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Dec. 5, 2021 - Epoch Times
18:02
Mother Loses Parental Rights Because She's Unvaccinated, Judge Backs Down | Facts Matter
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Good evening.
Over in Illinois, the mother of an 11-year-old boy was fairly shocked when a judge told her that unless she gets vaccinated, she will not be able to see her son.
This was, by the way, despite the fact that her own doctor advised her against getting the shot due to a previous medical condition.
And so, because of this case, as well as other cases of this sort of vaccine mandates being put into effect across the country, we did a deep dive analysis, including speaking with several lawyers who specialize in vaccine cases, and we figured out what legal remedies are available to a person if they experience adverse reactions from the vaccine.
Can they actually file a lawsuit against vaccine manufacturers?
Well, let's go through that together.
This is your daily Facts Matter update, and I'm your host, Roman, from the Epoch Times.
And now let's begin today's discussion over in Illinois, where something almost unbelievable happened.
Three weeks ago, a judge out in Cook County, he ruled that a mother was not allowed to see her son because she was unvaccinated.
Let me just repeat that.
A divorced mother had her child visitation rights revoked because of the fact that she has not taken the vaccine against COVID-19.
And what's even more surprising is the way that this all played out.
Because the couple has already been divorced for about seven years now, and they share custody of an 11-year-old boy.
And it wasn't her ex-husband who brought up this issue.
But rather, and this is the almost unbelievable part, during a hearing regarding child support over Zoom, the judge in the case flatly asked the mom whether she was vaccinated.
And when she said no, that she wasn't, the judge stripped her of all parenting rights, parenting time with her son, unless she gets the shot.
Now naturally, the mother, who by the way is named Rebecca, she said that she was in shock after hearing this ruling and told this to a local media outlet.
One of the first things he asked me when I got on the Zoom call was whether or not I was vaccinated, which threw me off because I asked him what it had to do with the hearing.
I was confused because it was just supposed to be about expense and child support.
I asked him what it had to do with the hearing and he said, I am the judge and I make the decisions for the case.
Furthermore, this mother said that her doctor had actually suggested that she not get the shot.
Here's specifically what she said on that point to a local news outlet.
Now, since that decision, this mother has been relegated to speaking to her son only over the phone.
Here's how she describes the situation.
Now, this mother said that the judge very much exceeded his judicial authority, and she has filed an appeal in this case, and she said that she is confident that she will prevail.
Here's specifically what she said on that front.
I feel like this will resonate with people because this is how things will go if we don't speak up.
Dividing families, taking children from their parents, we have to speak out to make sure this is not the new thing.
Unfortunately, I had to be the first person that this happened to, but parents aren't going to stand for that.
And indeed, she filed her appeal, and as of yesterday, she actually won.
That's right, the judge in the case, he reversed his decision, meaning that Rebecca can once again see her son.
The judge, by the way, he simply issued a one-paragraph order, giving no reason for his change of heart.
And it simply stated this, Perhaps the national public backlash in this case has some kind of an effect, but frankly, we don't know.
Regardless, though, Rebecca was thrilled with this decision.
Here's what she said to local media.
I'm extremely happy.
I'm going to see my son right now.
I know that they are going to say that I'm an endangerment to my son.
This isn't over for me.
However, there seems to be more to the case than meets the eye.
Because even though we mentioned earlier that this decision came from the judge alone, the ex-husband in the case, he doesn't seem to be too happy about it.
His lawyers, in fact, said that this reversal, the one that happened just yesterday, it was unfortunate, a mistake, and that he's working on an emergency motion to fight it.
Here's specifically what the lawyer of the ex-husband said.
My client is definitely planning on fighting the court's decision because it's important the mother be vaccinated.
I'm working on an emergency motion right now to fight it.
We'll just have to wait and see how this case ultimately plays out, although obviously there's more going on behind the scenes than meets the eye.
If you'd like to read more about this particular case out in Illinois, I'll throw a link to it in the description box below this video for you to check out.
However, I'd like to highlight again that the mother in this case, she said that her own doctor recommended that she not get the shot due to a previous medical condition.
And so this brings up a very interesting question.
Because as more and more vaccine mandates are going into effect across the entire country, you might be wondering what legal remedies does an individual person have if they experience an adverse reaction?
Because no matter how safe the vaccines are, and no matter how rare an adverse effect might be, when you vaccinate two, three hundred million people across the country, they will ultimately show up.
Even the FDA, in their approval letter of the Pfizer vaccine, they also mentioned that there's a possibility of side effects, including possible heart inflammation.
And so, in terms of what legal remedies you have, well, the answer to that question might actually surprise you.
