One of the problems of the information age we live in is that we can insulate ourselves in our world, wrapping ourselves in a cocoon of misinformation or whatever else tickles our ears. That can be quite dangerous when it comes to vaccine misinformation. Listen to one prominent lawyer and you’d think that planes are about to start falling out of the sky.
Lawyer Claims COVID-19 Will Make The Skies Unsafe
Liberty Counsel is a tax-exempt religious liberty organization that engages in litigation related to evangelical Christian values. I’m not sure when opposition to vaccinations became such an evangelical crusade, but Liberty Counsel is not only actively opposing vaccine mandates, but calling vaccines dangerous. Being a prominent organization and not charging for its work, the group has purportedly attracted a number of pleas for help from airline employees.
“Liberty Counsel has been assisting thousands of airline employees with religious exemptions who have been told they must get the COVID injection in order to keep their jobs. These employees are facing illegal resistance from the airlines, and lack of support from the unions. They are being placed under extreme stress. Based on direct conversations with airline workers, including many pilots and flight attendants, the pressure is resulting in an increased number of safety incidents.”
Safety incidents? That’s quite a charge. What kind of safety incidents?
“A captain of a major airline said that due to the extreme stress under which pilots are being subjected to regarding taking these unwanted shots or losing their jobs, this captain would not fly on the airline unless in the captain’s seat.”
Considering 90% of pilots at major U.S. airlines have already been vaccinated, I’m not sure what kind of “extreme stress” exists…
“Another said that flight attendants are coming to the cockpit in tears due to the stress. Yet another said that due to distractions, there are also more safety incidents on the ground. Another said that a co-worker under fear of being terminated, succumbed to pressure and took the COVID shots, went into anaphylactic shock, and died.”
This is just more fear mongering. Since December 2020, more than 350 million doses of COVID-19 vaccine have been administered in the U.S., and the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) has received 6,968 reports of death (0.0019%), according to the CDC. Importantly, that statistic offers no insight into whether the vaccine actually caused the death. Let’s say a 96-year-old in a nursing home resident received the jab and then died weeks later of another issue – that death would be reported to VAERS (and note that a similar logic can be applied to COVID-19 deaths).
Mat Staver, who founded and runs the Liberty Counsel, advises United employees to resist the mandate:
“United Airlines is illegally telling its employees that to obtain a religious exemption they have to be an adherent of a recognized religion with a history of opposition to vaccines. Employees are also being told they need to include a letter from a clergy to support their sincere religious beliefs. This is false. The only issue is whether the employee has a sincere religious belief, not whether a clergy or a “recognized religion” (whatever that is) agrees.”
He’s not totally off-base on this. I don’t purport to be smarter than United’s team of legal staff, but the airline has taken a hard-nosed approach to religious exemptions, which I believe will backfire when legally challenged.
Ultimately, Staver says:
“The airlines are jeopardizing the health and safety of their employees and passengers by pressuring them to get the COVID shots or be terminated. This is a national emergency that places crew and passengers at risk. If the airlines claim, based on the Department of Defense study, that wearing a mask reduces the chance of exposure to the virus to .003%, or near zero, then why force these faithful employees to inject an experimental substance into their bodies? No one should not be forced to inject this or any substance in their bodies against their will. It is wrong to violate the fundamental right to free and informed consent and bully people into compliance.”
First, the Pfizer vaccine now has full FDA approval and emergency approval of Moderna and J&J do not mean “experimental.” Second, just like a soldier wears layers of armor when going to battle, so masks and vaccinations (and natural antibodies for those who have them) provide layers of protection that, combined, result in far greater protection and far less serious side effects if a breakthrough case occurs. Third, conditioning employment on a vaccine is a different matter than being forced to take a jab at gunpoint.
You might ask why give this guy a platform here? Why even address his misinformation? Because someone I care deeply about forwarded this to me. And because we must do our part to combat misinformation meant to scaremonger (and in this case, raise money – his note includes a plea to send money).
He peppers in a lot of fear and misinformation but also sprinkles in potentially valid points, like the religious exemption issues at United under 42 U.S.C. § 2000e(j). That becomes the hardest type of information to counter because he cannot be wholly dismissed as a lunatic.
