J.D. Vance: Ohio State's vaccine mandate is outrageous 'invasion of medical privacy'
We’re all members of The Ohio State University community--either as alumni, students, or parents--and we’re outraged that Ohio State will impose a vaccine mandate on its students. This is a mistake, an invasion of medical privacy, and a complete bait-and-switch, and we urge the university to reconsider.
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First, let’s start with the basic timeline.
Many people chose OSU over other schools because it didn’t mandate a vaccine. Those students and their families committed to OSU: they paid tuition, made plans, and turned down other schools. Now, having reached the point of no return, they learn that OSU has changed its policy.
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Second, the policy suffers from the confused messaging so common in today’s fear-heightened environment.
An exemption is provided for those who’ve already had COVID, but only for 90 days after an individual was affected. Yet current research suggests immunity from COVID infections lasts longer than from COVID mRNA vaccines. There’s no reason to effectively ignore (after the 90-day cutoff) the effects of natural immunity.
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Third, these are new vaccines and while they’ve been proven safe in the short term, the long-term risks are impossible to know at this point. (I say this as someone who got the shot myself and have encouraged at-risk family to do the same.) These vaccines have been tried at a large scale for less than a year.
Some of us have received the vaccine and others haven’t; some of us have encouraged friends and relatives in high risk categories to receive it. But the decision to not get vaccinated is often rooted in caution about long-term risks, not a rejection of science or the severity of COVID. That caution must be allowed in a free society, not stamped out through mandates.
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Finally, and perhaps most importantly, our society needs to respect bodily autonomy and family choice.
In the last year, we’ve lost thousands of our fellow citizens to a new pandemic, had our leaders openly question (and now suggest) that it came from a lab leak, and upended our lives. The world has moved so fast, and our leaders should treat their fellow citizens as people trying to figure out how to do the right thing, not as enemies of science who need to be ordered around.
Humility and respect, in other words, are better than mandates and orders. This policy crudely chooses the latter.
JD Vance, Ohio State University Class of 2009.
Note: Vance is running for the U.S. Senate from Ohio. He grew up in Middletown, and wrote the bestselling book "Hillbilly Elegy."
This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: J.D. Vance: Ohio State vaccine mandate outrageous 'invasion of medical privacy'
