rather, it is a straightforward application of federal statutory immunity, which applies to the same degree to state law claims and state constitutional claims, and which is not at all an issue of first impression, the Guilford schools lawyers wrote. In fact, the idea of federal law overriding contrary state constitutional provisions appears in the U.S. Constitution itself, which expressly states that federal law supersedes both contrary state laws and state constitutions.

Even the specific idea of the PREP Act immunizing against constitutional claims is not a new one, the court filing added. Guilfords brief cited a 2024 decision from the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals holding that, through the PREP Act, Congress expressly foreclosed federal constitutional claims related to covered countermeasures.

Happel and Smith filed a petition on April 5 asking the states highest court to take their case.

The pandemic that occurred from 2020-2022 caused a seismic shift in the social, medical, political, and legal landscape of not only the State of North Carolina, not only the United States, but the world as a whole, Walker wrote. How the government chose to deal with the pandemic, especially concerning the administration of vaccines that had been granted emergency use authorizations, was and is a hotly contested issue, one that is certainly of significant public interest.

This public interest is even more significant when the issue revolves around the vaccination of a minor and the allegation that neither the minor nor the minors parent consented to the administration of the vaccine, Walker added.

The case deals with the interplay between duty of the courts of North Carolina to remedy constitutional and other legal violations and a federal law that defendants purport forecloses that opportunity, Walker wrote.

The trial court and the Court of Appeals interpreted the PREP Act so broadly as to shield nearly every act, no matter how egregious, from any legal consequence, according to the petition. Further, the Court of Appeals and the trial courts decision rendered totally useless N.C. Gen. Stat. 90-21.5(a1) which prohibited the very acts committed by defendants. It is now a law of aspiration, with no consequence for its blatant violation.

The quoted state law NCGS 90-21.5(a1) says, Notwithstanding any other provision of law to the contrary, a health care provider shall obtain written consent from a parent or legal guardian prior to administering any vaccine that has been granted emergency use authorization and is not yet fully approved by the United States Food and Drug Administration to an individual under 18 years of age.

The Appeals Court issued a unanimous March 5 decision against the mother and son despite labeling the forced vaccination egregious.

Plaintiffs argue the trial court erred in determining that the PREP Act is applicable to this case and provides immunity to both Defendants, Judge April Wood wrote. Due to the sweeping breadth of the federal liability immunity provision in the PREP Act, we are constrained to disagree.

Bound by the broad scope of immunity provided by the PREP Act, we are constrained to hold it shields Defendants, under the facts of this case, from Plaintiffs claims relating to the administration of the COVID-19 vaccine, Wood added.

In August 2021, Smith was a 14-year-old Western Guilford High School football player. His family learned in a letter from the Guilford schools that Smith might have been affected by a COVID-19 cluster involving the team. He would not be allowed to return to practice until getting a COVID test.

Free testing would be provided at Northwest Guilford High School. The letter indicated ONS Medical Society would conduct the testing and consent for testing is required, Wood wrote.

Smiths stepfather drove him to the testing site and waited outside the building. The teenager was asked to fill out a form while a clinic worker tried unsuccessfully to contact his mother. Smith and his family didnt know the clinic also provided COVID-19 vaccine shots.

After failing to make contact with Tanners mother, one of the workers instructed the other worker to give it to him anyway. Tanner stated he did not want a vaccine and was only expecting a test, but one of the workers administered a Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine to him, Wood wrote.

Happel and Smith filed suit in August 2022. A trial judge dismissed the case in March 2023.

Appellate judges ruled that both the school board and medical society were covered by the federal PREP Act. A declaration from the secretary of the US Department of Health and Human Services in March 2020 offered protection related to the COVID-19 vaccine.

[W]e hold ONS Medical Society is a covered person as a program planner that administered a vaccine clinic, and individually administered vaccines to individuals. The declaration clearly provides that a program planner may be a private sector employer or community group when it carries out the described activities including administration of a covered countermeasure, Wood wrote.

