Take Action to End Vaccine Mandates at the University of California

Please take 2 minutes to sign this Align Act campaign right now!

Parents of students at the University of California (UCs) have written a letter urging the UCs to immediately drop all COVID-19 vaccine mandates, and they have uploaded it into an Align Act campaign.

Unlike a petition, the value of an Align Act campaign is that every time someone signs the campaign, the letter gets signed plus the targets get an email with a copy of the letter and the name of each signatory who completes all the steps of the campaign. Our goal is collect thousands of signatures on the letter and flood their Inboxes with thousands of emails.

Please stop what you are doing right NOW and take two minutes to read the letter (copied below; full letter with footnotes can be viewed here) and SIGN this campaign.

One more thing, please forward this Substack to everyone you know. Thank you!

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Dear President Drake, University of California (UC) Regents, and Leaders,

We are active members of the UC community, including students, parents, alumni, faculty, and staff.

We regret to inform you that the evidence below shows mandatory COVID-19 vaccination is currently disapproved by the majority of governments and colleges today. If your administration’s position represents the will of the UC community, can you please show us your evidence?

We observe that your administration’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate position stands more in conflict with governing norms in the Summer and Autumn of 2022. Every week more government entities and organizations are rejecting vaccine mandates, given new scientific evidence and for ethical and legal reasons (listed below), of which you're already aware. We demand that UC does not mandate any COVID-19 booster (and drop all COVID-19 mandates). Students must have their rights to bodily autonomy, a core California value, restored. 

Policy has evolved with the data

Data shows that Europe, with a few exceptions, always provided the option to test or prove natural immunity, rather than take the vaccine. Specific to universities, the UK, France, Germany, Norway, Sweden, and Denmark never imposed mandates. Denmark and Norway are recommending the vaccines for only those over 50 or 65. Japan always assured its citizens that no vaccination would be given without consent, nor discrimination based on vaccine choice, and New Zealand dropped all vaccine mandates on September 26.

In the USA, the Supreme Court blocked President Biden’s vaccine mandates for large employers, and on September 18, 2022, President Biden, on a 60 Minute interview, declared the COVID-19 pandemic “over.”

Recently, the New York Supreme Court ordered reinstatement and backpay for fired unvaccinated workers. The court orders revoking the mandates, considered them “arbitrary and capricious pursuant to CPLR 7803,” meaning “without sound basis in reason and is generally taken without regard to the facts.”

On October 17, 2022, Moderna’s CEO, Stephane Bancel, loosened his COVID-19 vaccine recommendation for people 50 years and above.

Other Higher Education Institutions Do Not Have Vaccine Mandates; UC is an Outlier 

No College Mandates is tracking over a thousand (1064) universities in the USA. Among them, only 18 universities (1.7%) require the bivalent booster (one with the option to decline), 604 do not require any vaccination, and 203 do not require boosters.

Of the 77 universities tracked in California, 17 dropped all mandates, and another five don't require any boosters. Besides these universities, 81 California community colleges don't require any COVID-19 vaccines or will drop all mandates in the near future (Spring 2023).

Universities now recognize infections occur regardless of vaccination status, and consider the risk-benefit analysis for ages 18-29 based on FDA data. You can expect international and out-of-state students to pay tuition and attend universities that respect their bodily autonomy.

US Federal Agencies and Pfizer Do Not Have Booster Mandates, UC Should Not Either

In alignment with the November 22, 2021 emergency order by President Biden, the White House and all government agency employees, including from the CDC, NIH, and FDA, do not have a booster mandate. The order follows the CDC’s current definition of fully vaccinated as having completed the primary series; it does not include a COVID-19 booster. The NIH encourages boosters for their staff and contractors, but does not require them. Reporting vaccinations and boosters status is voluntary. Pfizer gave its US employees and contractors the option to take the COVID-19 vaccine or participate in weekly testing.

EUA, Mandates, Federal Law, Legal Aspects 

It is a violation of federal law to mandate an EUA product. UC cannot lawfully require students to receive any COVID-19 vaccination or boosters being distributed under an EUA. 

UC communications and policy must follow the FDA’s Vaccine Information Fact Sheet document, which provides a clear explanation of serious risks for people under 40 and a statement that underscores the right to bodily autonomy. Under the EUA, it is your choice to receive or not receive any of these vaccines.

With its vaccine distribution centers, UC must comply with the federal rules under Section 564 of the Act (inc. 21 U.S.C. 360bbb-3). To comply, it will have to sign a COVID-19 Vaccination Program Provider Agreement, and provide patients with the EUA Fact Sheet for Recipients and Caregivers for the vaccine product administered. All mandates violate this Agreement. Additionally, an EUA can only be granted when no adequate, approved, and available alternatives exist. The validity of an EUA is now null. Medications and treatments for COVID-19 include several antiviral medications and monoclonal antibodies.  

