Justices denied petitions from a nonprofit founded by Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
U.S. Supreme Court justices on June 24 rejected appeals brought over COVID-19 vaccines by Children’s Health Defense (CHD), a nonprofit founded by Robert F. Kennedy Jr., an independent candidate running for president.
The nation’s top court rejected an appeal seeking to overturn lower court rulings that said CHD and its members lacked standing to sue the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) over its emergency authorizations of COVID-19 vaccines for minors.
The justices also rebuffed another CHD appeal in a case that challenged the COVID-19 vaccine mandate imposed on students at Rutgers University, a public college in New Jersey.
The Supreme Court did not comment on either denial. It included them in a lengthy list dealing with dozens of cases.
“Disappointing that the courts are closed to FDA fraud harming millions of Americans,” Robert Barnes, an attorney representing CHD in the FDA case, told The Epoch Times in an email. He called for Congress to pass reforms.
Julio Gomez, an attorney representing CHD in the Rutgers case, told The Epoch Times in an email that the Supreme Court’s denials marked a sad day because clarity is needed on vaccines and the Supreme Court’s 1905 decision in Jacobson v. Massachusetts, which upheld a city’s law requiring vaccination against smallpox.
Mr. Gomez pointed to a recent federal appeals court ruling that determined Jacobson did not apply to a case filed against a vaccine mandate in California because plaintiffs had produced evidence the COVID-19 vaccines do not prevent the spread of COVID-19.
Lawyers for Rutgers and the government did not return requests for comment.
In the FDA case, CHD and parents in Texas and Florida argued that the regulatory agency cleared COVID-19 vaccines under emergency authorization despite COVID-19 posing less risk than influenza to children, and without adequate clinical testing. The FDA also wrongly promoted the vaccines, the plaintiffs alleged.
U.S. District Judge Alan Albright, tossed out the lawsuit in 2023, finding that CHD and the parents did not meet the requirements for standing under Article III of the U.S. Constitution, or the ability to sue over the actions.