The same law also applied to the Guilford school board. We are convinced by the Secretarys interpretation in the declaration that a covered person under the PREP Act includes a state or local government . . . [that] provides a facility to administer or use a Covered Countermeasure. We hold this language includes the Board, which provided a facility Northwest Guilford High School for the administration of the COVID-19 vaccines, Wood wrote.

Wisely or not, the plain language of the PREP Act includes claims of battery and violations of state constitutional rights within the scope of its immunity, and it therefore shields Defendants from liability for Plaintiffs claims, Wood added.

The Appeals Court noted that North Carolinas General Assembly amended state law in 2021 to require parental consent before a vaccine granted emergency use authorization may be administered to a minor.

Its intent is to prevent the egregious conduct alleged in the case before us, and to safeguard the constitutional rights at issue Emilys parental right to the care and control of her child, and Tanners right to individual liberty, Wood wrote. Notwithstanding, the statute remains explicitly subject to any other provision of law to the contrary under the broad provision preempting state law in the PREP Act.

The PREP Act provides only one exception for a Federal cause of action against a covered person for death or serious physical injury proximately caused by willful misconduct. Because Plaintiffs have not made any such allegations in their complaint, we are constrained to conclude the PREP Act preempts the protections provided by state law, Wood wrote.

Judges Allegra Collins and Jeff Carpenter joined Woods decision.

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Teen disputes federal immunity in forced COVID vaccination lawsuit - Carolina Journal

After a drawn-out litigation process, Merck & Co. seems to have finally washed its hands of more than a thousand lawsuits tied to its shingles vaccine Zostavax.

Late last week, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit tossed an appeal to resurrect certain lawsuits claiming Mercks popular shot caused patients to develop shingles.

The appeals court made its decision after the plaintiffs filed a voluntary dismissal some two years after logging a loss in Pennsylvania, court documents show.

With the appeals court snub, the plaintiffs could conceivably still take their cases to the Supreme Court.

Merck still faces claims from plaintiffs in other states who argue Zostavax caused various other injuries besides shingles plus those contending the vaccine causes hearing loss. As of summer 2021, Merck was facing some 1,950 lawsuits related to Zostavax. The December 2022 ruling against the plaintiffs knocked out 1,189 cases.

At the time, the court determined that the medical expert on deck to prove that Zostavax caused patients shingles failed to consider whether the plaintiffs disease occurred naturally because theyd had chickenpox as kids.

Chickenpox and shingles, also known as herpes zoster, are caused by the varicella-zoster virus. The judge overseeing the December 2022 dismissal pointed out that [v]irtually all persons over the age of 30 in the United States have had chickenpox and carry the so-called wild-type virus in their systems.

He added that Merck provided the court uncontradicted medical authority that a laboratory test of a persons shingles rash was the only way to tell whether the shingles was caused by the virus strain contained in Zostavax or by the wild-virus strain from chickenpox closeted in a persons body.

Merck, for its part, hasnt sold Zostavax in the U.S. since 2020.The shot was once the premier shingles immunization in the states, but it was quickly usurped once GSKs Shingrix hit the scene in 2017.

Earlier in 2022, meanwhile, Merck prevailed in another Zostavax case in Ohio when a federal judge tossed a lawsuit alleging the company misled consumers about the vaccines effectiveness, especially in older adults.

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Merck washes hands of 1,000-plus Zostavax lawsuits - FiercePharma

WASHINGTON (AP) The Supreme Court on Monday rejected two appeals related to COVID-19 vaccines from Childrens Health Defense, the anti-vaccine nonprofit founded by independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

The justices did not comment in letting stand rulings against the group from the federal appeals courts in New Orleans and Philadelphia.

