117 employees of Houston Methodist Hospital are suing their employer. They are objecting to being forced to take the Covid vaccine or face the rather unpleasant consequences. Being fired.
Interestingly, despite a very clear Federal Law (reproduced in the footer below) that protects individuals' rights to choice when it comes to Emergency Use Authorized (EUA) medicines and vaccines, the group of disgruntled staff at Houston Methodist has opted for another line of attack to defend their right to choose.
They’ve chosen to go with the Nuremberg Code, a 74-year-old code, created in Nuremberg, Germany. It is, in this author’s opinion, a bizarre tactic that is doomed to fail. To understand why let’s look at exactly what the Nuremberg code is and who could be encouraging this crazy line of defense.
As to the who, that is easily answered. Over the last few weeks, the internet has been covered from corner to conspiratorial corner with the name of Reiner Fuellmich, a German lawyer, who is trying to set up one of the most ambitious smear jobs in history. He wants to sue the world over its handling of Covid and he intends to do it using the Nuremberg Code.
It's the most foolish of enterprises, based on Fuellmichs flawed understanding of the PCR test and the science he is questioning. He has also wildly misinterpreted the Nuremberg Code and its applicability to the pandemic, vaccines, and more. To explain exactly what the Nuremberg code applies to, I’ll refer to an excellent piece published in FullFact.Org on exactly this topic.
The Nuremberg Code was created in 1947 in Nuremberg, Germany, following the trial of a group of Nazi doctors accused of conducting inhumane and often deadly experiments on prisoners of concentration camps without their consent. It features ten key principles, a few of which I’ll list below as these are relevant to the covid vaccine debate.
- the voluntary consent of the human subject is absolutely essential in any experiment on humans
- the experiment should be for the good of society
- all unnecessary physical and mental suffering or injury should be avoided and no experiment should be conducted if there is good reason to believe it may result in death or a disabling injury
- the human subject should be free to exit the experiment if they are suffering
So how does all this apply to the Covid vaccines? Well in truth, it doesn't and that's why our 117 unvaccinated Houston Methodist staff may have to consider new legal counsel that's based on reality.
Dr. Alexis Paton, lecturer in social epidemiology and the sociology of health at Aston University, Birmingham, told Full Fact that the Nuremberg Code is;
“very specifically about experimentation” and so although its principles would be applicable when discussing clinical vaccine trials, it is no longer relevant once a vaccine has been authorised.
To be clear, all the vaccines in circulation have been approved, even though the approval is under the guise of Emergency Use or EUA. This classification indicates the vaccines have passed clinical trials but have not as yet been able to provide long-term clinical data on their long-term effects. Clearly, with deaths mounting up, countries no longer had the option of sticking around for five years collecting long-term data.
Based on the vaccine's clear safety profile over the short term, EUA was granted to vaccine producers that had met the required safety standards. However, under EUA approval, as advised by the FDA and mandated by Federal Law, the administration of the covid vaccine to a patient still requires informed consent. Therefore Houston Medical is, in effect, in breach of Federal Law and this is the legal route the affected staff should have pursued.
There exists a strong argument that can be made for refusing the covid vaccine based on its as yet, unknown long-term effects, an argument that is supported by both Federal Law and the FDA.
Following a deluded German down an inappropriate 74-year-old rabbit hole of disinformation and conspiracy is not going to serve the 117 in an American court of Law, but then again, stranger things have happened. At this point, if I were them, I’d be seriously considering alternate representation. Let's leave the last thoughts on the matter to Dr. Paton;
“The Nuremberg Code relates to research, where the emphasis of informed consent requirements is on preventing the research participants from being used as a means to an end. Informed consent for treatment serves a slightly different purpose. It prevents a battery or negligence and protects the autonomy rights of the patient. So informed consent is doing slightly different things in relation to research and treatment.”
What Federal Law says
(ii)Appropriate conditions designed to ensure that individuals to whom the product is administered are informed —
(I) that the Secretary has authorized the emergency use of the product;
(II) of the significant known and potential benefits and risks of such use, and of the extent to which such benefits and risks are unknown; and
(III) of the option to accept or refuse administration of the product, of the consequences, if any, of refusing administration of the product, and of the alternatives to the product that are available and of their benefits and risks.