Federal Judge Gary Brown Denies NY Vaccine-Injured girl Sara Doe a Medical Exemption to attend school
A federal court judge agreed Tuesday with the Oceanside Union School District on Long Island and denied “Sara Doe,” a medically fragile student, an exemption from mandated hepatitis b and meningococcal shots. Sara will no longer be able to attend school beginning today.
Judge Gary Brown reversed a decision he made last fall to allow Sara to attend school, even though Sara has a well-documented and undisputed history of vaccine injury that the Judge acknowledged in his decision last year but completely disregarded yesterday.
Sara's family submitted two letters from two physicians stating their professional opinions that the shots could injure Sara. But Brown rejected both, basing his decision on very narrow procedural criteria, claiming that inadequate documentation was provided in the time parameters set by Antwan Haskoor, Oceanside’s consulting physician, to prove the shots would harm Sara. Brown could have extended the time, but he chose to throw Sara out of school.
This is barbaric. If a child like Sara who has an undeniable history of serious injury caused by vaccines cannot get a medical exemption, then we have a medical exemption procedure in name only. The only realistic option for medically fragile children at this point is either homeschooling or leaving New York for more humanitarian and less corrupt states.
Up until 2019, Sara had a religious exemption for mandated shots. When the religious exemption was repealed, her family was faced with either homeschooling her or doing the “catch up” of 18 doses of vaccines in two months. They chose catching up. Sara had severe adverse reactions to the shots, which included the meningococcal and hepatitis b, resulting in seizures, sepsis, immune dysregulation, dermatographia and other injuries that led to multiple hospitalizations and periods where she was bedridden or required to use a wheelchair. Meningococcal and hepatitis b shots were among the vaccines that injured Sara. Prior to the shots, she had been perfectly healthy.
Her doctors discontinued the catch-up schedule one hepatitis b shot short of completion. Last summer Patrica Harrington, the Superintendent of Oceanside schools, and Haskoor, disregarded medical exemption letters from six New York licensed physicians, many of them specialists, and refused to allow the exemption. Only one letter from a physician is required for a medical exemption under New York law. Sara’s family sued in federal court and Brown ordered the school to allow her to return to school. If Sara had an active case of hepatitis b, however, excluding her from school would be illegal in New York.
New York law requires all seniors to get a meningococcal shot, and medical exemptions must be renewed every year. Sara’s family found that none of the physicians would renew the exemptions that they had written last year. Several of the physicians would not even return phone calls to the family. Some confirmed that they had been contacted by the New York State Department of Health and were afraid that they would be investigated and charged with misconduct if they signed new medical exemption letters.
According to the CDC, New York has the lowest rate of medical exemptions of any state, fewer than one in a thousand students. An online database of New York State Department of Health records shows no medical exemptions at all in 617 of New York’s 685 school districts.
Fifteen states, including California and Florida, do not require the meningococcal shot to attend school, and the federal government no longer recommends routine use in minors.
This is all to keep Sara out of school for 4 months. Sara will turn 18 in January and the vaccine mandate laws will no longer apply, and she will be able to return to school.
Sara’s attorney will be filing an emergency appeal with the US Court of Appeals for the Second District.