Feb. 8, 2021

Mandating Vaccines? Vaccine courts? Liability? All your legal questions on COVID-19 vaccines answered.

Mandating Vaccines? Vaccine courts? Liability? All your legal questions on COVID-19 vaccines answered.

Vaccinations have a long history of legal pushback. 

From the conception of vaccine courts to liability protections for pharmaceutical companies. Case law when it comes to mandatory vaccination has even been determined by the Supreme Court in 1905.

In the new global pandemic, though, what laws will come into play?

“So requiring people to get a vaccine that has only been approved through an Emergency Use Authorization is a little bit unprecedented,” Dr. Carmel Shachar, the Executive Director at The Petrie-Flom Center for Health Law Policy at Harvard Law School explains on this week’s episode.

“There's really good public health arguments. The data suggests that these vaccines are very safe. The public health data certainly suggests that COVID-19 is a huge health risk and that people should be vaccinating to protect themselves. But will it stand up to a challenge of somebody saying: ‘Hey, if you want to compel me to take something; you have to make sure that it is actually safe and actually effective through the proper channels.”  That's going to be an interesting question that will play out in the next year or so,” she says. 

In this episode of Track the Vax, Shachar explains how the current case-law can influence COVID-19 vaccine efforts and what legal fights we may see in the coming months and years.  

In this episode she also discusses:

  • How employers and vaccine mandates will play out in the courts.
  • The role of HIPAA in vaccination efforts and vaccine certificates.
  • And how your travel may be impacted by vaccination roll-outs .

Listen along with us on:  Apple Podcasts Spotify, or wherever you listen