RFK & Sussman Lead the Opposition
By Dan Murphy
In June, or earlier this summerx, Governor Andrew Cuomo signed legislation that required every student attending a public school in NY to be vaccinated. The new law took away the legal exception for parents and students who did not want to be vaccinated for religious beliefs.
Opponents of the new law and those opposed to mandatory vaccinations sued NY State. The lawsuit was filed on behalf of several families that do not want their children vaccinated, and claim that the new law violates their First Amendment right to religious freedom.
Two prominent New Yorkers with Westchester connections are representing the families that do not want their children vaccinated: Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Michael Sussman. RFK Jr has been an advocate for preserving the environment and the Hudson River. He taught law at Pace Law School and is a Westchester resident. But recently, RFK Jr. is becoming more well known for his stance on opposing vaccinations.
Two of RFK Jr’s siblings and other members of the Kennedy family have written publicly in opposition to their relatives stances and beliefs on vaccinations. The recent Measles cases in the NYC metropolitan area, “are caused by the growing fear and mistrust of vaccines—amplified by internet doomsayers. Robert F. Kennedy Jr.—Joe and Kathleen’s brother and Maeve’s uncle—is part of this campaign to attack the institutions committed to reducing the tragedy of preventable infectious diseases. He has helped to spread dangerous misinformation over social media and is complicit in sowing distrust of the science behind vaccines.
“We love Bobby. He is one of the great champions of the environment. We stand behind him in his ongoing fight to protect our environment. However, on vaccines he is wrong.
“And his and others’ work against vaccines is having heartbreaking consequences. The challenge for public health officials right now is that many people are more afraid of the vaccines than the diseases, because they’ve been lucky enough to have never seen the diseases and their devastating impact. But that’s not luck; it’s the result of concerted vaccination efforts over many years. We don’t need measles outbreaks to remind us of the value of vaccination,” writes Kathleen Kennedy Townsend and Joseph Kennedy II and RFK Jr.’s niece, Maeve Kennedy McKean, in an op-ed in Politico earlier this year.
Michael Sussman is the attorney portrayed in the HBO Miniseries ‘Show Me a Hero’, which reviewed Sussman’s role in the desegregation crisis and lawsuits against the City of Yonkers in the 1980’s. Sussman served as the attorney for the Yonkers NAACP.
Sussman has represented families who will not vaccinate in Rockland County prior to this case, and has expressed strong beliefs in their First Amendment, and religious right, not to vaccinate. “New York State has dropped what I consider a nuclear bomb on these families.
Sussman also argued to Judge Hartman that the law was crafted by several legislators that are targeting devout religious groups. Calling the law “The active hostility towards religion,” Sussman has represented many in the Hassidic Jewish community in Rockland in prior lawsuits about vaccination.
Last week Acting Supreme Court Justice Denise Hartman ruled that the law is constitutional and denied a request to hold off on immediately enforcing the law for the first day of school. The Judge’s decision found that protecting residents from communicable diseases is within the state’s interest, and cited several other court decisions outside of NY have found it legal and permissible for a state to mandate vaccinations.
Sussman filed an appeal of Judge Hartman’s decision. Eventually, if the appeals continue, Sussman will appear before the NYS Court of Appeals and Chief Judge Janet Difiore, from Westchester.
Estimates have 26,000 students in New York State claiming the religious exemption.
RFK Jr. and Sussman have appeared before thousands of protestors this summer in Albany outside the courthouse. Many wore white and others were gathered in prayer. Sussman said of the crowds, “The court personnel said there’s never been such an assemblage in Albany in a court before.” “There’s never been an issue as important for Americans as their right of freedom of religion,” Sussman said .
And RFK Jr. speaking to the crowd saying “We should win this case,” stands opposed to his former brother in law, the Governor of NY Andrew Cuomo, who was married to RFK Jr.’s sister, Kerry Kennedy and had three daughters with.
Gov. Cuomo stands with the medical community and 80% of New Yorkers, and said he was confident the law will stand up to legal challenge. ,“California passed a bill that we basically modeled in our bill. The bill was challenged, the bill was upheld. So I feel good about the bill that we have signed,” Cuomo said in an interview this summer on WAMC radio. “The science is crystal clear: Vaccines are safe, effective and the best way to keep our children safe. While I understand and respect freedom of religion, our first job is to protect the public health and prevent further transmissions.”
Kennedy added that the recent rash of Measles cases was not a reason to mandate vaccination, and has always argued that the pharmadceutical industry has manipulated the public on the importance of vaccines.
Some protestors questioned the science of vaccinations. Others pointed to the fact of how healthy the children at the rallies were, all of whom had no vaccines. Some pointed to an “ongoing danger in this country about taking away my right to religious freedom and expressions.”
An overwhelming 79 percent of voters say parents should be required to have their children vaccinated before attending school, regardless of the parents’ religious beliefs. In the NY suburbs including Westchester, 83% support mandatory vaccinations.
Earlier this year there were more than 266 confirmed cases of the Measles, most coming from rockland county. 96% of New York students have immunizations against Measels, Mumps and Rubella, MMR.
The World Health Organization, the Department of Health and Human Services, whether in the National Institutes of Health, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention or the Food and Drug Administration, all work towards the development, testing and distribution of safe and effective vaccines against 16 diseases, including measles, mumps, rubella, hepatitis, polio, diphtheria, tetanus, influenza and HPV. The necessity and safety of vaccines are backed up by every major medical organization, including the American Medical Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Public Health Association and scores of others.
immunizations prevent some 2 million to 3 million deaths a year, and have the potential to save another 1.5 million lives every year with broader vaccine coverage, according to the WHO. Smallpox, which plagued mankind for thousands of years, has been eradicated through vaccines. Because of immunizations, no cases of polio have been reported in the United States since 1979. And countries such as Australia, with robust human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine programs, are on track to eliminate cervical cancer, a major killer of women around the world, in the next decade. This is the only vaccine we have that fights cancer. No matter what you might have read on social media, there is no scientific basis to allegations that vaccines against HPV pose a serious health threat. And numerous studies from many countries by many researchers have concluded that there is no link between autism and vaccines.
