Originally published April 26 2011
Navy revises vaccine exemption policy and regs by attorney request - twice!
by Alan Phillips, J.D.
(NaturalNews) Lawmakers can and sometimes do enact laws that are unconstitutional. They can do this for the simple reason that a law isn't technically unconstitutional until a court says it is. This makes sense, since anyone can cry "unconstitutional" at any time about anything. Unfortunately, though, this means that laws can be enacted that are unconstitutional, whether intentionally or not by those enacting them. Such a situation occurred with the design of some Navy regulations concerning vaccine religious exemptions. The good news is, when the problems were pointed out to Navy officials at the Bureau of Medicine and Surgery in Washington D.C., they agreed to change policy and revise the regulations accordingly -- twice!
The first instance occurred last fall when Navy officials refused to allow a Navy family to transfer from Italy to Spain without getting vaccinated, despite the family's religious objections. This was probably due to a flaw in regulation design, but you know the military -- they follow the regulations to the letter. Ironically, the family had no problems refusing vaccines in Italy or Spain, but regulations required them to be vaccinated for the transfer from Italy to Spain.
When I reviewed the regulations, several problems stood out. First, they were inconsistent with the federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA),i federal statutory law that states: "Government shall not substantially burden a person's exercise of religion" unless it "furthers a compelling governmental interest" and "is the least restrictive means of furthering that compelling governmental interest."ii
While we can reasonably assume that vaccination would be considered a compelling government interest by the Navy, the least restrictive means surely allows for religious exemptions, since nearly every federal and state law that requires vaccines allows for religious exemptions. Second, international travel vaccine requirements are governed by the World Health Organization's International Health Regulations,iii and they require only the yellow fever vaccine, for people traveling in and out of sub-Saharan Africa and tropical South America. Third, the Navy allows its members to refuse vaccines for religious reasons, so requiring members' families to be vaccinated was inconsistent with the rule for members. So, at my clients' request, I sent these and other concerns in a detailed legal analysis to the Vice Admiral, Navy Surgeon General of the Bureau of Medicine and Surgery. The Commander of the Judge Advocate General's Corps replied and concurred with my analysis. Policy has changed, and the regulations are being amended.
A second situation occurred this past winter on a much broader matter. Navy regulations require a religious exemption applicant to be a member of an organized religion with a tenet or belief opposing immunizations, and to have an "authorized personal religious counselor" endorse the applicant's exemption request.iv This raised several concerns. First, there are multi-branch regulations that set out religious exemption requirements without these restrictions; the Navy had added its own further restrictions to the multi-branch rules. But the multi-branch requirements were broad for a reason: More strict requirements would exceed the military's authority under federal law. A brief summary of the legal analysis is as follows:
First, the RFRA applies as described above, and it defines 'religious exercise' as including "any exercise of religion, whether or not compelled by, or central to, a system of religious belief."v This is also a line of federal legal precedent telling us that laws requiring membership in an organized religion for the exercise of a state vaccine religious exemption violate the First and Fourteenth Amendments of the U.S. Constitution.vi Finally, the Navy has authority under the multi-branch regulations to require vaccines of an exempt member at any time that the member's commander deems the mission to require that, so there's really no need for them to add further restrictions to the multi-branch regulations. So, there is clear legal authority to support the proposition that the Navy exceeded its authority by requiring membership in an organized religion. Once again, I'm happy to report that the Navy concurred with my analysis. I was recently informed that "the Navy has changed its policy on immunizations for Service members," and they expect to have revised regulations in place within the next few months.
Changing laws can be a lengthy, arduous task, especially if there is opposition to the underlying agenda from mainstream authorities as is usually the case with efforts to expand vaccine exemption rights. So, I'm grateful to the Navy for their cooperation on these matters. It allowed us to gain some ground toward greater vaccine freedom of choice without the need for an adversarial lawsuit or a complicated grassroots legislative initiative.
For more information about your vaccine exemption and waiver rights in a wide variety of different contexts, see the Vaccine Rights Website:
http://www.vaccinerights.com
Resources:
i http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religious_Freed...
ii 42 U.S.C. � 2000bb et seq.
iii http://www.who.int/ihr/en/
iv MILPERSMAN 6320-010
v 42 U.S.C. �� 2000bb-2(4) and 2000cc-5(7)(A)
vi Specifically, the First Amendment's free exercise and establishment clauses, and the Fourteenth Amendment's equal protection clause. See, e.g., Sherr and Levy vs. Northport East-Northport Union Free School District, 672 F. Supp. 81 (E.D.N.Y., 1987); Mason v. General Brown Cent. School Dist., 851 F.2d 47 (2nd Cir. 1988) (quoting United States v. Seeger, 380 U.S. 163, 166, 85 S.Ct. 850, 854); Lewis v. Sobel, 710 F. Supp. 506 (S.D.N.Y. 1989); Farina v. The Board of Education, 116 F. Supp.2d 503 (S.D.N.Y. 2000) (citing Sherr, 672 F. Supp. at 91); and McCarthy v. Boozman, 212 F. Supp. 2d 945 (W.D. Ark 2002).
About the author:
Alan Phillips, Vaccine Rights Attorney
[email protected], 1-828-575-2622
Vaccine Rights (www.vaccinerights.com)
Alan Phillips, Vaccine Rights Attorney
[email protected], 1-828-575-2622
Vaccine Rights (www.vaccinerights.com)
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