22 states ask feds to repeal COVID vaccine mandate for health care workers

Distinctive – Twenty-two state lawyers general are inquiring the Biden administration to stop it is “draconian vaccine mandate” for U.S. wellbeing care vendors due to the fact it is resulting in critical shortages of health treatment personnel and is justified with outdated knowledge and science.

In a petition reviewed exclusively by Fox News Electronic, 22 Republican state lawyers standard, led by AG Austin Knudsen of Montana, demanded that the Overall health and Human Expert services Office (HHS) and Facilities for Medicare and Medicaid (CMS) repeal the interim remaining rule, or IFR, that approved the federal mandate in outcome considering the fact that November 2021.

“The additional we dig into this, the additional we glimpse, this interim final rule was just totally arbitrary and capricious,” Knudsen advised Fox News Digital. “The science did not ever again that the COVID vaccine was ever likely to reduce transmission.”

In the just about 40-webpage document, the condition lawyers standard laid out their case for repealing the mandate that addresses Medicare and Medicaid companies and impacts almost all health and fitness treatment staff in the state. It has an effect on 10.4 million employees at 76,000 well being treatment services as well as dwelling wellbeing treatment suppliers.

Montana Lawyer Common Austin Knudsen
(Montana DOJ, Legal professional General’s Office Dukas/Common Photos Group by means of Getty Pictures)

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“Pfizer in no way analyzed its vaccine to see if it prevented transmission of COVID-19,” the AGs wrote. “And when CMS issued the IFR, it didn’t know whether the vaccines would stop COVID transmission.”

“No data at the time conclusively shown that the vaccines would stop an infection and transmission,” the AGs explained. They included that even absolutely vaccinated people today contracted and transmitted COVID-19, a development that has ongoing even with the introduction of a initially-era booster and the new, bivalent omicron booster, they declare.

“But that did not stop CMS from jamming as a result of the IFR’s draconian vaccine mandate,” the AGs claimed.

According to their filing, experiments demonstrate that “compelled vaccination of hundreds of thousands of wellbeing care workers will not meaningfully restrict COVID transmission.”

A group protesting the vaccine mandate in Boston. 
(Craig F. Walker/The Boston Globe by way of Getty Photos)

“Even even worse, the unexpected emergency vaccine mandate still left health and fitness treatment services — already battling to manage required team ratios — in dire straits, even further worsening staffing shortages in the health and fitness care sector, particularly in rural and frontier States,” the AGs noted.

“When that rule came down, and the months previous that rule coming down, it was the No. 1 cell phone get in touch with and e mail concept that my place of work acquired from health care workers just terrified of this,” Knudsen instructed Fox News Electronic.

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Knudsen mentioned the mandate has had the largest result on nursing homes in Montana, wherever 10 proficient nursing residences shut in 2022 owing to a wellbeing care worker lack.

“Now that ‘the pandemic is around,’ and offered the probably violations of the a lot of statutory and constitutional legal rights … the Secretary and CMS ought to just take speedy motion to repeal the IFR and withdraw the State Surveyor Guidance,” the petition claimed.

Protesters gathered for a rally towards COVID-19 vaccine mandates in entrance of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington Jan. 23, 2022. 
(AP Picture/Patrick Semansky, File)

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The AGs stated CMS “co-opted the states’ surveyor staffs to make sure compliance” with the mandate. It issued many directives treating the point out surveyors like federal personnel (the Point out Surveyor Directives).”

The AGs challenged the Biden overall health department’s authority in authorizing the mandate, stating that in the 57-yr historical past of the Medicare and Medicaid courses, HHS has never construed federal statutes “to authorize an business-wide vaccination need.” 

They said courts “need to be skeptical” of CMS’s assert that the company can bypass congressional acceptance to impose the rule.

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“The really truth that CMS does not stage to obvious statutory authorization and instead collects a hodgepodge of unique statutes to assist its claimed authority is potentially the very best proof of the key thoughts violation,” the AGs argued.

Lawyers general from Louisiana, Kentucky, Tennessee, Mississippi, Arizona, Nebraska, Alabama, New Hampshire, Alaska, Ohio, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Florida, South Carolina, Indiana, Texas, Kansas, Utah and Missouri all signed the petition.

Fox News’ Danielle Wallace contributed to this report.