PETITION TO SAINT JOSEPH'S UNIVERSITY ADMINISTRATION REGARDING VACCINE BOOSTERS

Dear Saint Joseph’s University President Mark Reed and Saint Joseph’s University Board of Trustees,

We are students, parents, alumni, faculty, and staff of Saint Joseph’s University. We are grateful for Saint Joseph’s University’s efforts at keeping students and the local community safe during this pandemic. As concerned members of the SJU family, we write this open letter to express our strong opposition to Saint Joseph’s University’s Covid-19 booster mandate. In light of new data available about both the vaccine and the virus, we urge you to change the “mandate” to a “recommendation” based on the factors outlined below.

We appreciate that the booster mandate and new procedures for the spring term stem from the good intention to prevent severe illness. But as with any public health policy, many factors — scientific, ethical, and legal — must be considered and weighed. We are concerned that Saint Joseph’s University, in issuing this booster mandate, has overlooked recent and evolving scientific data regarding the vaccine and the virus that makes a booster mandate inappropriate and unnecessary, raising serious ethical and legal questions.

The CDC has already confirmed that those who are vaccinated transmit Covid-19 similarly to unvaccinated people. This includes those who have received the Covid-19 booster. The virus will continue to be transmitted among our highly vaccinated campus as we saw throughout the fall. With all of the recent information and the incredible spread of the omicron variant, Saint Joseph’s University has learned that vaccines and booster injections cannot stop the spread of Covid-19.

As so many students test positive, they are, in essence, receiving a natural booster based on the very latest variants of the virus. And yet, Saint Joseph’s University is ignoring the natural immunity in these students and mandating a booster injection based on older variants, which Saint Joseph’s University knows is ineffective at stopping the spread of Covid-19 in the Saint Joseph’s University community. This decision is counter to science and seems like it was made less to promote students’

health and more to achieve some other unstated goal of the administration. Otherwise, why require a booster injection that is ineffective, and potentially dangerous, for students who are naturally contracting and fighting off a virus that many scientists believe is becoming more endemic than pandemic?

Mounting evidence points to serious risks from exposure to the Covid-19 vaccines. The latest scientific research shows that Covid-19 vaccine side effects such as myocarditis, thrombosis with thrombocytopenia syndrome, and pericarditis are more common in young people than we think (see references 1-5 listed below). Recently, an Oxford-conducted study of men under the age of 40 demonstrated that the risk of myocarditis after one dose mRNA exceeds the risk of myocarditis from an actual Covid-19 infection. Even more alarmingly, the CDC’s Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) indicates that there were over 15,000 Covid-19 vaccine related death cases in 2021, compared with the previous average of 158 vaccine related deaths per year (Pre-Covid-19), in the context of a yearly total of 280 million injections and 70 different vaccines. This data shows that, compared to other vaccines, Covid-19 injections carry around 100 times the risk of death.

Why force such risks on our students when the rate of severe Covid-19 illness in the 16 to 40 year age group is exceedingly low? Newer variants appear to pose a near-zero risk of death for college students. Data now shows that the vaccine itself can pose more risk to young people than the virus itself, and repeated injections only increase those risks without any discernible reduction in the spread of the virus.

All students are individuals, each someone’s child with unique medical, psychological, and emotional needs. Indeed, as the CDC has recognized, “people aged 18-64 years who are at increased risk for COVID-19 exposure and transmission because of occupational or institutional setting may receive a booster shot of Pfizer-BioNTech’s COVID-19 vaccine at least 6 months after their Pfizer-BioNTech primary series, based on their individual benefits and risks” (emphasis added). With its blanket mandate, Saint Joseph’s University seems to be interpreting eligibility as a directive, ignoring both the science and CDC’s own guidance regarding individual benefits and risks.

The power differential between the university and students raises serious ethical issues. In addition to the risk of side effects and death, Saint Joseph’s University’s

injection mandate can trigger generational trauma in some students from intrusive, experimental, and other medically questionable procedures. For many students, the coercive nature of a third injection, after being told that they needed only two injections to attend Saint Joseph’s University, is contributing to psychological distress and emotional disorientation about future academic, social, and professional potential. We are seeing staggering mental health problems on campus and beyond. At this point in the pandemic, after nearly two years of following constantly changing rules, we would do right by our students to give them control over whether they receive additional doses of the Covid-19 vaccine.

That is why we believe that the question of whether a student should receive a third (or fourth or fifth or sixth) booster must be answered individually by each student, in consultation with a medical professional or doctor, rather than by school administrators.

Considering new data on the virus and the vaccine, the university may very well cause disability or death by imposing further vaccine requirements, and it will have to bear the responsibility. Please do the right thing, and end this unnecessary and unethical mandate.

Additional References:
1. Intravenous injection of COVID-19 mRNA vaccine can induce acute myopericarditis

in mouse model (Clin Infect Dis 2021 https://pubmed.ncbi.nih.gov/34406358)
2. The S1 protein of SARS-CoV-2 crosses the blood-brain barrier in mice (Nature

Neuroscience 24, 368-378.)
3. SARS-CoV-2 spike impairs DNA damage repair and inhibits V(D)J recombination in

vitro (Viruses 2021, 13 (10), 2056; https://doi.org/10.3390/v13102056)
4. Be aware of SARS-CoV-2 spike protein: There is more than meets the eyes (J Biol

Regul Homeost Agents May-Jun 2021)

5. Risks of myocarditis, pericarditis, and cardiac arrhythmias associated with COVID-19 vaccination or SARS-CoV-2 infection (Nature Medicine 2021
https: //www.nature.com/articles/s41591-021-01630-0.pdf)