A 2020 Harvard Law Bill of Health article co-authored by a professor at the UC Hastings College of the Law forewarned why COVID-19 vaccines should not be mandatory. Under the PREP Act, vaccine companies are shielded from liability. For the heart injured, this could turn into a lifetime of endless bills. When a student is coerced against the FDA's right to choose, who is accountable and legally liable for the vaccine injured?

The abuse of power by UC is unethical and illegal. According to 21 C.F.R. - 50 (20 to 25), it is unlawful to make anybody participate in an experimental program using coercion.

False Premise for Previous Mandates

In 2021, mandates were introduced on the false premise that the vaccines prevented infection/transmission.

On September 9, 2021, the White House Presidential action advised the way to avoid COVID-19 spread and prevent infection from the Delta variant and other variants was to be vaccinated. Previously, in an interview on March 29, 2021, the CDC Director, Rochelle Walensky, stated that the CDC data suggested vaccinated people did not carry the virus and didn't get sick, asserting that these conclusions were from clinical trials and real-world data. On August 19, 2021, with the benefit of additional real-world data, Dr. Fauci stated that the COVID-19 vaccines prevented getting infected or getting sick.

COVID-19 Vaccines Do Not Prevent Transmission

In 2020, Berkeley Law published a paper stating mandates were justified only to prevent transmission. However,  on August 11, 2022, the CDC updated its guidance for the prevention of COVID-19, it recognized immunity and no longer differentiated people based on a person’s vaccination status.

Pfizer did not test for transmission before rollout. Pfizer executive Janine Small confirmed this in a presentation to the EU Parliament in October 2022. The COVID-19 vaccines had been marketed in a way that misled the public to believe that vaccines prevented infection. Yet, Dr. Fauci was infected in June and July 2022, President Biden in July and August 2022, and Dr. Walensky a month after receiving the bivalent booster.

Medical: 18-29 Year Olds are at Higher Risk from COVID-19 Vaccines than from COVID-19 Infection

We have reviewed over 250 medical journal articles regarding severe adverse effects and found the following:

Research shows the risk of myocarditis for 18-29 year olds after a second dose of mRNA-1273 was higher than the risk after infection, and a higher incidence of acute myocarditis for the same group after receiving the second dose of the BNT162b2 vaccine. A study conducted in 2021 showed the expected rate of myocarditis was 1-8 in 18–29-year-old males. However, the observed number of cases was 219, or 30x higher. Myocarditis clinical presentation varies from subclinical disease to acute heart failure, or sudden cardiac death. The long-term consequences of myocarditis are unknown, and the prognostic significance and mechanism of this myocardial injury need to be studied further. 

A NEJM study concluded that among the persons with myocarditis in the vaccinated group, the median age was 25 years, and 90.9% were male; and that studies are needed to estimate the long-term adverse events. Myocarditis is a serious diagnosis as cardiac myocytes do not regenerate. The CDC states that adverse effects could be more intense after booster doses, advises those who have been diagnosed with myocarditis to consult with their cardiologist about returning to exercise, and mentions that adverse events can cause long-term health problems. Many of the cited articles pointed out that the numbers of vaccine injuries are most likely under-reported.

Studies confirmed that women are experiencing significant changes to their menstrual cycles following vaccination. 

FDA and Emerging Data UC Should Consider

We know from the FDA Fact Sheet that the bivalent booster was tried on only 300 individuals over 55 years of age. The booster was not tested on the 18-29 age bracket. The document points out that myocarditis and pericarditis have occurred in vaccinated individuals, with a higher incidence in males under 40. If UC mandates the bivalent booster, it will be exposing the student population to a higher risk of vaccine injury. It will be dangerous and unethical, as research for the new booster has not been conducted on this age group (18-29). A recent study anticipates a net expected harm in previously uninfected young adults. According to the principle of proportionality, vaccine mandates should not be applied to the 18-29 age group, because expected harms are not outweighed by public health benefits, as described above.

We don't know the duration of protection against COVID-19, and we are unaware of all the possible side effects of these vaccines, as they are still being studied. Additionally, the public has not had access to data from the bivalent booster trials; the CDC has not published it yet, leading to an undesirable asymmetry of information.

Emerging data shows that serious adverse reactions are worse than foreseen. The Pfizer and Moderna clinical trial reanalysis by Fraiman and colleagues indicated the mRNA vaccines were associated with an additional serious adverse event for every 800 people vaccinated. Analysis of the recently released V-safe program data found that 7.7% of the users - 782,913 people – reported seeking medical attention via telehealth appointment, urgent care clinic, emergency room intervention, or hospitalization following a COVID-19 vaccine. This is only based on data from previous injections.

The Right to Bodily Autonomy

UC has forced students into a mandate against FDA legal advice, threatening them with disenrollment. The UC has a duty of care to get its policy correct. There is an inherent imbalance of power, coercing the students into an impossible place. The UC must consider our logical arguments, withdraw all COVID-19 booster mandates, and give students the option to decline or opt out of all COVID-19 mandates. Their bodies, their choices.