June 1, 2021 – A group of 117 people who work in the Houston Methodist Health System has filed a lawsuit against the medical center opposing its policy of requiring or the vaccination of employees and contractors against COVID-19 Risk of losing their job.
Plaintiffs include Jennifer Bridges, a hospital medical-surgical nurse who has become the public face and voice of health care workers who oppose mandatory vaccinations, and Bob Nevens, the hospital’s director of corporate risk.
Nevens says the hospital requested a vaccination despite not treating patients and working from home for most of the last year.
“My civil rights and freedoms have been trampled,” he says in comments on an online petition. “My right to protect myself from unknown side effects of these vaccines has been put under the guise of ‘leading medicine’.”
Nevens says in his comments that he was released on April 15, despite the lawsuit saying he is currently employed by the hospital’s corporate headquarters.
May 30, 2021 Over 100 Texas Hospital Employees Sue Employers Over Mandate A lawsuit filed on behalf of 117 Houston Methodist Hospital employees alleges they were forced to “self-submit to medical experiments.” Could be fatal – you know. https://t.co/fpU4uoS4m0
– COVID-19 Evidence-Based Clinical Response Panel (@ cov19treatments) May 31, 2021
Texas attorney Jared Woodfill, who filed the lawsuit, is known to advocate conservative causes. In March 2020, he called for Harris County’s stay home orders, accusing them of violating religious freedom. He was chairman of the Harris County Republican Party for more than a decade. His website says he is a frequent visitor to the local Fox News subsidiary.
The lawsuit depends on a section of federal law that allows the use of medical devices in emergencies: US Code 360bbb-3.
This law states that persons who receive the medical device “will be informed of the possibility of accepting or refusing the administration of the product, of the consequences of refusing to administer the product, if any, and of the available alternatives to the product, and “About their advantages and risks.”
Legal experts disagree about what the provision means for vaccination orders. Courts have not yet weighed how they feel about the law.
The petition also reiterates a popular anti-vaccination argument comparing the need for an emergency-approved vaccine to the medical experiments carried out by Nazi doctors on Jewish inmates in concentration camps. Forcing people to choose between an experimental vaccine and a job is said to be in violation of the Nuremberg Code, which states that people must voluntarily and knowingly consent to participate in research.
In fact, the vaccines have already been tested in clinical trials. People who are getting them now are not part of these studies, although vaccine manufacturers, regulators, and safety experts are still paying close attention to signs of problems related to the new vaccinations.
It is true, however, that the FDA’s emergency clearance accelerated the vaccines’ time to market. Vaccine manufacturers are now completing the process of submitting the documents required for a full Biological Drugs Application (BLA), the tool the FDA uses for full approval.
The Houston Methodist emailed staff in April giving them until June 7th to begin the vaccination process or request a medical or religious exemption. Anyone who decides against it will be terminated.
Marc Boom, MD, President and CEO of Health Systems, has stated that the Patient Protection Policy is in place and claims to be the first in the US to call for it. Other hospitals, including the University of Pennsylvania’s Health System, have since followed suit and are in need of COVID vaccines.
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Change.org: “Covid vaccine shouldn’t be mandatory or stopped !!”
Law.com: “Conservative attorney in Houston says COVID-19 residency warrant is illegal.”
Legal Information Institute: “21 US Code § 360bbb-3 – Approval of medical devices for use in emergencies.”
Press release, Pfizer: “Pfizer and BioNTech are initiating ongoing biologics filing for US FDA approval of their Covid-19 vaccine.”
US District Court, Montgomery County, Texas: “Jennifer Bridges, Bob Nevens et al., Plaintiffs, V. The Methodist Hospital D / B / A The Methodist Hospital System and Houston Methodist The Woodlands Hospital, defendants.”
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