CONCLUSION
We are not out of the woods yet on COVID-19. In fact, I’d brace for a dark autumn and winter. But while not foolproof, vaccines are both safe and effective. The anecdotal stories and scaremongering do not stand up to scrutiny and simply instill fear. Go ahead and make the religious exemption argument (though it should be noted Christianity has historically been quite receptive to vaccines), but don’t confuse the issue with horrible stories not rooted in fact and only meant to scare.
The vaccine will not cause planes to fly out of the sky. Instead, the vaccine will help us get through this difficult time.
image: United Airlines
People die every day, so with half the country vaccinated (higher rate of vaccination for the elderly) you are going to have people that (1) received the vaccine (2) later die – there’s no meaningful increase in deaths.
During Moderna’s Phase 3 trial one of the participants was struck by lightning. This had to be assessed as a potential adverse event. It was, quite reasonably, ruled unrelated to the vaccine trial.
We’ve seen airlines experience unreliable operations when short on crew (eg American, Southwest). It’s perfectly reasonable for an airline employer to want the operational security of knowing a disease spreading widely in the population isn’t as likely to take out its employees, and indeed that those employees who congregate in the airport, and travel together from the airport to crew accommodations and back, will be less likely to spread it amongst themselves (cabin air is not relevant here) magnifying the effect.
As a customer, however, it doesn’t give me confidence because there’s no requirement the person in the middle seat next to me or crowding me in the gate area has been vaccinated.
Gary, don’t you have your own site to push your far left views? And don’t you have another FA to bully with your proclamations on how “important” you are in the “industry”?
Either way, Summer isn’t interested in you.
LOL, you clearly have no clue what Gary’s views are – he is anything but “far left” (nor is he Extreme Right either)
Who says lol? Stop hiding you racist troll.
You’re concerned about the vaccination status of the flyer sitting next to you while railing against wearing masks on planes.
Wouldn’t the fabled HEPA Filters you tout keep you safe Gary?
Come on mate Delta variant is ripping through your country. Stay safe.
I hope this guy isn’t a terrorist! I can tell you, if this guy tries to instill a 9/11 like fear, I am so, so deeply scared. I think that I’m going to wrap myself in my home and not go anywhere, out of fear that this guy might drop a bomb, shoot a gun, or make fun of Allah. Heck, will he curse Muhammeds’ name while dropping missiles and shooting guns? Oh, we must stop traveling out of so much great fear that our lives will end because of this jab. Can someone please hold my hand while I cry, shake, and scream for my Mommy? 😉 🙂 (insert laughing emoticon here)
@ Matthew — United should do what they are best at — copying Delta — and raise health insurance premiums for those who refuse to be vaccinated (religious exemption or not). Once the $200 per month surcharge becomes ineffective, they should keep raising the surcharge until the employees quit or comply. Employees have a choice — comply with their employer’s policies or work somewhere else. It is pretty simple.
About 3 paragraphs before the Conclusion section, the article says that the Pfizer vaccine (in some countries, they call it BNT or BioNTech) is FDA approved so it’s no longer experimental.
Fake news and shows Matthew has been brainwashed!!!
The Moderna and Johnson & Johnson/Janssen vaccines are NOT experimental. They passed that stage already. They are authorized by the FDA.
If anti-vaxxers want experimental vaccines, they can sign up for clinical trials and get real experimental Covid vaccines. For example, Moderna is working on a different modification of their vaccine.
@derek
The only one who is brainwashed is you. Please go educate yourself on “EUA” or “Emergency Use Authorization”. All the so called approved “vaccines” are still under the EUA. That should also give you a little hint as to why ALL media shut down the talk of Ivermectin and Hydroxychloroquine.
You just soak up that MSM and government narrative and keep regurgitating it without actually doing some research and thinking on your own.
