Trial Lawyers to the Rescue: COVID-19 Litigation Conference
Over the weekend of March 25-26, 2023, a new institution was born: the (hopefully) annual COVID-19 Litigation Conference, located in Atlanta, Georgia.
There are hundreds of varieties of lawyer conferences in the US every year, and dozens of health freedom related gatherings. This event brought together these two worlds in a way that demonstrates that liberty is still alive in the USA. The event was attended by about 150 people, including attorneys, doctors/experts, and activists; and it was by organized and sponsored by the Vaccine Safety Research Foundation (VSRF), the Mendenhall Law Group, Children’s Health Defense, and others.
Throughout the weekend, the attending attorneys were quite “fired up”: classic American gung-ho trial lawyers on a mission to fight what they see as a tyrannical, and illogical, COVID-19 regime. Many of these attorneys practiced corporate law and then “switched gears” to fight said regime. NHFC/NHFA attended this conference, and we were able to connect with many of the participants in order to expand our reach, improve our knowledge base, and learn how activists and litigators can support each other’s work.
Data Transparency Needed
Over the weekend, panels on Employer Mandates, Education Mandates, Hospital Negligence, Civil Rights, Medical Licenses, Fraud, Vaccine Injury, Censorship, and Future Litigation brought together leading attorneys to share information, strategies, and enthusiasm. VSRF’s Steve Kirsch opened the conference with a call for data transparency; he argues that if we had state public health data (death stats, by vaccine status and date of death) this whole “COVID-19 regime” would end. And one speaker pointed out the profound dehumanization in the distinction between “essential” and “non-essential” workers.
Hospitals can be a Dangerous Place for Sick People
Other speakers pointed out that we can look to military conscientious objector cases to find the contours of what the standards should be for religious exemptions to vaccination. And such a vaccine exemption does not require a particular religion, nor does it depend on what your church leaders think about a vaccine. “Right to try” laws were discussed. As it stands, these laws only apply to experimental drugs, and one cannot use these laws for e.g., Ivermectin as it is an approved drug. Panelists felt that changes were needed in these laws to allow “experimental” off-label use, the same way they now use experimental drugs under the right-to-try concept and legal structures. Hospitals can be a dangerous place for a sick person, one panelist opined. A chief concern here is the way that hospitals pushed Remdesivir, thereby arguably leading to kidney damage and death in many cases. Another problem is that most hospitals will not allow alternatives to their less-than-desirable protocols; e.g. Ivermectin or HCQ are not allowed. And sometimes local law firms are beholden to large hospitals.
Trilogy of Infamy at US Supreme Court
“Movement law” is the concept of representing an individual plaintiff along with representing a political movement. This is ok so long as the client is “on board.” Consent of the governed is a key factor in how things play out. If enough people withhold consent, these attorneys argued we can make change. And the only way a case decision will “stick” is if there is a movement ready to implement it. Attorney Robert Barnes discussed the “trilogy of infamy” in US Supreme Court cases: Jacobson (vaccine mandates), Buck v. Bell (sterilization of “unfit”), and Korematsu (Japanese American internment). Jacobson is arguably the root of these bad cases. One nonprofit which funds COVID-19 litigation, The Gavel Project, teaches kids about their rights regarding masking rules. One key issue here is that whether or not to wear a mask is a “speech act” under the First Amendment.
Moving Forward
In many groundbreaking psychological experiments a half-century ago, it was found that average folks could be led to mistreat “pretend prisoners” and even inflict what they believed to be lethal electric shocks on other persons. This shows that “average” people can become sadistic when given a sense of duty and authority over others. In one case discussed at the conference, a six-year-old chose not to wear mask at school, and his parents said he had a right to go to school. The school’s response? To put this kid in a storage room or a cold yard by himself all day. As in the case of the above experiments, presumably normal adults were driven to cruel behavior by the propaganda around COVID-19. As the pandemic narratives continue to unravel, no doubt more folks will wake up to the ways our freedom has been impacted by the pandemic.