An Urgent Letter To The Faculty, Staff, Police and Employee Unions Of Boston College — On The Parents’ Petition To Restrain BC’s Unsafe “One-Size-Fits-All” COVID-19 Booster Mandate.
The Boston College administration has, unfortunately, been non-responsive to an urgent petition by over 700 BC parents, students, alumni and families requesting a medically and ethically rational revision to the University’s COVID-19 vaccine booster mandate. Here, as a physician-immunologist, I am writing on behalf of my fellow BC parents to ask for the support of the faculty, staff, Police and employee unions to convince the BC administration to correct a serious error in medical practice and ethical conduct, embedded in BC’s “one-size-fits-all” booster mandate.
January 13, 2022
Dear members of the Boston College Faculty, Staff and Police,
There are times in our lives when seeing and adhering to simple and visible Truths bring peace, trust, balance and safety to all. Because as the Lord tells us, “You Will Know the Truth and the Truth Will Set You Free”.
Here, I write urgently as a parent of a BC undergraduate student and a representative of nearly 700 concerned parents, students and alumni to ask for urgent support from BC’s faculty, staff, Police and employee unions — in defense of the student body and of all the University employee, and in support of a time-critical petition we have submitted to Fr. Leahy and the BC administration.
I ask for your trust and friendship, writing this public letter as a highly specialized and deeply trained physician-immunologist and public health advocate, with a grasp of why the COVID-19 vaccine is critically important to our nation’s fight against the pandemic.
Yet, I also know with certainly that BC’s indiscriminate and inadequately nuanced administrative booster mandate poses a potential risk of harm to a significant subset of the BC community — including some on the faculty and staff. You will find the details of our concern listed in the petition, above. Please read it with the care it deserves.
Unfortunately despite our over 700 strong petition and our concerted efforts to engage the University administration in a productive conversation to revise this rigid and irrational mandate, our voices of concern have been almost totally ignored by the University to date.
You may read my public letter drawing Fr. Leahy’s attention, HERE.
Additionally, as a BC parent, a physician-immunologist and public health advocate I have been disappointed and shocked by the superficial and dismissive behavior and responses exhibited by some of the University’s student heath service physicians. Many other BC parents and I find Dr. Comaeu’s responses, in particular, quite disturbing and inadequate — myself, especially, as a physician and immunologist see his expertise and judgement in regards to our request for consideration of the medical necessity of COVID-19 vaccination in already well immune persons, almost entirely and dangerously lacking — certainly his grasp of immunological science and clear medical ethical thinking is deficient.
Nevertheless, I have attempted to communicate with Dr. Comaeu also, as a BC parent and a physician colleague— with no adequate response to date.
It was not surprising, albeit disappointing, when I recently learned that the University’s Human Resources Vice President, Mr. David Trainor, may be attempting to dissuade staff from supporting our parent petition to correct the University’s irrational vaccine booster mandate — and that he may, instead, be going as far as to offer cash incentives for University employee to get booster shots.
To be clear, though I am not conceptually against incentivizing medically appropriate population level vaccination, or against rational vaccine mandates for the NON-IMMUNE, it would be floridly unacceptable if such action is being undertaken by Mr. Trainor or his staff to discourage employee unions, faculty or staff from supporting a very rational and clear call from hundreds of BC families to revise an administrative mandate to reasonable safety for their children.
I am not sure if Mr. Trainor and his administrative colleagues fully grasp that the contents of BC’s parent petition are based on clinically and ethically sound rationale and judgement, which can preserve the integrity of a rational booster mandate, while protecting likely hundreds of BC community members with robust established COVID-19 immunity from the risk of an unnecessary medical treatment.
So it is that here, I write to respectfully ask that every member of the BC faculty, staff, Police and employee unions please read our petition with extreme care, sign it, and demand that the University administration immediately revise the mandate to exempt the FOUR specific subsets of students, faculty and staff listed in our petition from this administratively mandated, but unnecessary and potentially dangerous, vaccine booster.
I return to the words of our Lord, at our elite Catholic University: “The Truth Will Set You Free.” Please know that the medical and ethical Truth here is that literally hundreds of BC faculty, staff and students carry robust immunity to COVID-19 from their prior infections and vaccinations already — but these individuals are now being coerced into undergoing an unnecessary vaccination by rigid and medically irrational administrative mandate.
We ask for your support in protecting the medical and ethical integrity of Boston College from what is a clear instance of irrational and unsafe “group think” at our University — in defense of the student body, and of all faculty, staff and Police.
In Christ with respect,
Hooman Noorchashm MD, PhD
Proud BC Parent.