In a case from Texas, the group joined parents in objecting to the U.S. Food and Drug Administrations authorization to administer coronavirus vaccines to children. In a case from New Jersey, Children's Health Defense challenged a Rutgers University requirement, imposed in 2021, for most students to be vaccinated to attend courses on campus, though the school did not force faculty or staff to be vaccinated.

Children's Health Defense has a lawsuit pending against a number of news organizations, among them The Associated Press, accusing them of violating antitrust laws by taking action to identify misinformation, including about COVID-19 and COVID-19 vaccines. Kennedy took leave from the group when he announced his run for president but is listed as one of its attorneys in the lawsuit.

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Follow the AP's coverage of the U.S. Supreme Court at https://apnews.com/hub/us-supreme-court.

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Supreme Court rejects COVID-19 vaccine appeals from nonprofit founded by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. - Yahoo! Voices

A B.C. Supreme Court judge has ruled against a father who was looking to stop his ex-wife from having their children vaccinated against human papillomavirus (HPV).

According to a B.C. Supreme Court judgment issued Monday, Victoria Draper will have the sole authority to decide whether her daughter will be vaccinated. She wanted to have her daughter to receive the vaccinebefore her 12th birthday, as recommended by B.C. health authorities.

The girl's father, Matthew Smith, sought an order to prohibit Draper from having their children vaccinated against HPV, saying in text messages to Draper that it is "unknown" whether the "protection is going to even work" and that the vaccine "causes more harm than good."

In her judgment, Justice Catherine Murray said she accepts guidance from Canadian health authorities "who are entrusted with protecting public health that it is in the best interests of the children to get the HPV vaccination."

According to the judgment posted online, Draper and Smith divorced in late 2022 and have two children together: an eight-year-old son and a daughter who will turn 12 next month.

They were notified last fall that children in their daughter's grade were set to receive the HPV vaccine. Smith refused to sign the consent form and told the school that her daughter would not be vaccinated.

He wrote to Draper that even if the chance of harm was less than oneper cent, "that's too much risk."

"There's a lot of pressure on parents to take these vaccines just like COVID, it's all about money and commissions. It isn't about health," Smith wrote.

The judgment says Smithsent Draper TikTok videos and articles to support his argument.

In his application, Smith cited lawsuits in the U.S. around the vaccine, saying it was best to "review the matter" once they have been adjudicated.

He also cited information from a researcher at the University of British Columbia.

Smith said he discussed it with his children and showed them a 20-minute video on the topic, andhis daughter told him she didn't want to get the vaccine.

Draper said her daughter told her the videos her father showed her were "very scary."

The mother said she later watched the videos and described them as inappropriate for children, making reference to death and suicide.

She said her daughter told her that Smith said "she would die if she got the vaccine."

Draper went on to say that her daughter told her that she wanted to get the vaccine and that their family doctor said there was no medical reason for her not to.

Justice Catherine Murray dismissed Smith's application, noting that his "wait and see" approach to the U.S. lawsuits was not in the children's best interests, adding that "lawsuits are not medical information."

She also said she put no weight on the "information" from the UBC researcher.

In making her decision, Draper relied on publications that "make clear that health authorities/ experts in Canada favour the HPV vaccine," according to the judgment.

Murray said she found Draper's evidence more compelling.

"I accept the advice of the health authorities in Canada who are entrusted with protecting public health that it is in the best interests of the children to get the HPV vaccination. I am further satisfied that it is in the best interests of the children to get the vaccination at the age when it is most effective, as determined by Ms. Draper."

Murray ordered that Draper "has sole decision-making authority regarding any and all decisions relating to the HPV vaccination and/or treatment."

Smith is not allowed to discuss or allow any third party to discuss the HPV vaccine or HPV generally with the children. This includes not showing them anything on social media regarding HPV or the HPV vaccine.

"I am concerned about Mr. Smith showing the children disturbing videos and telling them that the vaccine will kill them in an effort to indoctrinate them into his way of thinking," Murray wrote.

