AMA urges Supreme Court to uphold vaccination mandates

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The American Medical Association has added its voice in support of mandatory COVID-19 vaccinations in an amicus brief to the Supreme Court filed on December 30.

The AMA has urged the Supreme Court to reject recent challenges and preserve the Occupational Safety and Health Administration's emergency temporary standard for COVID-19 vaccination and testing for large businesses.

The Supreme Court will hold fast-tracked oral arguments over federal vaccine mandates in a special session on Friday, January 7. The justices will hear two cases: One concerns the mandate for workers at companies with100 or more employees to get vaccinated or get tested. The other federal mandate requires vaccinations for employees in healthcare facilities that accept Medicare and Medicaid funding.

The AMA-led brief was joined by 15 medical organizations that promote widespread vaccination as the best evidence-based strategy to protect public health and defeat the COVID-19 pandemic.

According to the brief, halting enforcement of the emergency temporary standard requiring vaccination and testing for large employers would "cause severe and irreparable harm to the public interest." Other mitigation measures, such as mask-wearing and social distancing, remain important, but they "do not … rise to the level of protection that widespread uptake of vaccinations would provide." 

WHY THIS MATTERS

The Supreme Court is expected to determine whether federal vaccine mandates will stand while lawsuits against them move through the appeals process.

Ultimately, the question of whether the federal government can mandate vaccines is expected to go before the justices.

THE LARGER TREND

The AMA said that, backed by science and rigorous clinical testing, the use of COVID-19 vaccines has proven to be the safest, most effective way to prevent viral spread in high transmission areas such as the workplace. To help create a safer environment, vaccination and testing requirements are essential for protecting workers from COVID-19 infection, hospitalization and death, particularly for those who are immunocompromised or cannot get vaccinated due to a medical condition, the AMA said.

As part of its mission to promote the betterment of public health, the AMA has also filed several friend-of-the-court briefs in courts across the country in support of federal vaccination and testing efforts.
 
The 15 organizations joining the AMA in the brief are: the American College of Physicians, American Academy of Family Physicians, American Academy of Pediatrics, American College of Chest Physicians, American College of Correctional Physicians, American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, American Geriatrics Society, American Medical Women's Association, American Psychiatric Association, American Society for Clinical Pathology, American Society of Echocardiography, American Society of Hematology, American Thoracic Society, Association of Academic Physiatrists, and American Lung Association.
  
ON THE RECORD

"The more workers who get vaccinated, the closer we are to slowing the spread of the virus and creating a safer environment," the amici write. "The statistics on COVID-19 vaccine efficacy speak for themselves. No other measure has been shown to reduce the risk of infection, hospitalization, and death to the degree that vaccination does. The science is clear: No arguments against the need for vaccination are medically valid, other than to accommodate a medical contraindication."
 

Twitter: @SusanJMorse
Email the writer: susan.morse@himssmedia.com