First is Biden's use of the OSHA statutes to mandate vaccinations vs the GOP taking up the cry of "lawlessness" (because of course - they're fucking Republicans after all)
And the other one is parents in the US are trying to wrangle NIH and the vaccine makers to get their kids signed up for the clinical trials for the Under-12 Cohort Studies. Plus the weirdly not-so-weird phenomenon of parents asking their doctors to go around the prescribing rules in order to get their kids vaccinated
President Biden’s far-reaching assertion of presidential authority to require vaccines for 80 million American workers relies on a first-of-its-kind application of a 51-year-old law that grants the federal government the power to protect employees from “grave dangers” at the workplace.
White House officials believe the emergency authority provided by Congress under the Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970 is a legitimate and legal way to combat the coronavirus pandemic. But they acknowledge that the law’s emergency provisions, which were employed in previous decades to protect workers from asbestos and other industrial dangers, have never been used to require a vaccine.
The novelty of the effort is at the heart of legal threats from Republican lawmakers, governors, pundits and others, many of whom have vowed to challenge the president’s use of the workplace rules. Gov. Brian Kemp, Republican of Georgia, said the move “is blatantly unlawful, and Georgia will not stand for it.” Senator Ted Cruz, Republican of Texas, called Mr. Biden’s actions “utterly lawless” on Twitter.
In a fund-raising email sent on Friday, Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, a Republican who has issued antimask orders, wrote, “Joe Biden has declared war on constitutional government, the rule of law, and the jobs and livelihoods of millions of Americans.”
But top aides to the president do not appear to be shaken by what they say was an expected response from those quarters. On Friday morning, Mr. Biden responded to threats of lawsuits from his adversaries.
“Have at it,” he said.
And experts said the administration appeared to be on strong legal ground because it was relying on existing authority granted to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration by the legislative branch and supported by decades of judicial rulings.
And then the second bit - which tells me most people are anti-anti-vax, and, dare I say it, we seem to have turned that old "silent majority" thing upside down so it's working in favor of what this country's supposed to be about.
But BTW, I really do think most of us are on the right side of not only COVID, but most things right now - abortion, gun regulation, tax the rich, better social programs, good government, etc - while the bullying minority are busy pimping the bullshit that their shrinking base (18-23% of the people) constitute the "real America", which is what keeps leading them to step on their own dicks pretty much every time outa the gate.
Anyway, the second part - NYT:
As schools resume in-person classes across the United States, many parents have grown increasingly anxious for their children under 12, who remain ineligible for Covid vaccinations. And so some of those parents are taking extraordinary steps to get their younger children vaccinated in one available channel: enrolling them in clinical trials.
Dr. Tina Sosa, a pediatric hospitalist and mother of two, was able to get her 3-year-old son vaccinated by enrolling him in a Pfizer trial at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center during her fellowship there. He had no side effects from the two shots he received in April, she said. “I even squeezed his arm and asked did it hurt, and he said no.”
Now at the University of Rochester Medical Center in upstate New York, Dr. Sosa enrolled her 7-month-old in a Moderna trial set to there begin next month.
Another parent, Leng Vong Reiff of Clive, Iowa, jumped when she heard of openings in a Pfizer trial taking place hours away at a Nebraska clinic.
But spots in clinical trials are relatively rare, and it will be months before the F.D.A. can fully assess the results and decide whether lowering the age of eligibility is warranted — so some parents have even sought, through their pediatricians, off-label shots that are adult doses, a practice the F.D.A. discouraged on Friday.
This summer has been particularly trying for parents, especially after public health experts warned that the Delta variant was highly transmissible — even from vaccinated household members. Although children still are less likely than adults to be hospitalized or die from Covid, nearly 30,000 children with Covid were admitted to hospitals in August, the highest level to date.
As many as 48 million U.S. children are under 12, and Covid concerns about them extend beyond their immediate health. They form a sizable pocket of vulnerability for the nation, one that will remain even if President Biden succeeds in vaccinating 80 million people or more under the mandates he announced on Thursday.
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