Want a medical exemption for the COVID-19 vaccine? Good luck with that.
CBSN
As the Biden administration urges workers across the U.S. to get their shots against COVID-19, many Americans are asking their employers to exempt them from vaccination requirements on medical grounds.
Yet while federal law requires companies to accommodate workers with qualifying medical conditions that interfere with vaccination (as well as those with strong religious beliefs), employers have considerable discretion in who gets a pass. So what kind of health condition or disability might excuse an individual from getting jabbed?
Getting an employer to grant workers a medical exemption became a lot harder after the Food and Drug Administration in August fully approved the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, known as Comirnaty. A two-shot vaccine from Moderna and Johnson & Johnson's single-dose vaccine have also been deemed safe and effective for emergency use in U.S. adults.
Ashley White received her earliest combat action badge from the United States Army soon after the first lieutenant arrived in Afghanistan. The silver military award, recognizing soldiers who've been personally engaged by an attacker during conflict, was considered an achievement in and of itself as well as an affirming rite of passage for the newly deployed. White had earned it for using her own body to shield a group of civilian women and children from gunfire that broke out in the midst of her third mission in Kandahar province. All of them survived. She never mentioned the badge to anyone in her battalion.
The knock at the door came at nighttime on Mother's Day 2008 in Oregon, where Jessica Ellis' parents lived. It was around 9:20 p.m. and his wife, Linda, was already in bed; her father Steve Ellis told CBS News, that he thought someone let their animals out — but two soldiers in Class A uniforms were standing at the door.