by Michael Nevradakis, Ph.D., Childrens Health Defense:
The first-of-its-kind lawsuit, filed by a California pediatrician, alleges the CDC’s Vaccines for Children Program violates the Fifth Amendment by subjecting children enrolled in Medicaid to different treatment standards and compelling doctors to act against their professional judgment.
A California pediatrician is suing the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) over a federal program that requires doctors in her state who treat children enrolled in Medicaid to give those children all of the vaccines recommended by the CDC.
TRUTH LIVES on at https://sgtreport.tv/
Children’s Health Defense (CHD) is supporting the lawsuit, filed April 25 in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, Santa Ana Division.
Dr. Samara Cardenas lost her medical practice after the CDC Vaccines for Children Program kicked her out of the program because she wouldn’t give COVID-19 vaccines to healthy kids.
California, like most states, requires pediatricians who treat Medicaid patients to be enrolled in the Vaccines for Children Program. The program, in turn, requires doctors to strictly follow the CDC’s childhood immunization schedule.
In late 2023, the Vaccines for Children Program informed Cardenas that her vaccine orders “were being scrutinized” for not including COVID-19 shots. She was later expelled from the program. As a result, she lost her Medicaid contract, forcing her to close her practice.
The Vaccines for Children Program primarily serves low-income populations by providing free vaccines to uninsured or underinsured children and children who are eligible for or enrolled in Medicaid. Medicaid compensates pediatricians for the costs associated with administering the vaccines.
In her first-of-its-kind lawsuit, Cardenas alleges the CDC’s Vaccines for Children Program violates the Fifth Amendment’s equal protection and due process provisions by subjecting children enrolled in Medicaid to different treatment standards and compelling doctors to act against their professional judgment.
The lawsuit also questions the safety and necessity of administering COVID-19 vaccines to children, the inclusion of COVID-19 shots on the CDC’s childhood immunization schedule and the impartiality of the CDC Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP), which makes vaccine-related recommendations.
In California, 3 in 7 — or about 5 million children — are enrolled in Medicaid. Nationally, about 40% of all kids — or about 29.2 million children ages 0-17 — are covered by Medicaid.
The suit names CDC Acting Director Susan P. Monarez, as the defendant. Monarez is also President Donald Trump’s nominee to lead the agency.
Cardenas ‘followed her conscience and the science’
Attorney Rick Jaffe, who represents Cardenas, said this is “the first federal lawsuit challenging the CDC’s coercive use of the VFC [Vaccines for Children] program to enforce experimental, emergency-authorized COVID-19 vaccination as a condition of Medicaid access.”
Cardenas “followed her conscience and the science,” Jaffe said. “The VFC framework gave her no choice: vaccinate all kids or lose access.”
Kim Mack Rosenberg, CHD general counsel, said the lawsuit places policies that disproportionately affect Medicaid recipients under scrutiny, as the Vaccines for Children Program’s policy “essentially mandates these experimental shots for a population historically vulnerable to medical experimentation.”
Read More @ ChildrensHealthDefense.org
