Despite a Presidential Executive Order in February 2025 to offer reinstatement and backpay to service members in the Department of Defense (DoD), who were discharged under the EUA COVID-19 vaccine mandate, the Executive Order fails to remedy the ongoing career-punitive measures for opting out of vaccines. There is a broken administration process which would prevent unnecessary punishments and separations against service members seeking medical exemptions or religious accommodations for vaccines. Service members claim the medical and religious accommodation request process is widely being subverted by the chain of command. Commanders use coercion and punishments in pursuit of a career progression metric to achieve 90-100% compliance in their units for the influenza vaccine, and that metric is an employer conflict with honoring due process for medical and religious accommodations. In many of these situations, physicians and chaplains are complicit in circumventing the medical and religious accommodation request process for vaccines in DoD.
Children’s Health Defense Military Chapter conducted a survey to provide a qualitative measure of the claims that the accommodation process is not functioning as intended; to protect the medical and religious rights of service members, specifically pertaining to influenza vaccine refusal. A precedent for this survey was the Government Accountability Office (GAO) 2000 survey during the experimental Anthrax vaccine mandate which showed evidence that the EUA Anthrax vaccine was adversely affecting retention of trained and experienced pilots. Currently, there is no existing government office report or commission report on the defense readiness impact of separating an unknown number of service members, in a healthy population, who do not have a fatality risk with influenza, for refusing the seasonal influenza vaccine.
Children’s Health Defense Military Chapter solicited service members on social media to respond via email to an open-ended survey inquiring of their experience with requests for accommodations (medical or religious) to refuse the influenza vaccine in the Department of Defense. This informal survey was conducted on February 27 and 28, 2025. 80 military members responded by email from all branches, various ranks, and both active duty and reserve components. Former military members also responded.
The survey results indicate that the accommodation process (both medical and religious) for vaccines is systematically non-functioning within the Department of Defense. Service members report being denied religious accommodations without transparency of the reason to write an appeal. Service members responded that in many cases the requests do not get an approval or disapproval response for years, if ever. Some service members resubmit the request year after year. During the accommodation request review process, service members report being punished with denials for training needed for career progression, letters of reprimand, denial to deploy, scrutiny of security clearance, delays to promotion, loss of pay, and boards recommending involuntary separation. Service members also report that physicians will not approve medical accommodations when the member has contraindications, had a prior adverse reaction, or during pregnancy. The only two reported approvals (out of 80 respondents) for accommodations were for one service member who hired an attorney at his own expense (approved for all vaccines except influenza vaccine), and for one whistleblower (approved for only influenza vaccine.)
Influenza season is October through March annually, and yet the DoD influenza vaccine mandate and punishments persist beyond influenza season, despite a lack of degradation in the health of the service members requesting accommodations. The denial of accommodations is adversely impacting retention and recruitment.
An Air Force pilot in the rank of major with 17 years of experience is currently pending separation after a stellar career with a single letter of reprimand for flu shot refusal. He has been denied both a medical and religious accommodation for the flu shot. He has been passed over for promotion to Lieutenant Colonel four times due to the denials for accommodations for COVID-19 vaccine and the flu shot, and he has not been allowed to fly since 2021. He has filed an IG Complaint, Military Equal Opportunity Complaint, and Congressional Complaint and none of these processes have corrected the accommodation process. If the Secretary of the Air Force decides to separate him, he will also be disqualified for flying commercial aircraft. (Most commercial pilots are military veterans.) During this process, he has maintained his health and yet he has been restricted from performing his duty. As a last item of retaliation, the Commander has stopped his pay while he waits for possibly months for a final discharge decision.
Contrast this pilot’s situation with the religious accommodation for Muslim cadets at the Air Force Academy to forego physical training for one month during Ramadan. It seems even more reasonable to allow service members with religious objections to the influenza vaccine to abstain from the injection during influenza season from October to March while completing their duties.
In one recruitment impact example, an ROTC cadet, who has been denied a religious accommodation for vaccines and is pending commissioning in the summer of 2025, was told by the investigator for her security clearance that one of her commanders said she was “disloyal to the United States due to [her] religious beliefs” and was questioned by the investigator on her religious beliefs.
The Department of Defense should conduct a cost-benefit analysis of separating healthy service members for influenza vaccine refusal. Does retaining a pilot with years of experience outweigh the risk of a mild case of influenza for a few days? The CDC reports that the influenza vaccine has a very low efficacy rating year after year, averaging 19%-48% efficacy in the last ten years, while the FDA requires a 51% efficacy rating for vaccine approval. Physicians for Informed Consent reports that populations who take the influenza vaccine have a 65% increased risk of non-flu respiratory illness. The influenza vaccine mandate in DoD is not justified under this risk-benefit analysis. The full impact of the current influenza vaccine mandate on recruitment and retention is unknown, but it is likely detrimentally separating members with years of experience and with thousands of dollars in training.
The CHD Military Chapter survey is an indicator that service members’ legal rights to religious accommodations for vaccines are either being systematically violated or procedurally circumvented. A religious accommodation, which is the formal due process requirement for protecting rights in the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, is a legally protected status and outcome of an anti-discrimination law.
The public erroneously believes an urban myth that military members do not have any rights and they can be ordered to take any vaccine or drug. Military members do not surrender their legal, medical, and religious rights under the Constitution, though their procedural process under UCMJ differs from civilians for due process and judicial oversight. The following are applicable DoD Regulations, court decisions, and Constitutional rights of military members:
In the context of these requirements, a service member cannot access their rights to “informed, voluntary consent” without the ability to decline a medical intervention. Mandates contradict the ethics of informed consent. DoD is required to make a compelling argument for the health and safety of the force in order to deny service members their right to decline a medical intervention.
One attorney who is representing several service members pending discharge for flu shot refusal stated that the influenza vaccine order lacks a clear relationship to military duty or a military necessity. Pursuant to Articles 90 and 92 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ), an order must have a relationship to military duty. “The order must relate to military duty, which includes activities reasonably necessary to accomplish a military mission, or safeguard or promote the morale, discipline, and usefulness of members of a command and directly connected with the maintenance of good order in the Service. The order may not without such a valid military purpose interfere with private rights or personal affairs.” (MCM, pt. IV, para. 16c.(2)(a)(iv)) Further, “[t]he order must not conflict with statutory or Constitutional rights of the person receiving the order.” (MCM, pt. IV, para. 16c.(2)(a)(v))
In addition to the 8000 service members who were discharged for the EUA COVID-19 vaccine mandate, the Defense Data Manpower Center (DMDC) reports that DoD lost 95,278 service members during 2021-2023 by involuntary separations under vaccine coercion to avoid UCMJ punishments, loss of veteran benefits, and discharges with less-than-honorable characterization of service. These discharges undermine force readiness by forcing out experienced individuals with legitimate health concerns or religious objections, reducing recruitment and retention.
The CHD Military Chapter has asked the Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) and the Secretary of Defense to take immediate action to rescind the mandates for influenza vaccine in DoD. CHD Military Chapter has also asked for the Secretary of Veterans Affairs (VA) to rescind the COVID-19 vaccine mandate which is still required for veterans to receive healthcare. The Secretary of Defense must act to uphold the legal rights of service members, ensuring they are not forced to accept medical procedures that could harm their health or violate their deeply-held, personal beliefs, per the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. These are the three requests:
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