The Military’s Radical Imposition of Mandatory COVID-19 Vaccinations

By: Scott Sturman, MD, USAFA ‘72
Rod Bishop, Lt Gen, USAF (Ret), STARRS President & BOD Chairman
Sen (Ret) Mike Rose, Maj, USAFR (Ret), STARRS VP of Legal

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Medical doctor and STARRS member Scott Sturman teamed up with our President and Vice-President of Legal to conduct a study of shocking medical and legal facts that are being ignored about the dangers and effectiveness of the vaccines and the mandates.

Their analysis concludes that the risks of the COVID vaccines outweigh the benefits for military members, the primacy of protective natural immunity is being disregarded, the legality of the mandates and the accuracy of the data supporting them are credibly disputed, and the recipients’ basic human rights are being ignored.

Therefore, compulsory administration programs which ignore the emergency use authorization’s informed consent rules, with career ending consequences for non-compliance, are radical, in our opinion.

The STARRS Board of Directors contends the current military COVID-19 mandates are radical because they violate the following fundamental principles:

• First Amendment allowance for religious exemptions;
• Fifth Amendment due process and equal protection of the laws;
• Nuremberg Code of 1947 against medical experimentation without informed consent, recognized as US law by the Supreme Court;
• Hippocratic Oath, which compels physicians to at first do no harm, which requires considering the risks and benefits to the patient prior to any medical intervention;
• The primacy of natural immunity for force protection and mission

The purging of healthy and otherwise qualified military members solely because they refuse to take the COVID-19 vaccine impairs military readiness and national security, and undermines morale.

The most recent VAERS summary lists more COVID-19 vaccine adverse reactions, hospitalizations, and deaths than all other vaccines combined from 1990 until present.

From the outset of the pandemic, the risk of serious consequences spared those patient populations represented by members of the armed forces, and overwhelmingly affected the obese, the elderly, and those with comorbidities.

Mandatory COVID-19 vaccinations, especially for those with natural immunity, causes the cure to be worse than the disease, as shown by the following facts:

1) There has been a disregard for the 1st Amendment rights of those claiming religious exemptions. Federal courts have ruled there is no COVID-19 exception to the Constitution and there is no military exclusion from our Constitution. Despite thousands of applications, very few cases have been approved. Appeals based on religious beliefs are adjudicated by the Surgeon General rather than the Chief of Chaplains, and confirmations of religious sincerity by military chaplains are ignored.

2) There has been retaliation against Navy SEALS protected by a court ruling. The well-documented treatment of the cadets at West Point last year is another example of retaliatory behavior by the military.

3) The military has made no accommodation for the benefits of natural immunity despite more than 150 studies showing its superiority to vaccine immunity. This year alone, the Lancet, the CDC, and Johns Hopkins University have all published articles acknowledging the benefits of natural immunity, including its long-lasting protection.

4) Sworn accusations of fraud regarding the DMED database came to public attention when evidence was presented at Senator Ron Johnson’s Senate inquiry on January 24, 2022. The DOD validated the accuracy of the 2021 data, which indicated large increases in diagnoses in relation to the 2016-2020 baseline, documenting adverse events either due to SARS-CoV-2 or the mRNA vaccines. DOD quickly readjusted this data to fall more in line with 2021, but serious questions remain about its accuracy.

5) The only FDA approved COVID-19 vaccine is Comirnaty. The Pfizer- BioNTech formulation, which is authorized under the Emergency Use Authorization (EUA), is the only product being administered to members of the armed forces, since Comirnaty is not available in the United States.

6) According to the FDA, under the rules specific for the EUA, it is the patient’s choice to receive or not receive the vaccine, and that choice will not affect the patient’s medical care. The licensed vaccine and the EUA vaccine are legally distinct. The FDA document states that the risks and benefits are unknown.

7) The risks of the EUA vaccine outweigh its benefits, especially considering the threat, which has abated through strain iterations. A mandatory vaccination approach lacks flexibility and disregards the evolution of the disease.

8) DOD incorrectly defines the problem as one of vaccinated vs. not vaccinated. The real issue is immunity non-immunity. To expel service members who are not vaccinated but have natural immunity comes at the loss of billions of dollars in training costs and the vilification of patriotic Americans serving their country.

9) The DOD employs vaccination as “a one size fits all” approach to mitigating the effects of SARS-CoV-2. This policy does not consider age or co- morbidities and de-emphasizes the importance of prophylaxis and Simple, safe, effective measures like vitamin D supplementation, which has been demonstrated to prevent severe disease, have not been prioritized.

A federal court has enjoined the Navy from mandating COVID-19 vaccinations for Navy SEALs, and a judge in another federal case stated that the military was administering the COVID-19 vaccine illegally.

There are many other examples of courts declaring vaccine mandates illegal and considering the matter in other pending cases.

The lesson is that the military is willing and able to mandate vaccinations in violation of the law, thereby violating its sacred duty to obey the Constitution by obeying the law.

It cannot be assumed that the military order to take a vaccine is legal, but on the contrary, it should be critically evaluated to determine its legality.

There are more recent legal precedents than the Nuremberg Code that must be considered. A federal court injunction was issued against the administration of the anthrax vaccine and according to a federal court in Florida, the COVID-19 vaccine being administered by the military is not a vaccine fully approved by the FDA. The law requires informed consent for all who are vaccinated, including members of the military.

During testimony at Senator Johnson’s hearings on 1/24/22, affidavits from three military doctor whistleblowers were presented, alleging under oath that the military provided incorrect and fraudulent data to the CDC and military members. This indicates military members are not being informed of the actual risks of the COVID-19 vaccines.

If enough military leaders are exposed to this data, will they insist upon truth and ask questions? How could any real commander not do so? To say, “I am just following DOD or CDC guidance,” and not know what one is enforcing and ignore the facts above, potentially hurts the men and women under one’s command and is not the mark of a real leader of character.

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Additional:

21 Republican Governors Join Letter Opposing Military COVID Vaccine Mandate (Daily Wire)