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Employees sue hospital system over compulsory vaccinations

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Texas

More than 100 workers in the Houston Methodist Hospital system filed a lawsuit Friday over their employer’s forced COVID-19 vaccination policy that states they get vaccinated by June 7 or lose their jobs.

“For the first time in the history of the United States, an employer is forcing an employee to participate in an experimental vaccine trial as a condition for continued employment,” states the suit, filed by 117 defendants in the District Court of Montgomery County, Texas, against named defendants The Methodist Hospital, Houston Methodist and The Woodlands Hospital.

“Methodist Hospital is forcing its employees to be human ‘guinea pigs’ as a condition for continued employment,” the suit states. “It is undisputed that the vaccine being forced upon Plaintiffs is ‘unapproved.’ Even though the (Food and Drug Administration) granted emergency use authorization… the clinical trials the FDA will rely upon to ultimately decide whether to license these and other COVID-19 experimental vaccines are still underway and are designed to last for approximately two (2) years to collect adequate data to establish if these vaccines are safe and effective enough for the FDA to approve. The abbreviated timelines for the emergency use applications and authorizations means there is much the FDA does not know about these products even as it authorizes them for emergency use….”

The lawsuit claims that a surge in Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting Systems reports on the COVID-19 vaccine “are adding a year’s worth of VAERS reports every week.”

“In just four months, more adverse reports were added to the VAERS database than any single vaccine has had cumulatively over the past 31 years,” the suit states. “This is clearly a safety signal, further studies need to be done and Plaintiffs should not be forced to participate in these dangerous trials as a condition for employment.”

The hospital system recently in March said it would require its 26,000 employees to be vaccinated for COVID-19 or be subject to suspension and/or termination, and on Friday stated that more than 99% of workers have been vaccinated as a result. While the hospital system was among the first employer in the U.S. to require the vaccine for employment, legal experts say more employers may follow course.

In a statement, Houston Methodist said it is “unfortunate that the few remaining employees who refuse to get vaccinated and put our patients first are responding in this way.” 

“The COVID-19 vaccines have proven through rigorous trials to be very safe and very effective and are not experimental,” the hospital said. “More than 165 million people in the U.S. alone have received vaccines against COVID-19, and this has resulted in the lowest numbers of infections in our country and in the Houston region in more than a year.”

A hospital spokeswoman on Tuesday referred to the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission’s recent announcement Friday that “(F)ederal EEO laws do not prevent an employer from requiring all employees physically entering the workplace to be vaccinated for COVID-19, so long as employers comply with the reasonable accommodation provisions” in the Americans with Disabilities Act, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and other equal employment opportunity considerations. 

More insurance and workers compensation news on the coronavirus crisis here

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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