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Covid Vaccines' Emergency Status Doesn't Bar Mandates: DOJ
Mandates are both legal and necessary. The vaccines' emergency status is not a barrier to mandates
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The Covid-19 vaccines’ status as an emergency product—which has fueled lawsuits against vaccination mandates—doesn’t prohibit employers, universities, or other entities from requiring inoculations, the U.S. Justice Department said.
The language in federal drug approval law cited by legal challengers only says that certain information should be provided to potential vaccine recipients, the department’s Office of Legal Counsel said in a memo seen by Bloomberg Law Monday.
Although the OLC memo isn’t binding authority and thus doesn’t guarantee court approval of a vaccine mandate, it provides a boost to employers and others that either have imposed such a requirement or are considering it.
The memo, dated July 6, became public as concern is growing that unvaccinated Americans are contributing to the rapid spread of the Delta variant of the coronavirus. It signals that the White House is beginning to embrace vaccine mandates, a sharp departure from the Biden administration’s earlier hesitancy on the subject.....
A federal judge threw out the Houston Methodist lawsuit, saying the language on emergency use products applies to powers and obligations of the head of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, not a private employer. The federal judge who rejected an initial bid to block Indiana University’s mandate said the language directs HHS to establish conditions to allow for informed consent.
In the OLC memo, Justice Department lawyers said the plain language of the section on emergency use authorization, known as EUA, concerns only the provision of information to vaccine recipients. The FDA agrees that the section places no restrictions on the ability to require an EUA product, the memo said.
The language in federal drug approval law cited by legal challengers only says that certain information should be provided to potential vaccine recipients, the department’s Office of Legal Counsel said in a memo seen by Bloomberg Law Monday.
Although the OLC memo isn’t binding authority and thus doesn’t guarantee court approval of a vaccine mandate, it provides a boost to employers and others that either have imposed such a requirement or are considering it.
The memo, dated July 6, became public as concern is growing that unvaccinated Americans are contributing to the rapid spread of the Delta variant of the coronavirus. It signals that the White House is beginning to embrace vaccine mandates, a sharp departure from the Biden administration’s earlier hesitancy on the subject.....
A federal judge threw out the Houston Methodist lawsuit, saying the language on emergency use products applies to powers and obligations of the head of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, not a private employer. The federal judge who rejected an initial bid to block Indiana University’s mandate said the language directs HHS to establish conditions to allow for informed consent.
In the OLC memo, Justice Department lawyers said the plain language of the section on emergency use authorization, known as EUA, concerns only the provision of information to vaccine recipients. The FDA agrees that the section places no restrictions on the ability to require an EUA product, the memo said.