I think you need to brush on your ‘reading skills’. Derek is correct…..none of the 3 vaccines are ‘experimental’, and currently, only 2 of them are still available under the EUA (Pfizer is approved). EUA does not mean ‘experimental’, it just means the data and paperwork submitted to the FDA has not been fully reviewed. The three vaccines available for use under the EUA in the USA have been rigorously tested via multiple clinical phases and tested in thousands of people for years….yes, years! And one of the lead doctors on the development team for the Moderna vaccine is a African American woman named Dr. Kizzmekia Corbett (oh no, what will Tucker & Sean say!).
And why would you bring up Hydroxychloroquine & Ivermectin when the article was about VACCINES. Hydroxy & Ivermectin are the two current RWM scams the Republicans like to push on their idiotic followers (you know, those people who don’t like to think b/c it takes too much work). The idiocy of you people never ceases to amaze me….
Enjoy your horse paste…amazing that the mouth breathing MAGA types are taking that at the moment. Why not just have a Clorox Smoothie while you’re at it?
#Darwinism
Glad to hear your senior citizens are safe again after your Democrat Governor was forced out of office. While Florida may have had some nursing home deaths from air conditioning failure, your governor’s failure to keep the COVID infected from the nursing homes created killing fields. I hear you about some folks gone crazy taking animal medicine, but suck it up man – far more went completely crazy and put an utter fool in the White House.
Ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine isn’t proven to work against COVID.
Derek, you are correct. I’ve updated the post.
Taiwan, in part because of interference by China surrounding the Pfizer vaccine, has felt that it is forced to develop their own vaccines. One vaccine was started to be given this week. On the first day, 4 people died. One person died of an aneurysm like comedian John Ritter (remember Three’s Company?) died from. People are scared, I believe.
↑↑↑ The local troll trying hard to keep the MSM narrative going. SMH
Actually… the US has provided vaccines to Taiwan. Taiwan was only cut off from Chinese-developed vaccines, which is good, since the Chinese vaccines hasn’t been proven to be effective under western standards. You’re welcome.
It’s hard to imagine you don’t understand why evangelicals concerned about religious liberty would be concerned about forced Covid vaccinations. Government, government regulated, and public corporations are forcing individuals to have foreign substances injected into their bodies against their will or face economic disenfranchisement and disempowerment. You may treat your body with disregard but others don’t. Many people have legitimate concerns about the long term side effects of vaccines and weigh that higher than the much lower risk of Covid complications. While most people do fine with vaccines, some are susceptible to complications from vaccinations. Government or public corporations telling individuals what to do with or to their bodies goes against the concept of personal liberty over your own body, 1984 it is.
Fully agree. Any NORMAL drug (or vaccine) must go through the FDA before being put on the market. The “average” time it takes to get through this process is 12 YEARS. Pushing through any of these vaccines in a matter of a few months and saying they are safe is absolutely ridiculous. They have no idea what long-term affects any of these vaccines will produce as years pass. They may already know – as in the case of Vioxx, one well publicized. Big Pharma keeps all that well hidden for the sake of profits; so what if 10s of thousands of people die. They could care less as long as there is big $$ to be made!
If you care about your body, stop eating MEAT, exercise, stop drinking soda. Until then, stop the nonsense about putting foreign substances into your body. You do it every day.
Are you qualified to declare any of these “vaccines” safe?
You don’t have to take my word for it, just do your due diligence…
Those employees are free to get another job. What if tomorrow an employee tells their boss “my belief at the Church of the Naked God says wearing clothes is evil. I need an exemption so I can work naked.”
This is getting out of hand. Those covidiots can kill my child. Their rights end where mine begin.
‘Eff ’em…..
Scammers like that lawyer ALWAYS want money…..
Who knew UA-NYC was a lawyer?
Bully? Check
Bitter angry old man? Check
Has few friends in life? Check
Lawyer? Never thought
You really are a bizarre troll – I hadn’t even responded in this thread yet.
But not a lawyer, not old (and probably a lot younger than you), endless friends.
No troll, just call out racist bullies like you when I see them. And will gladly meet up to settle any differences in person. Let Matt know when and where I’ll be there. My goal is to settle it or make your racist life a living hell. And you can do the same to me big guy.
This group should sue the Federal Government on behalf of Covid. These vaccines notably impede the free movement of the virus and that’s just unconstitutional!