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NEW YORK, April 28, 2021 (LifeSiteNews)St. John’s University revealed that it will mandate COVID-19 injections and demand proof of injection for all students in the fall of 2021, becoming yet another center of higher education to implement a policy that appears to violate the Nuremberg Code.

Father Brian J. Shanley, O.P., a Dominican priest and president of the Catholic university, announced the news in an internal memo obtained by LifeSiteNews. 

Thanks to the “expanded availability of the COVID-19 vaccine,” Fr. Shanley announced that the university would be implementing a new directive for the fall.

“As of Monday, April 19, the COVID-19 vaccine is available nationwide to anyone aged 16 and over. As such, St. John’s will require all students to be vaccinated against the COVID-19 virus and to provide proof of vaccination before returning to campus for the fall semester.”

According to Shanley, this would be part of the university taking “the necessary steps to protect the health of our academic community, and, to move toward a return to our pre-pandemic business operations as a vibrant living and learning institution.”

While mandating the experimental injections, Shanley did allow room for some leeway, offering exemptions to the “vaccination requirement” to certain students. Those who could provide “proof of a documented medical condition” or who did not have the injection “due to religious beliefs” would be exempted from the university policy. 

However, there was no further explanation of what such a religious exemption might entail. Nor was there mention of whether the university, which is Catholic and proclaims its Vincentian “compassion and zeal for service,” would allow conscientious Catholics to be exempted from the policy of mandatory vaccinations, given the connection of the COVID-19 injections to abortion

LifeSiteNews contacted the university and Fr. Shanley for clarification and for a comment on the vaccination mandate, but did not receive a response. 

The university policy would affect all students who were on campus for at least some part of the degree, but those who were based purely online would not have to take the injection in order to access their education.  

Fr. Shanley wrote that “any vaccine authorized for use in the U.S.” would be accepted by the university, adding that international students would be provided with guidance at a later date, as to whether the injections they had received would be accepted by the university. 

Shanley also revealed that after collaboration with the New York State Department of Health, the university was due to receive some of the Pfizer-BioNTech injections on April 27. “The University will make those doses available to students first,” he wrote. “The vaccine will be distributed free of charge.”

Consequently, Stanley wrote to “personally encourage you to get vaccinated at your earliest convenience.” 

“Many medical experts have indicated that the best vaccine is the one that you can access as soon as possible. I have already been vaccinated and I am grateful for the experience. The ongoing risk of serious health consequences for anyone who contracts COVID-19, along with the greater public health threat, are but two strong reasons in favor of getting vaccinated. The well-being and safety of you — our students, faculty, administrators, and staff — is always the highest priority of St. John’s, and, is my foremost daily prayer for you all.”

The 62-year-old Dominican, appointed as president in November 2020, mentioned that he was “proud of the way the St. John’s family has come together throughout this ongoing pandemic.”

Citing the “adherence” to the various “safety protocols” on campus, he lauded the the “spirit of compliance and cooperation.” 

“We must persist in our mutual commitment to campus health if we are to get past this pandemic,” he added. “Like you, I look forward to a full return to campus life. I welcome more in-person interactions, events, and activities that are essential to and hallmarks of the St. John’s experience.”

Growing academic company in holding education to ransom

In mandating the experimental coronavirus injections, St. John’s joins a number of other institutions that are set to hold student’s education to ransom for the price of being injected. Just days ago, LifeSiteNews reported on the University of Notre Dame’s decision to do likewise. 

Similarly citing the “safety of the university and local communities,” university president Father John Jenkins stipulated that all students in the fall of 2021 would need “to be fully vaccinated against COVID-19.”

Likewise, the University of California mandated flu shots last year for all students, faculty, and staff, and both Rutgers and Cornell universities have also mandated the COVID injections for students and staff, with Cornell being the more restrictive of the two. 

Rutgers University led the way in late March, with president Jonathan Holloway stipulating that “all students planning to attend in the Fall 2021 semester must be fully vaccinated,” and providing limited exceptions to those who refused the injection due to “medical or religious reasons,” and anyone studying remotely.

Some weeks prior, the University of Wisconsin paved the way for mandatory injections, imposing frequent mandatory testing and the downloading of a contact tracing app, which also serves as a means of access to all university facilities, for all students, staff, and faculty. 

Compliance with these mandates permits all participants to utilize the “Badger Badge” screen on their Safer Badgers app as a “virtual access pass for entry into campus workplaces and buildings where in-person classes and other in-person activities are being held.”

The green checkmark on the Badger Badge must be verified by “Badger Wellness Ambassadors” in order to enter university buildings.

A need for COVID injections?

Despite Fr. Shanley advocating and mandating injections as the surest means of protecting public health, the actual fatality rate of the media-hyped virus does not require such a measure. 

A new study released by Professor John P. A. Ioannidis of Stanford University found that the infection fatality rate (IFR) of COVID-19 is significantly lower than previous studies indicated. According to Ioannidis, a professor of medicine and epidemiology, the virus is less deadly than once thought, registering at a mere 0.15 percent fatality rate.

Indeed, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), which for many reasons may be significantly overestimating infection fatality rates (IFR), provided its “Best Estimate” of the IFR by age in the United States last September as represented below.

0-19 years old: 0.00003 (99.997 percent survival rate)

20-49 years old: 0.0002 (99.98 percent survival rate)

50-69 years old: 0.005 (99.5 percent survival rate)

70+ years old: 0.054 (94.46 percent survival rate)

Thus, for those under 70, COVID-19 remains less of a threat than influenza. As one researcher affirmed, the risk of death for those healthy individuals of school and working age “is comparable to a daily car ride to work” and is thus “completely negligible.” 

Despite this data, Shanley writes that the “ongoing risk of serious health consequences for anyone who contracts COVID-19, along with the greater public health threat, are but two strong reasons in favor of getting vaccinated.” 

However, the injections themselves are not fully approved, and have only been granted Emergency Use Authorization by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

Adverse effects, as well as deaths, are swiftly mounting, following administration of the experimental enjections. Data provided by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in the United States, documents that by April 16, 86,080 adverse reactions were voluntarily reported, which included 3,186 deaths, and 10,152 serious injuries.

As explained by Dr. Simone Gold of America’s Frontline Doctors (AFLDS), “If you take the (COVID-19) vaccine” you are not receiving an FDA approved treatment, but this “means you have enrolled yourself in a medical trial … (and) most people are not aware that that’s what they’re doing.”

To force students to thus partake in an experimental trial would appear to place Fr. Shanley and St. John’s University in violation of the Nuremberg Code, which provides clear, firm principles regarding the use and rollout of an experimental medication. As laid out in the Code, an individual must be free from “any element of force, fraud, deceit, duress, overreaching, or other ulterior form of constraint or coercion.”

To coerce means “to compel by force, intimidation, or authority, especially without regard for individual desire or volition.” 

Thus, as summarized by AFLDS, “The Nuremberg Code and Declaration of Helsinki led to universal acceptance that no person can ever be coerced or mandated to taking an experimental treatment.” Furthermore, these principles have been upheld “by all reputable governments, NGOs, organizations, policy leaders, and physicians for many decades.”

LifeSiteNews has produced an extensive COVID-19 vaccines resources page. View it here.