Brian Thomas

The Bundestag is currently debating vaccine mandates for the German electorate, including for certain professions and trades. The proposed law, if approved, would grant government officials unprecedented powers over the lives of individual citizens. I argue the proposed broad powers are incompatible with progressive democracies and a free people. As such, they warrant more time for public and parliamentary deliberation and should be voted down in their current form.

The legislative debate is also poorly timed. It comes as much of the population is preparing for Christmas and school holidays and cannot dedicate the time necessary for careful personal consideration. 

Lost as well in the rush: over the past weeks, other legislatures and courts, notably in the United States, have rejected vaccine mandates as unconstitutional.  

As I write this, the US Senate has voted to nullify President Biden’s vaccine mandate for businesses as incompatible with the Constitution and the rule of law.

That Germany’s closest ally should reject a mandate less invasive than that now before the Bundestag should be grounds for pause.

Here are six compelling reasons for parliamentarians to call for extended debate on mandates and to vote them down as currently proposed: 

1.) Mandates fail to protect public health as promised and provide the public with a false sense of security.

  a.) An August 2021 study funded by the US Center for Disease Control and Prevention concluded: 

“As this field continues to develop, clinicians and public health practitioners should consider vaccinated persons who become infected with SARS-CoV-2 to be no less infectious than unvaccinated persons. These findings are critically important, especially in congregate settings where the viral transmission can lead to large outbreaks. “[1]

2.) Mandates present a grievous attack on Germany’s constitutional protections guaranteeing bodily autonomy, the right to work, and hard-won civil liberties.

a.) Leading German legal experts and former politicians, like (thrice vaccinated) former Interior Minister Otto Schily have condemned mandates. In an OpEd in “Die Welt” he says not even authoritarian states like China have vaccine mandates and adds:

“Mandates are an unconstitutional overreach by the state.” [2]

Schily, seen here in 1983 with then then fellow Green MP Petra Kelly(deceased), has shaped German politics for decades.

3.) Mandates ignore the individual right to claim an exemption on religious grounds or as a conscientious objection. These are rights German lawmakers in the past have liberally granted, for example, to conscientious objectors in the military. 

The case for exemptions has been bolstered in the US state of Colorado, where Catholic bishops are vigorously and successfully asserting them. 

     a.) The Colorado bishops have issued a template letter for exemptions and advise those with reservations that: “Vaccination is not morally obligatory and so must be voluntary,” state the bishops. “The Catholic Church teaches that a person may refuse medical intervention, including a vaccination if his or her conscience leads them to that decision…. That person should follow their conscience, and they should not be penalized for doing so.” [3]

Legal scholars in the US and Europe note the moral and legal framework for exemptions is similar in both legal systems. Regrettably, there has been no open public discussion of religious exemptions, or exemptions based on conscience, in the hurried atmosphere surrounding this vote. Time is running out for their inclusion.

4.) Mandates ignore the mounting body of scientific evidence that the mRNA vaccine appears to be causing an unusually high rate of injuries and deaths when compared with other vaccines. 

     a.) The respected American Medical Association has issued a study warning that the controversial mRNA vaccines lead to a dramatic risk of heart attack among those who take them. “We conclude that the mRNA vacs dramatically increase inflammation on the endothelium and T cell infiltration of cardiac muscle and may account for the observations of increased thrombosis, cardiomyopathy, and other vascular events following vaccination.[4]

b.) The widely followed global voice on Covid, Dr.John Campbell, long an advocate of broad covid vaccination, is now recommending a review of mRNA vaccines and caution. His analysis has received 1,877,982 views to date. His channel has 1.76 million subscribers. 

Dr. Campbell’s clarification alone should raise questions about rushing through mandates:

Source : Youtube

5.) Mandates fail to provide harmed or killed individuals, or their families and survivors with complete or even adequate indemnity, or legal and financial recourse, either against the mandating government or the international pharmaceutical corporations producing Covid vaccines.

According to German public broadcaster ZDF[5], the federal government is liable for damages from several vaccine producers. 

But while that is technically the case, on the website Anwalt.de, Attorney Lena E. Telioridis, among others, qualifies that liability:  

“In the established case law, vaccination damage is only recognized if there is permanent damage to health, which must be proven with a probability bordering on certainty, see LSG NRW, ruling v. 08/21/2020 – L 13 VE 40/19; LSG Bayern, ruling v. May 14, 2019 – L 15 VJ 9/17). … In practice, it is therefore in any case associated with considerable effort to actually positively prove the existence of a vaccine damage.”

