Supreme Court rejects COVID-vaccine cases, including two brought by group founded by RFK Jr.
WASHINGTON – The Supreme Court on Monday declined to hear three vaccine-related cases, including two brought by the anti-vaccine group founded by independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
Children’s Health Defense had challenged the Food and Drug Administration’s emergency authority of COVID-19 vaccines. The group said the vaccines were ineffective and hadn’t been properly vetted.
The group also challenged Rutgers University’s COVID-19 vaccination requirements.
Lower courts dismissed both challenges and the Supreme Court let those decisions stand.
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The high court also declined to revive a challenge by other groups − We the Patriots and the CT Freedom Alliance − to Connecticut’s decision to no longer allow religious exemptions for vaccine requirements for school children.
'Skyrocketing claims of religious exemptions'
In 2021, Connecticut became the fifth state to stop allowing religious exemptions for vaccines for schoolchildren. The state did so, officials said, because of “skyrocketing claims of religious exemptions” that increased the risk of disease outbreaks.
The challengers said that move “severely penalizes religious parents and children whose faith does not permit them to receive the mandated vaccinations by denying them access to the foundational institution of our republic: education in any school of their choice.”
But the New York-based 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said courts have overwhelming agreed that vaccine requirements don’t have to include religious exemptions.
“We decline to disturb this nearly unanimous consensus,” Circuit Judge Denny Chin wrote.
Earlier this year, the Supreme Court rejected the appeal of a Minnesota woman who said she was wrongly denied unemployment benefits after being fired for refusing to be vaccinated for COVID-19 because of her religious beliefs.
In one of the Children’s Health Defense challenges, the New Orleans-based 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said the group and the five parents that joined the suit hadn’t shown they’d been harmed by the FDA’s authorization of the COVID-19 vaccine so they couldn’t sue.
In the Rutgers case, the Philadelphia-based 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals likewise dismissed the challenge on procedural grounds.
In other COVID-related cases this year, the Supreme Court declined an appeal from three Republicans − including Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia −who had their pay docked in 2021 for flouting a mask mandate on the floor of the House of Representatives during the COVID pandemic.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Supreme Court won't hear RFK Jr.'s anti-vaccine group's COVID appeals