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And now let's talk about Pfizer.
So we here at the Epoch Times, we wanted to answer a very pressing question, one that's becoming more pertinent every single day as more vaccine mandates are going into effect.
And that question is whether or not Pfizer is still immune from lawsuits over their COVID vaccine now that they've been federally approved.
And after speaking to several vaccine lawyers, their answer appears to be, yes, Pfizer is still immune from being sued.
Meaning that if you live in an area with a vaccine mandate, and after taking the vaccine you experience some kind of adverse effect, you will not be able to file a lawsuit against the vaccine company.
However, the reason for that is quite interesting.
Let's in fact back up for a moment and I'll set the full stage for you.
Since December of last year, the Pfizer biotech vaccine has been administered in the United States under what is known as emergency use authorization.
Now, whether it's vaccines or any other type of product, if it's under emergency use authorization, it's still considered investigational, and therefore, it cannot be mandated according to U.S. law.
However, once a vaccine is granted FDA approval, under law, employees as well as companies can require it, and physicians can prescribe it off-label.
And in terms of Pfizer, this is where it gets a little weird.
And to see why that is, let's break down the Pfizer shot into three different categories.
You have the Pfizer shot for people ages 12 to 15 years old.
You have the Pfizer shot for everyone above the age of 16.
And then you have the third shot, also known as the booster shot.
So according to a statement that was released by the FDA about a week and a half ago, they authorized a Pfizer shot for people ages 16 and above.
However, for both the booster shot as well as the 12 to 15 category, it remains an emergency use authorization.
However, that is not the full picture.
Because for some reason, the FDA has also maintained the vaccine emergency use authorization for people who are 16 years and older.
Here's in fact what the FDA said in a question and answer about Comorati just four days ago.
And Comorati, by the way, is the new name of the Pfizer vaccine.
And it said, Now that is quite interesting if you think about it.
Because according to that statement, it would seem that the Pfizer vaccine for people ages 16 years and older is both approved, While at the same time still being under emergency use authorization.
And this seeming contradiction led a lot of people to think that the vaccine was not actually approved.
In fact, a lot of people left me comments under my videos saying exactly that.
And so I spent some time digging through the FDA documents and that does not seem to be the case.
Because in the statement released by the FDA, they refer to logistical reasons.
And what that appears to mean is that they want the providers, the vaccine providers, who obtained the Pfizer vaccine previously, before it was called Comorati, to still be able to use it.
Here's specifically what another part of that statement by the FDA says in this regard.
And thus, providers can use doses distributed under the emergency use authorization to administer the vaccination series if the doses were the licensed vaccine.
Now, we here at the Epoch Times, we reached out to the FDA for clarification on this issue, but we have yet to hear back.
Regardless, though, we did have a chance to speak with several lawyers who specialize in vaccines, and they were able to shed light on how this whole system works.
To start with, we spoke with a man named Mark Sadaka, who is a lawyer focused on medical litigation, and during his career, he's handled, by the way, over 175 vaccine-related cases.
And he told us that the FDA's approval of the Pfizer vaccine doesn't change the immunity which was afforded to the vaccine manufacturer.
Meaning that if an individual has a severe reaction from getting the shot, they cannot file a lawsuit.
Here's specifically what he said.
In fact, the government has already labeled any future COVID-19 vaccine as a countermeasure.
Now notice he mentioned the term countermeasure.
And just for your reference, according to the HRSA, which is the Health Resource and Service Administration, a countermeasure is defined as a vaccination, medication, device, or other item recommended to diagnose, prevent, or treat a declared pandemic, epidemic, or security threat.
Okay, so now we're beginning to get somewhere.
We're beginning to unravel the onion.
We reached out to the HRSA and their deputy director got back to us and she wrote this in an email.
COVID-19 vaccines, including Comirnaty, are covered countermeasures under the Countermeasures Injury Compensation Program.
And this is where it gets a little weird, because under the 2005 PREP Act, which stands for the Public Readiness and Emergency Preparedness Act, vaccine manufacturers, vaccine providers, vaccine distributors, as well as vaccine program planners, they are all immune from lawsuits related to COVID vaccine injuries as well as death, unless it can be shown that there was willful misconduct in the production of the vaccine by the company.
And so, because of this law, because of this PrEP Act, the only remedy to someone who has been injured by a vaccine is what is known as the CICP, which is what was mentioned in that email.
But what exactly is the CICP? Well, it is a compensation program that was set up back in 2010, and it's currently run by the U.S. government, specifically by the HHS, which is the Health and Human Services, and it was set up to compensate people who were injured by vaccines.
However, the amount that a person can actually be compensated is very limited.
