Biden’s vaccine mandates likely to result in flood of questionable exemption requests

With the recent announcement of expanded vaccine mandates (“Biden explains vaccine rules,” Sept.10), one can expect a flood of questionable medical, religious and personal belief exemption requests.

Unfortunately, the system is easy to game and hard to police. Religious exemptions require close scrutiny as no organized religion, including the First Church Christian Scientist, has an absolute prohibition against vaccination. Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 states that individuals have the right to be free from discrimination on the basis of religion, but this is balanced by the Occupational Safety Health Administration mandate that requires a workplace to not compromise worker safety.

The only medical contraindications to the COVID-19 vaccines are a history of an allergic reaction to vaccine components, a past history of a serious COVID-19 vaccine reaction or recent treatment with monoclonal antibodies or convalescent serum.

Legal challenges are certain, but recent mandates by Indiana University and Houston Methodist Hospital have been upheld in Federal Appeals Courts and the authority of the state to issue vaccination mandates is supported by Supreme Court decisions (Jacobson v. Massachusetts,1905 and Zucht v. King, 1922).