Read more:

Judge rules against dad trying to stop child's HPV vaccination - Yahoo News Canada

A Texas group is blasting the Supreme Courts rejection of their lawsuit over the FDAs emergency authorization of the COVID vaccine.

The group claimed the shot was dangerous, and criticized what it referred to as federal pro-vaccine propaganda. The activists were backed by the Childrens Health Defense, a nonprofit founded by presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

The Supreme Court on Tuesday said the group had no legal standing in its lawsuit.

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SCOTUS Refuses To Hear Texas Group's Lawsuit Over Coronavirus Vaccine 710am KURV - kurv

Photo by Dado Ruvic/ Reuters

WASHINGTON (AP) The Supreme Court on Wednesday sided with the Biden administration in a dispute with Republican-led states over how far the federal government can go to combat controversial social media posts on topics including COVID-19 and election security.

By a 6-3 vote, the justices threw out lower-court rulings that favored Louisiana, Missouri and other parties in their claims that officials in the Democratic administration leaned on the social media platforms to unconstitutionally squelch conservative points of view.

Justice Amy Coney Barrett wrote for the court that the states and other parties did not have the legal right, or standing, to sue.

LISTEN: Supreme Court seems to favor Biden administration in case on combatting social media posts

Justices Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch and Clarence Thomas dissented.

The case is among several before the court this term that affect social media companies in the context of free speech. In February, the court heard arguments over Republican-passed laws in Florida and Texas that prohibit large social media companies from taking down posts because of the views they express. In March, the court laid out standards for when public officials can block their social media followers.

The cases over state laws and the one that was decided Wednesday are variations on the same theme, complaints that the platforms are censoring conservative viewpoints.

The states had argued that White House communications staffers, the surgeon general, the FBI and the U.S. cybersecurity agency are among those who applied "unrelenting pressure" to coerce changes in online content on social media platforms.

But the justices appeared broadly skeptical of those claims during arguments in March and several worried that common interactions between government officials and the platforms could be affected by a ruling for the states.

READ MORE: Supreme Court rules public officials can sometimes be sued for blocking critics on social media

The Biden administration underscored those concerns when it noted that the government would lose its ability to communicate with the social media companies about antisemitic and anti-Muslim posts, as well as on issues of national security, public health and election integrity.

The Supreme Court had earlier acted to keep the lower-court rulings on hold. Justices Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch and Clarence Thomas would have allowed the restrictions on government contacts with the platforms to go into effect.

Free speech advocates had urged the court to use the case to draw an appropriate line between the government's acceptable use of the bully pulpit and coercive threats to free speech.

A panel of three judges on the New Orleans-based 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals had ruled earlier that the Biden administration had probably brought unconstitutional pressure on the media platforms. The appellate panel said officials cannot attempt to "coerce or significantly encourage" changes in online content. The panel had previously narrowed a more sweeping order from a federal judge, who wanted to include even more government officials and prohibit mere encouragement of content changes.

The case is Murthy v. Missouri, 23-411.

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Supreme Court sides with Biden administration over COVID-era social media dispute - PBS NewsHour

WASHINGTON (AP) The Supreme Court on Monday rejected two appeals related to COVID-19 vaccines from Childrens Health Defense, the anti-vaccine nonprofit founded by independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

The justices did not comment in letting stand rulings against the group from the federal appeals courts in New Orleans and Philadelphia.

In a case from Texas, the group joined parents in objecting to the U.S. Food and Drug Administrations authorization to administer coronavirus vaccines to children. In a case from New Jersey, Children's Health Defense challenged a Rutgers University requirement, imposed in 2021, for most students to be vaccinated to attend courses on campus, though the school did not force faculty or staff to be vaccinated.

Children's Health Defense has a lawsuit pending against a number of news organizations, among them The Associated Press, accusing them of violating antitrust laws by taking action to identify misinformation, including about COVID-19 and COVID-19 vaccines. Kennedy took leave from the group when he announced his run for president but is listed as one of its attorneys in the lawsuit.

