Federal judge throws out anti-vaccination lawsuit and calls its Nazi analogy ‘reprehensible’

Image by jta
(JTA) — A federal judge in Houston has thrown out a lawsuit by health workers objecting to a city hospital system’s coronavirus vaccine mandate on the merits — but she couldn’t help singling out one of the arguments for special derision.
In her five-page opinion on June 12, District Judge Lynn Hughes writes that the lead litigant, Jennifer Bridges, “says that the injection requirement is invalid because it violates the Nuremberg Code,” the ethical code that emerged from the trials of Nazi physicians following World War II.
“She likens the threat of termination to forced medical experimentation during the Holocaust,” Hughes says in the ruling, as reported by Ars Technica, a technology news site.
Houston Methodist Hospital is a private entity, not a government, Hughes writes, and adds: “Equating the injection requirement to medical experimentation in concentration camps is reprehensible. Nazi doctors conducted medical experiments on victims that caused pain, mutilation, permanent disability and in many cases, death.”
Bridges was joined by 116 staffers from the facility, which has a staff of 26,000, in filing the lawsuit. In a CNN interview after the ruling, Bridges said she was not likening the vaccination to the Holocaust but to Nazi practices in the 1930s.
Comparisons between coronavirus protections and the Holocaust have proliferated on the fringes. A Georgia Republican congresswoman, Marjorie Taylor Greene, apologized on Monday for making a similar comparison. Greene’s apology followed her tour of the U.S. Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C.
The post Federal judge throws out anti-vaccination lawsuit and calls its Nazi analogy ‘reprehensible’ appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.
Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.
This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism you rely on. Make a gift today!
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
Most Popular
- 1
Opinion The dangerous Nazi legend behind Trump’s ruthless grab for power
- 2
Opinion A Holocaust perpetrator was just celebrated on US soil. I think I know why no one objected.
- 3
Culture Did this Jewish literary titan have the right idea about Harry Potter and J.K. Rowling after all?
- 4
Opinion I first met Netanyahu in 1988. Here’s how he became the most destructive leader in Israel’s history.
In Case You Missed It
-
Opinion Gaza and Trump have left the Jewish community at war with itself — and me with a bad case of alienation
-
Fast Forward Trump administration restores student visas, but impact on pro-Palestinian protesters is unclear
-
Fast Forward Deborah Lipstadt says Trump’s campus antisemitism crackdown has ‘gone way too far’
-
Fast Forward 5 Jewish senators accuse Trump of using antisemitism as ‘guise’ to attack universities
-
Shop the Forward Store
100% of profits support our journalism
Republish This Story
Please read before republishing
We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines.
You must comply with the following:
- Credit the Forward
- Retain our pixel
- Preserve our canonical link in Google search
- Add a noindex tag in Google search
See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.
To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.