Professor James Brudney shares his expert opinion on vaccine requirements in the workplace with The Washington Post.
While some U.S. health-care workers have been required to get vaccines in the past, James Brudney, a professor of employment law at Fordham University in New York, said there was a big legal difference between an influenza vaccine and a coronavirus vaccine.
“Employees challenging employer mandates of influenza vaccines have often been unsuccessful in the courts. However, the medical community knows a lot more about influenza vaccines than covid vaccines,” Brudney said, noting that the Food and Drug Administration has cleared coronavirus vaccines only under emergency use authorization.
Brudney added that many countries would likely impose stricter rules than the United States, with the European Convention on Human Rights including provisions that could affect cases, and several Asian countries that recognized individual rights to choosing medical treatments.