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Follow the AP's coverage of the U.S. Supreme Court at https://apnews.com/hub/us-supreme-court.

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Supreme Court rejects COVID-19 vaccine appeals from nonprofit founded by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. - AOL

WASHINGTON (AP) The Supreme Court on Monday rejected a challenge to a 2021 Connecticut law that eliminated the states longstanding religious exemption from childhood immunization requirements for schools, colleges, and day-care facilities.

The justices did not comment in leaving in place a federal appeals court ruling that upheld the contentious law. A lower court judge had earlier dismissed the lawsuit challenging the law, which drew protests at the state Capitol.

Connecticut law requires students to receive certain immunizations before enrolling in school, allowing some medical exemptions. Before 2021, students also could seek religious exemptions. Lawmakers ended the religious exemption over concerns that an increase in exemption requests was coupled with a decline in vaccination rates in some schools.

The change allowed current students in K-12 who already had a religious exemption to keep it.

This is the end of the road to a challenge to Connecticuts life-saving and fully lawful vaccine requirements, Attorney General William Tong said in a statement. We have said all along, and the courts have affirmed, the Legislature acted responsibly and well within its authority to protect the health of Connecticut families and to stop the spread of preventable disease.

Brian Festa, vice president for the group We The Patriots USA Inc., a lead plaintiff in the case, called the decision disappointing but said its not the end of the road for us in our fight to win back religious exemptions for schoolchildren.

The group which has challenged other vaccination laws, including for COVID-19 had joined several parents in arguing that Connecticut violated religious freedom protections by removing the exemption. The new law shows a hostility to religious believers and jeopardizes their rights to medical freedom and childrearing, they said in court papers.

We The Patriots USA also has an ongoing federal lawsuit filed on behalf of a Christian preschool and day care thats challenging Connecticuts vaccine mandate on constitutional grounds.

It is our practice at We The Patriots USA to battle on many fronts simultaneously, and to never put all of our eggs in one basket, Festa said, calling the Supreme Courts decision on Monday one setback, but far from a total defeat.

Justices on Monday also rejected two appeals related to COVID-19 vaccines from Childrens Health Defense, the antivaccine nonprofit founded by independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

The justices did not comment in letting stand rulings against the group from the federal appeals courts in New Orleans and Philadelphia.

In a case from Texas, the group joined parents in objecting to the Food and Drug Administrations authorization to administer coronavirus vaccines to children. In a case from New Jersey, Childrens Health Defense challenged a Rutgers University requirement, imposed in 2021, for most students to be vaccinated to attend courses on campus, though the school did not force faculty or staff to be vaccinated.

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Supreme Court rejects challenge to Conn. law that eliminated religious vaccination exemption - The Boston Globe

WASHINGTON (AP) The Supreme Court on Monday rejected two appeals related to COVID-19 vaccines from Childrens Health Defense, the anti-vaccine nonprofit founded by independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

The justices did not comment in letting stand rulings against the group from the federal appeals courts in New Orleans and Philadelphia.

In a case from Texas, the group joined parents in objecting to the U.S. Food and Drug Administrations authorization to administer coronavirus vaccines to children. In a case from New Jersey, Childrens Health Defense challenged a Rutgers University requirement, imposed in 2021, for most students to be vaccinated to attend courses on campus, though the school did not force faculty or staff to be vaccinated.

Childrens Health Defense has a lawsuit pending against a number of news organizations, among them The Associated Press, accusing them of violating antitrust laws by taking action to identify misinformation, including about COVID-19 and COVID-19 vaccines. Kennedy took leave from the group when he announced his run for president but is listed as one of its attorneys in the lawsuit.

Follow the APs coverage of the U.S. Supreme Court at https://apnews.com/hub/us-supreme-court.

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Supreme Court rejects COVID-19 vaccine appeals from nonprofit founded by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. - The Associated Press