Here's what one lawyer who we spoke with, here's what he said.
The CICP is the only remedy available to those who are injured by the vaccination.
The damages are limited to a death benefit for those who die, lost wages, and medical bills not paid by insurance.
Furthermore, he said that people have only one year from the date that the vaccine was administered to file a claim.
And then he added this: "I call it a feel-good program.
We like to say we have it because it makes people feel better.
But when you dig into it, it is a joke.
There is no transparency like a true judicial process.
There is no provision for attorney's fees, thus making it difficult for any injured individual to even retain a lawyer.
Any appeals are handled by three people, hand-selected by HHS, to review the claim.
Now, what's interesting to note is that from 2010 to August of this year, there have been a total of 2,186 claims that were filed with the CICP, and out of them, 1,693, or 77% of them, were for COVID-related countermeasures.
However, none of the COVID claims have actually been approved for payment.
And the lawyers who are actually working on these cases, they say that they are not optimistic that any of these cases will win because the vaccine is still so new and data is still being collected.
And so they have not yet developed a list of adverse reactions, which would be covered by the compensation fund.
Here's specifically what the HRSA, the deputy director who responded to us via email.
Here's what she said in this regard.
Any injury table for COVID-19 medical countermeasures will be developed when there is sufficient data to meet the compelling, reliable, valid medical and scientific evidence standard.
When a table is developed, it is published in the Federal Register with an opportunity for public comment and is posted on the CICP website.
And so what that means is that by law, if you experience an adverse reaction from the vaccine, whether you took it voluntarily or it was mandated, you cannot sue the manufacturer.
And then if you go the route of the CICP compensation program, you likely won't win, because they have literally not yet set up a table for adverse reactions that they officially recognize.
And it's exactly this type of situation that led Mr.
Mark Sadaka, who is again one of those lawyers that I introduced earlier, to say this...
With the liability protection offered to vaccine companies, there is no incentive to disclose safety risks of countermeasures outside of the simple goodwill of the large corporations that sell the product.
Now here I will mention that the FDA says that the vaccines which are approved undergo the agency's standard process for reviewing the quality, safety, and effectiveness of medical products and that it conducts its own analysis of the information in the BLA, which is the Biologics License Application, to make sure the vaccine is safe and effective and meets the FDA's standard for approval.
However, some experts have been questioning the FDA's quick approval of the Pfizer vaccine.
Because normally, this approval process can take several years.
In fact, here's how the normal approval process is described on the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia website.
Vaccines are usually made by first showing that they are safe and effective in experimental animals.
Once that is established, the vaccine becomes an investigational new drug, and the company is given an investigational new drug license to further study the safety and effectiveness of the vaccine in adults and eventually children.
Again, these trials can take years, giving companies ample time to provide the FDA with proof of long-term safety and effectiveness.
However, in the case of the COVID vaccine, the approval process was based on six months of safety data from their Phase 3 trial, where, by the way, many of the participants in the control group were actually unblinded.
This, however, does not mean that it's not necessarily safe.
It just means that it was pushed through very fast.
In fact, in their licensing process, the FDA bypassed the External Advisory Committee, which normally reviews and comments on the agency's decisions in the approval process.
However, in this case, they said that the applicants met the agency's requirements.
Here's specifically what the FDA wrote in their approval letter to Biotech.
We did not refer your application to the Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee because our review of information submitted in your BLA, which is the Biologics License Application, including the clinical data design and trial results, did not raise concerns or controversial issues that would have benefited from an advisory committee discussion.
However, even though they did not go through the advisory committee, Dr.
Peter Marks, who is the director of the FDA's Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, he said that the general public can rest assured that the agency's decision to approve the Pfizer vaccine was properly predicated.
Here's specifically what he said.
We have not lost sight that the COVID public health crisis continues in the U.S. and that the public is counting on safe and effective vaccines.
The public and the medical community can be confident that although we approve this vaccine expeditiously, it was fully in keeping with our existing high standards for vaccines in the U.S.
Which might very well be the case, however, because this process was sped up so fast.
As we mentioned earlier, the CICP system has yet to actually compile a list of adverse reactions that they officially recognize, meaning that if you experience an adverse reaction, no matter how rare they are, it's pretty much the case that you have no legal recourse.
Now if you'd like to go deeper into our research into anything that we've discussed in today's episode, I'll throw it all into the description box below this video so you can peruse at your own leisure.
Now, lastly, as we've already mentioned in several previous episodes, on the very same day that Joe Biden was sworn into office, YouTube made the unilateral decision to demonetize our program.
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Until next time, I'm your host, Roman from the Epic Times.
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