Dressen v. AstraZeneca Pharmaceuticals LP, 2026 WL 2122898(10th Cir. July 23, 2026), extends to four weeks our streak of discussing favorable vaccine decisions – this time involving product liability.
In a well written, fully reasoned, reported decision, the Tenth Circuit reversed the worst Public Readiness and Emergency Preparedness (PREP) Act preemption decision to arise
By taking a look at Akerlund v. Atlas Air, Inc., 2026 WL 1993146 (11th Cir. July 10, 2026), that makes this the third straight week in which we are pleased with a sensible vaccine decision. In this published case, the Eleventh Circuit affirms that an airline’s COVID-19 vaccination mandate did not subject its employees who
This makes two weeks in a row with vaccine cases. Last week we discussed yet another Constitutional challenge against mandatory vaccination. This week we look at Nguyen v. Sec’y of Health and Human Services, 2026 U.S. Claims LEXIS 1650 (U.S. Ct. Fed. Claims June 22, 2026), a federal circuit Vaccine Act compensation case. Such
Lately, weirdly, sadly, some people have suggested that the Enlightenment was a mistake. They contend that an overemphasis on rationality robbed humanity of feeling, faith, etc. What drivel. Every day of the week, we’ll take Voltaire over any pretend-King, data over dogma, and science over stupidity.
Thus, we are pleased with Miller v. McDonald
Can we all agree that as between vaccines and [checks notes] “snort[ing] cocaine off of toilet seats”, it is the vaccines that should make us “not scared of a germ”?
Ok, maybe the [checks notes] Secretary of Health and Human Services wouldn’t agree, but c’mon—the evidence that vaccines save lives is overwhelming.
As Perry
We’re not bashful about our affinity for real science. It underpins our clients’ ability to develop life-saving drugs and devices, supports Rule 702’s role in keeping junk science out of courtrooms, and reflects the skeptical habits of mind that should matter to everyone. Shortly before his death in 1996, Carl Sagan discussed with Charlie Rose the dangers of a society where fundamental understandings of science and technology continue to diminish:
There [are] two kinds of dangers. One is . . . [t]hat we’ve arranged a society based on science and technology in which nobody understands anything about science and technology, and this combustible mixture of ignorance and power, sooner or later, is going to blow up in our faces. I mean, who is running the science and technology in a democracy if the people don’t know anything about it? And the second reason that I’m worried about this is that science is more than a body of knowledge. It’s a way of thinking. A way of skeptically interrogating the universe with a fine understanding of human fallibility. If we are not able to ask skeptical questions, to interrogate those who tell us that something is true, to be skeptical of those in authority, then we’re up for grabs for the next charlatan political or religious who comes ambling along. It’s a thing that Jefferson laid great stress on. It wasn’t enough, he said, to enshrine some rights in a Constitution or a Bill of Rights. The people had to be educated, and they had to practice their skepticism and their education.
Carl Sagan’s Last Interview. Fast forward, and today we’re discussing a case where the court quotes Carl Sagan and notes that, in the context of vaccines, science is “the best we have.” Am. Acad. of Pediatrics v. Kennedy, __ F. Supp. 3d __, 2026 WL 733828 (D. Mass. Mar. 16, 2026). Through a combination of good science and government oversight, the United States’ vaccination program has been a beacon for public health:
Congress and the Executive have built—over decades—an apparatus that marries the rigors of science with the execution and force of the United States government. One extraordinary product of that apparatus has been the eradication and reduction of certain communicable diseases through the development and use of vaccines. In the words of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), vaccines are one of the greatest achievements of biomedical science and public health.
Id. at *1 (cleaned up). That success in the eradication of certain diseases is based on a rigorous method by which decisions about vaccine policy are made—“a method scientific in nature and codified into law through procedural requirements.” Id. In this case, that rigorous and well-established method (both scientific and legal) was ignored.
Continue Reading Injunction Granted against Revised Childhood Vaccination Schedule and Wholesale Reconstitution of Vaccine Advisory Committee
A chunk of our family recently relocated to Indiana, a lovely state that spawned prominent Americans such as Orville Redenbacher, Eli Lilly, Larry Bird, David Letterman, Michael Jackson, and James Dean, and that possesses fine covered bridges, a suddenly fearsome college football team, and a remarkable library that houses, among other things, the original manuscripts
A few months ago we posted about how the Supreme Court’s decision in Jacobson v. Commonwealth of Massachusetts, 197 U.S. 11 (1905) held up against challenges to COVID-19 vaccine mandates. The decision—which upheld a smallpox vaccination order over 100 years ago—has fared very well. Jacobson’s recognition that “society based on the rule that each one is a law unto himself would soon be confronted with disorder and anarchy” applies today as much as it did in 1905. Id. at 26. Today’s post addresses another COVID-19 decision relying on Jacobson to uphold vaccine mandates instituted for healthcare workers.
Continue Reading Jacobson Remains Solid: Ninth Circuit Upholds Vaccine Mandate
In the 1980s, when a wave of complicated, expensive, and hard to prove lawsuits against the vaccine industry threatened to drive many manufacturers out of the market and subsequently cause a public health crisis, Congress stepped in and enacted the Vaccine Act which created the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program. It is designed to strike
The intersection of the PREP Act federal immunity statute and constitutional law continues to shape the landscape of COVID-19 vaccine litigation. In Searcy v. Pfizer, Inc., __ F. Supp. 3d __, 2025 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 186682, 2025 WL 2713736 (M.D. Ala. Sept. 23, 2025), the Middle District of Alabama addressed a wrongful death action