Vegans will be exempted from COVID-19 vaccinations in case that workplaces will try to enforce compulsory policies, according to many legal experts. Employers may be at risk of legal action against them if they ‘insist’.
In the UK under employment law, vegans do not need to comply to have COVID-19 vaccinations if told or coerced to do so by employers according to what experts say.
It’s becoming a reality both in the US and UK that firms now expect staff to take both doses. Giants such as Netflix and Google are ordering all US employees to vaccinate before returning to work.
In the United Kingdom, this includes all care home workers, under government order: unless they have a ‘medical exemption’. However, vegans who oppose will be allowed to, and their bosses could face legal action against them as a result as the Evening Standard reports.
A spokesperson for the British law firm Lewis Silkin told the Telegraph that ethical vegans opposed to getting vaccinated may be able to require dismissal if forced to get injected.
‘Some ethical vegans may disagree with vaccinations on the basis that they will inevitably have been tested on animals. Ethical veganism has previously been found to amount to a belief, capable of being protected’
Many countries all over the world are adopting ‘vaccine passports’ or ‘green passports’ from the UK to the EU, Israel, and China. These passes show when a citizen of that country has been fully vaccinated. It also allows people to travel more easily both locally and internationally.
In the UK Health Secretary Sajid Javid announced that businesses would be ‘encouraged, but not required, to use the NHS Covid Pass. This would be in ‘high-risk settings’.
In addition, Prime Minister Boris Johnson revealed only double jabbed people will be allowed entry into nightclubs, however, these considerations have been considered as discriminatory by critics, including members of the parliament from the same party as the Prime Minister.
For example, Graham Brady told Sky News: “Fundamentally, people’s decision on whether to be vaccinated or not must be a personal decision for them to make. Based on their own assessment of the benefits and risks.”
Last year, the pharma behemoth Pfizer came under scrutiny and critics for being involved in controversial animal testing to develop its COVID-19 vaccine. Though the vaccine does not contain any ingredients derived from animals, we find many vegan doctors suggesting vegan patients still take the vaccine.
The Vegan Society also released a statement endorsing it:
“It has never been more important for us to talk about the definition of veganism in the context of medications, including vaccines. The definition of veganism recognizes that it is not always possible or practicable to avoid animal use, which is particularly relevant to medical situations. In the case of COVID-19, vaccination will play a fundamental role in tackling the pandemic and saving lives. …All vaccines currently are tested on animals. At this stage it is impossible to have a vaccine that has been created without animal use.”
This endorsement from the vegan society has been under criticism considering two factors, the first is that vaccines can be analyzed with mathematic models, but mostly since this vaccine is experimental and currently is being tested in the whole human population, there is no need to keep on testing on an animal.
