Congressman Wants Federal Medical Discrimination Law to Protect Against COVID Vaccine Mandates

Linda Garinger (L), who has end-stage kidney disease, and her daughter Emily Lewis read the letter from a hospital denying Garinger a kidney transplant operation because she won't get a COVID-19 vaccine. Allan Stein/The Epoch Times

A Georgia congressman is hoping to introduce a federal vaccination bill to end what he calls outrageously unethical decisions by hospitals denying transplant patients life-saving organs because they don’t believe in the COVID-19 vaccines.

Rep. Richard McCormick (R-Ga.), who is also a medical doctor known for supporting natural immunity over the experimental jab, told The Epoch Times that the legislation, called My Body My Choice, would center on ending what he called medical discrimination when it comes to requiring the vaccine—similar to the argument lawyers across the nation have used to win appeals against hospitals that have denied religious exemptions, but granted medical ones.

“Every single hospital in the nation receives government funding,” said McCormick. “And they can be beautifully dealt with in that regard. If you’re going to take federal funding, you cannot discriminate against somebody who either has a moral objection or a medical objection.”

McCormick said his interest in introducing a medical-based anti-discrimination bill came after he read that patients were still being denied a spot on a donor list because they wouldn’t take the jab.

Rep. Richard McCormick (R-Ga.). Public domain

He said he was particularly struck by a recent story about a 41-year-old mother of seven in end-stage renal failure and surviving on dialysis who was declared ineligible for a kidney transplant by Emory Healthcare due to her unvaccinated status.

After reading it, McCormick, who did his residency at Emory, told The Epoch Times that he personally called Hospital President Bryce Gartland about the mother’s case and that Gartland assured him the hospital would not enforce any vaccine mandate in her case.

The hospital never responded to requests from The Epoch Times to speak to Gartland.

Earlier this week, The Epoch Times reported that a growing number of transplant centers are ending their mandate policies for the COVID-19 vaccine, including the University of Michigan, which announced it was doing so after a national legal organization, the Pacific Justice Institute, filed a lawsuit against it for removing unvaccinated patients from candidacy lists for a transplant or refusing to put them on.

Natural Immunity

Deborah Catalono, senior counsel for Liberty Counsel, who represented the mother in the case with Emory, told The Epoch Times that the Georgia hospital’s transplant center also has indicated to her that it had changed its policy from requiring the vaccine to recommending it.

She said they announced the change in a letter they sent her in response to blood test results Catalano sent the hospital’s transplant center showing the mother had acquired natural immunity to COVID-19 after recovering from the virus.

According to Catalano, the test results showed the mother had a greater number of antibodies against the virus than what has been found in fully vaccinated individuals against COVID-19.

Catalano sent the results to Emory along with a request for a religious exemption from the vaccine requirement.

Other transplant hospitals she has sent proof of acquired natural immunity from patients they declared ineligible for an organ transplant have also since reversed their COVID vaccine mandate policy, including the University of California San Francisco (UCSF) Kidney Transplant Center.

She said USCF, Emory, or any of the other hospitals have not given any specific reason why they decided to now make the vaccine voluntary for transplant patients.

Correspondence shows that Catalano was the one who initiated the case for natural immunity as an exemption from the vaccine. Like McCormick, she also questions why hospitals never considered the natural immunity of a patient against COVID-19 and instead enacted blanket vaccine mandates.

“To my knowledge, the subject of natural immunity is not discussed between the transplant centers and the patients,” she said.

Katie Shier, pictured with her husband Ron and their children, was denied a heart transplant by the University of Michigan for refusing to get the COVID vaccine. Imaged supplied by the Shier family

McCormick said omitting options like natural immunity is “unquestionably” discriminatory and envisions a bill that would add “medical discrimination” to race, religion, and gender under existing civil rights laws.

Texas Bill

Texas lawmakers recently introduced a similar bill called the Texas COVID-19 Vaccination Freedom Act.

Under it, hospitals would be prohibited from taking “adverse action” against anyone who refused to receive a COVID-19 vaccine. It would also outlaw any action to “compel or coerce” Texans into giving consent to receive the jab.

It also calls for a $5,000 fine against any health care provider that violates the law and authorization for the attorney general to obtain an injunction against hospitals requiring the vaccine.

The legislation was recently passed by the Texas Senate in a 20–11 vote with El Paso Democrat Cesar Blanco crossing party lines to support the measure.

Texas Sen. Mayes Middleton (R-Galveston), who introduced the bill, said, “The COVID-19 vaccine does not make epidemiological or medical sense.”

Health officials have called the bill a bad idea because it interferes with the rights of hospitals and health care providers to set their own policies for patient care.

McCormick said that while he understands standards like denying eligibility for a lung transplant to a smoker or a liver to a heavy drinker, he sees using any vaccine as a “factor” in determining a person’s eligibility for medical care as discriminatory because not all diseases have vaccines.

“What about tuberculosis or AIDS? That’s a really serious disease,” said McCormick. “Are we going to say unless you are taking a medication to prevent HIV, we’re not going to give you a transplant?”