(Google translate)

„In der ständigen Rechtsprechung wird ein Impfschaden jedoch nur dann anerkannt, wenn eine dauerhafte gesundheitliche Schädigung vorliegt, was mit an Sicherheit grenzender Wahrscheinlichkeit nachgewiesen werden muss, vgl. LSG NRW, Urt. v. 21.08.2020 – L 13 VE 40/19; LSG Bayern, Urt. v. 14.05.2019 – L 15 VJ 9/17). … In der Praxis ist es daher jedenfalls mit erheblichem Aufwand verbunden, tatsächlich das Vorliegen eines Impfschadens positiv zu beweisen.[6]

In the US it appears both the government and corporations are mainly off the hook for damages. According to Reuters, Covid vaccine injury claims are mounting, but recourse is lacking for those harmed. CNBC confirms that you can’t sue Pfizer or Moderna if you have severe Covid vaccine side effects. The government likely won’t compensate you for damages either. And the Factcheckers over at Newsweek have come to a sobering conclusion that German lawmakers should weigh carefully:

“Pharmaceutical companies are protected from liability regarding the COVID-19 vaccines. If someone has an allergic reaction or injury from one of the vaccines, they can petition to receive compensation from the Department of Health and Human Services’ (HHS) Countermeasures Injury Compensation Program (CICP). The National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (VICP), which also falls under the jurisdiction of HHS, has a better record of providing compensation to people who claim injury from a vaccine than CICP but covers vaccines for diseases such as polio and seasonal influenza, not COVID-19.”

6.) The US Senate, with support from Democrats, has voted to nullify President Biden’s vaccine mandate for businesses as not compatible with the Constitution or court rulings on labor law and personal autonomy. And in blow after blow, top federal courts have also consistently blocked Biden Administration vaccine mandates. [7]

a.) That the German Supreme court and the Ethikrat should reject the reasoning of top US courts and legislators should be cause for reflection.  This discrepancy highlights the need to review how the German Supreme Court arrived at its conclusions. Greater transparency of the court approval process before the Bundestag vote would bolster public acceptance of any legislative decision. 

This list of six reasons for extended debate and a rejection of mandates in their current form is far from exhaustive. It is, however, a sufficient basis for parliamentarians to reject the legislation. Along with condemnation by a growing number of German public figures, vaccine mandates have been roundly rejected by voters and their representatives in the mature democracies of the United States and the United Kingdom.

It is past time to abandon the acrimonious debate, fueled in part by politicians and major media, that has continuously vilified and marginalized virtually all dissenters as far-right radicals, anti-social lunatics, or the unwashed and ill-informed. The documentation provided here cites mainstream sources. Taken together they demonstrate a more rigorous critique of government policies is long overdue. 

What’s more, ignoring the mounting evidence and the reasonable doubt about the safety of mRNA vaccines raises issues of culpability and liability. 

Covid mRNA vaccines appear to represent a potential danger to public health, including the possibility of irreversible effects on the health of a significant portion of the population. The costs in human life and suffering, and future expenditures for care and rehabilitation, could easily outweigh any benefits of a vaccine that has already failed to live up to its promises.

 [1] https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.11.12.21265796v1

[2] https://www.welt.de/debatte/kommentare/plus235395056/Otto-Schily-Die-Impfpflicht-eine-verfassungswidrige-Anmassung-des-Staates.html

[3] https://www.ncregister.com/news/colorado-bishops-back-conscientious-exemption-for-coronavirus-vaccines-4bfiy51q

[4] https://www.ahajournals.org/doi/10.1161/circ.144.suppl_1.10712

[5] https://www.zdf.de/nachrichten/panorama/corona-versicherung-impfschaden-100.html

[6] https://www.anwalt.de/rechtstipps/corona-pandemie-wer-haftet-fuer-einen-impfschaden-194531.html

[7] https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/joe-biden/judge-issues-nationwide-injunction-against-biden-s-vaccine-mandate-federal-n1285551

Copyright: Brian Thomas, Germany 2021

You are free to reprint part or all of this article. Simply drop me a line at thomas.reports@protonmail.com and let me know prior to publishing.

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