Immune Systems Advisor

Rail transit officials in California’s Bay Area have been ordered to pay more than $7 million to transit workers who were fired because they refused to get a COVID-19 vaccine years ago. On Oct. 23, 2024; a federal jury in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California sided with six former San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) workers who had refused to get the vaccine for religious purposes. BART was ordered to pay the group more than $7.8 million, with each individual receiving between $1.2 million and $1.5 million, the Pacific Justice Institute, which represented the transit workers in the trial, said in a statement on Oct. 24. The institute, a law firm representing the six former employees since 2022, said the eight-person jury deliberated for two days this week before returning the verdict that awarded the employees the compensation. About a week ago, the federal jury also determined that BART had failed to prove that it suffered an undue hardship by denyin...

A federal jury has awarded $687,000 to a research scientist who was fired from BlueCross BlueShield of Tennessee for refusing to comply with the company’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate. Tanja Benton, who had worked at the firm for 16 years when she was fired, was awarded $177,240 in back pay, $10,000 in compensation, and $500,000 in punitive damages, according to a document made public by the federal court in eastern Tennessee on June 30. Company officials told Ms. Benton in August of 2021 that she would need to be “fully vaccinated” to keep her position, according to her lawsuit. Ms. Benton refused, saying aborted fetal cell lines were involved in the development of the COVID-19 vaccines and she couldn’t “in good conscience consume the vaccine, which would not only defile her body but also anger and dishonor God.” BlueCross BlueShield said her position involved “regular external public-facing interactions” so she couldn’t keep it. While Ms. Benton said her position became fully remote in ...

Gov. Greg Abbott signed a bill ( filed in August 2025 ) that makes ivermectin — a drug used mostly in this country to treat livestock for parasites — available to Texans without a prescription. Texas is now the fifth state to approve the over-the-counter sale of the drug after it became popular as an unproven treatment for COVID-19.  House Bill 25  filed by state Rep.  Joanne Shofner , R-Nacogdoches, first passed the House, 87-47, after an energetic, three-hour debate along party lines. Shofner, surrounded by more than 20 Republicans at one point, argued her bill was championing medical freedom, giving Texans better access to a drug particularly outside cities where pharmacies outnumber physicians. Shofner's   bill does not put ivermectin on pharmacy shelves, but the drug would be available upon request from behind the pharmacist’s counter as Texans already do for other drugs, like Sudafed. The law takes effect Dec. 4, 2025. “It's absolutely im...

An attorney associated with Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on Wednesday accused mainstream media of “deliberately stoking fear and outrage about vaccines in an attempt to derail Donald Trump’s nomination” of Kennedy for secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. In an op-ed published in The Wall Street Journal , Aaron Siri said a recent New York Times report mischaracterized three narrow petitions his firm filed with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration ( FDA ). The petitions raised concerns about specific versions of three different vaccines, including one polio vaccine. Contrary to the Times headline, “ Kennedy’s Lawyer Has Asked the F.D.A. to Revoke Approval of the Polio Vaccine,” the petitions did not ask the FDA to revoke the polio or any other vaccine. The Times also wrongly implied that Siri filed the petitions on behalf of Kennedy. “The attempts to stoke fear are based on legal work I did for a different client, which I never discussed with Mr. Kennedy,” Siri...

Former presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who backed President-elect Donald Trump, said that the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) bureaucracy should be winnowed down. Former presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announces the suspension of his campaign and his support for Republican presidential candidate, former President Donald Trump, in Phoenix, Ariz., on Aug. 23, 2024. Rebecca Noble/Getty Images Before the election, Trump had floated Kennedy as having a role in his administration, namely targeting federal agencies that oversee health care, food, and drugs. “There are entire departments, like the nutrition department at the FDA ... that have to go—that are not doing their job. They’re not protecting our kids,” Kennedy told MSNBC. When he was asked if he would remove any health agencies, Kennedy said, “to eliminate the agencies, as long as it requires congressional approval, I wouldn’t be doing that.” “I can get the corruption out of the agencies,” he added. Kenne...