COVID-19 vaccine boosters for young adults: a risk benefit assessment and ethical analysis of mandate policies at universities
An article produced by the University of Oxford Wellcome Centre for Ethics and Humanities found a serious imbalance between the public health benefit of COVID-19 vaccine booster mandates at universities and the net harm these mandates would produce in these student populations. Incredibly, university students today appear to be unable to recognize the dangers that medical mandates like the recklessly imposed COVID-19 vaccine mandate will have on them now or in the future.
The review was published in the British Medical Journal. The harms reviewed by the authors are superficial, focused primarily on cardiac impacts, and do not take into account neurological disorders like the ones that struck Andre Cherry, a student at Chestnut Hill College in Philadelphia or long term adverse advents.
Highlights from the article:
In 2022, students at North American universities with third-dose COVID-19 vaccine mandates risk disenrollment if unvaccinated. To assess the appropriateness of booster mandates in this age group, we combine empirical risk-benefit assessment and ethical analysis. To prevent one COVID-19 hospitalization over a 6-month period, we estimate that 42,836 young adults aged 18–29 years must receive a third mRNA vaccine.
Booster mandates in young adults are expected to cause a net harm: per COVID-19 hospitalization prevented, we anticipate at least 18.5 serious adverse events from mRNA vaccines, including 1.5–4.6 booster-associated myopericarditis cases in males (typically requiring hospitalization). We also anticipate 1430–4626 cases of grade 3 reactogenicity interfering with daily activities (although typically not requiring hospitalization).
University booster mandates are unethical because they:
(1) are not based on an updated (Omicron era) stratified risk-benefit assessment for this age group
(2) may result in a net harm to healthy young adults
(3) are not proportionate: expected harms are not outweighed by public health benefits given modest and transient effectiveness of vaccines against transmission
(4) violate the reciprocity principle because serious vaccine-related harms are not reliably compensated due to gaps in vaccine injury schemes
(5) may result in wider social harms. We consider counterarguments including efforts to increase safety on campus but find these are fraught with limitations and little scientific support.