It's time to hire back & pay back wages to people fired over vaccine mandates
Unethical policies require correction
Recently, I saw this article about teachers receiving back pay for being fired for declining COVID-19 vaccines.
It's time to have a public discussion about extending this to everyone similarly fired.
The facts are clear: a long standing principle of medical ethics is in order to mandate a personal health intervention, it is not sufficient to show a personal health benefit. You can't force people to take blood pressure pills, for instance, even though it has overwhelming data it would be good for hypertensives. You can’t fire someone for having a blood pressure of 140/90, who declines medication because he believe it makes him tired.
Instead, to mandate a medical intervention you have to have a strong confidence that that mandate benefits third parties, and moreover that the benefit is so large, it outweighs the loss of autonomy.
Let's also remember that the company that manufactures the product has a vested interest in creating more mandates.
When it comes to Covid vaccination. The ethical criteria to mandate was never met.
First, in December 2020 until May 2021, there was no evidence that forcing someone to get vaccinated provided a benefit beyond the vaccine you chose for yourself. In other words, if I’m worried about myself, I could choose to get vaccinated. If I force the people around me to do it, I didn't further improve my own outcome. There was no evidence that suggested this. Ergo it was unethical to mandate. Interestingly, no mandates occurred during this time period because of scarce supply.
Second, the moment it was clear covid-19 vaccines could not halt transmission, it was also unethical to mandate. No matter how many people you forced to get it, covid would still eventually spread to everyone. This was well known by the summer of 2021. And yet, nearly all the mandates fell after this date.
If public health directly, or indirectly through corporations or employers, improperly used the power of mandate, legal remedy is necessary. Here is my path forward:
1 Anyone fired should be offered their job back
2 Everyone fired should be given back pay
3 People should be given a payment for emotional suffering from being fired
4 The CDC which set the stage for this policy and the current administration should shoulder these burdens as they are responsible for pushing employers to do it.
COVID19 vaccine mandates were unethical. Employers need to be litigated to pay people what they are owed. Public health should foot the tab.
Can we get Fauci to pay his fair share?
I'm tired of public officials passing laws that we all know are a horrible idea and then the lawsuits are paid for by the tax-payers who wrote in and asked for the laws not to be passed. It's time for public officials to be accountable to what they pass and what they pressure people to do.
Respect for autonomy, beneficence, non-maleficence, and justice are the four pillars of medical ethics. During my early career in academics, these were the principles that I taught my medical students on their first day of training. In every situation, treating patients needs to be viewed through the lens of these four pillars. The respect for autonomy is why physicians who treat patients have traditionally been at the forefront in the rejection of mandates. As Dr. Prasad says, the bar must be very high with regard to benefit and evidence to negate the patient’s autonomy.
COVID-19 seemed to flip the script on this tenet. In fact myself, and the few colleagues who dared speak out against mandates have been vilified, and many careers have been ruined. It became the norm to advocate for vaccine mandates even and especially by medical doctors.