A Message To The Honorable Fr. William Leahy — On The Petition to Correct Boston College’s “Booster” Vaccine Mandate
Boston College is among the many elite Universities and Colleges now mandating an indiscriminate COVID-19 “booster” vaccine for all, in their communities. The serious trouble is that a substantial number of people in these academic institutions are already vaccinated young and otherwise healthy individuals, who carry powerful “hybrid immunity” from a prior or recent COVID-19 infection. Re-vaccinating these very robustly immune individuals, by administrative mandate is a dangerous medical and ethical proposition — because it is medically unnecessary and risks clinical harm.
Honorable Fr. Leahy,
As you know, over the past week nearly 500 parents, students, alumni and friends to BC, some very prominent, have signed a petition to your office requesting that your administration revise the terms of its existing “One-size-fits-all” COVID-19 vaccine booster mandate:
Additionally, through my message to Dr. Comaeu, as a colleague and a BC parent, I have attempted to the best of my ability to convey why it is critical, in the interest of both medical safety and ethical conduct, for BC to revise this blanket mandate and make it more nuanced:
But, here, I am writing to appeal to your sense of leadership, reason and scholarly Catholic thought in the Jesuit form.
The issue at hand is that good healers and leaders aim to protect their flock from harm — and not just most of them, but ALL of them. The Lord himself goes out to find, recover and protect that one sheep amongst the flock in unusual and “rare” harm’s way.
So it is, respectfully, that you must consider and accept that any medical treatment including the COVID-19 vaccine has a risk of adverse events — and that simply because this risk is to a “rare” minority, we cannot simply accept it without mitigation.
And this is precisely where ethical conduct comes into play to secure safety. Here, I speak of the ethics that derives from our Catholic faith and is also formally present in the pillar of medical ethics, which encapsulates the notion of “medical necessity”. That is, that no medical treatment is justified in a person in whom little to no medical necessity exists. I have described this idea to my friend and past teacher, Professor Paul Offit, who is a leading vaccine expert and senior member of FDA’s vaccine panel as follows:
In fact, as I mentioned in a prior e-mail to Dr. Comeau, Dr. Offit is a prominent voice of dissent on COVID-19 vaccine boosters in young and otherwise healthy Americans:
So I come to our community’s petition to you this week, which is simply this: in mandating the booster vaccine in the Boston College community, do so while adhering to the ethical and clinically sound precept of “medical necessity”. In other words, give the BC community a formal “off-ramp” for persons who are already robustly immune against infection. To not do so, is to ignore those “rare” few in whom avoidable harm could be done by your inaction, Fr. Leahy. But “rarity” is no excuse for unsafe or unethical administrative conduct.
To be clear, many in the BC community and the nation, at this moment in the pandemic, carry what we Immunologists know as “Hybrid Immunity”. These are persons who in the span of the past year have experienced a natural COVID-19 infection AND two mandated vaccine doses. Some experts, including many in Dr. Fauci’s own circle, accurately describe this form of immunity as being “bullet proof”:
But, even more importantly, since Thanksgiving many BC students, both vaccinated and unvaccinated, have acquired Delta or Omicron infection and have recovered or are still convalescing. To indiscriminately vaccinate such persons risks medical harm by triggering a hyper-inflammatory response in, at least, some. I state this with definitive certainty as a clinician and based on published data and personal clinical experience. To leave this category of students unnecessarily exposed to harm from an indiscriminate and unnecessary administrative booster mandate is a radical error in good stewardship.
Fr. Leahy, my family are friends to the Jesuits. My son attended St. Joseph’s Prep in Philadelphia. It was a proud moment to see my Nadia being accepted to BC. My family was a member of the Old St. Joseph’s Parish in Philadelphia. Your companion, Fr. Dan Ruff SJ, whom you likely know, was a critical part of my family’s formation as a spiritual advisor and our pastor — and he bore witness to my family’s development and experience in a crucible:
So I respectfully I ask that you trust that I’ve not brought the serious problem with BC’s “one-size-fits-all” booster mandate to your attention, without careful thought and good reason — both professionally and ethically. Nor without a full theological understanding of how a good shepherd is to protect ALL in his flock, not just most — but especially the “rare” one(s) in unusual harm’s way.
I can only hope that my voice as a Catholic physician-immunologist and a BC parent is reaching you personally — and that you see that hundreds in the community you are now calling upon your administration to revise BC’s “booster” mandate to rationality and safety. This medically and ethically rational petition request, to create safety, balance and trust in the community, is easily and well within your power to grant as BC’s president. I assure that it would be an act of real leadership — but to not do so, would be the opposite.
In Christ with respect,
Hooman Noorchashm MD, PhD
Winter 2022.
