Amicus Curiae Brief — Vivek H. Murthy, Surgeon General, et al., Petitioners v. Missouri, et al.

No. 23-411

IN THE

Supreme Court of the United States

VIVEK H. MURTHY, SURGEON GENERAL, ET AL.,

Petitioners,

v.

MISSOURI, ET AL.,

Respondents.

On Writ of Certiorari to the United

States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit

BRIEF OF AMICUS CURIAE ASSOCIATION OF

AMERICAN PHYSICIANS AND SURGEONS IN

SUPPORT OF RESPONDENTS

ANDREW L. SCHLAFLY

939 OLD CHESTER ROAD

FAR HILLS, NJ 07931

(908) 719-8608

aschlafly@aol.com

Counsel for Amicus Curiae

i

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Pages

Table of Contents ................................................... i

Table of Authorities ............................................. ii

Interests of Amicus Curiae ................................... 1

Summary of Argument ......................................... 2

Argument .............................................................. 6

I. The Right to Criticize a Vaccine Is

Essential Especially When Government

Flagrantly Ignores Safety Issues . ....................... 6

A. The Warnings on Safety in VAERS

Are Ignored by the Biden Administration

and the Proponents of Censorship ................. 6

B. V-Safe Data, Ignored by the Biden

Administration and the Censors, Confirm

the Vaccine Safety Problems ...................... 12

II. The “Vaccinations Save Lives” Assertion

Is a Marketing Slogan that Is Vastly

Exaggerated by Those Who Want Vaccine

Mandates ............................................................. 15

III. The Contamination of Vaccines by

“Adventitious Agents” Is Prevalent, and

Criticism of Vaccination Is Necessary as a

Safeguard Against It .......................................... 19

IV. “Vaccine Hesitancy” Is a Misleading

Pejorative, Misused by the Censors against

Justified Criticism of Vaccines ........................... 23

V. Stanford University and Others Become

State Actors When They Participate with

Government in Its Censorship Campaign ......... 27

Conclusion .......................................................... 30

ii

TABLE OF AUTHORITIES

Pages

Cases

Ass’n of Am. Physicians & Surgs. v. Clinton,

997 F.2d 898 (D.C. Cir. 1993) ......................... 1

Ass’n of Am. Physicians & Surgs. v. Mathews,

423 U.S. 975 (1975) ......................................... 1

Ass’n of Am. Physicians & Surgs. v. Tex. Med.

Bd., 627 F.3d 547 (5th Cir. 2010) ................... 1

Brown v. Entm’t Merchs. Ass’n,

564 U.S. 786 (2011) ......................................... 4

Butler v. Michigan, 352 U.S. 380 (1957) .............. 5

Freedom Coal. of Drs. for Choice v. Ctrs. for

Disease Control & Prevention,

No. 2:23-CV-102-Z, 2024 U.S. Dist. LEXIS

2581 (N.D. Tex. Jan. 5, 2024)........................ 13

Gathright v. City of Portland,

439 F.3d 573 (9th Cir. 2006) ........................... 3

Guzman v. Sec’y of HHS, No. 21-2030V, 2023

U.S. Claims LEXIS 3264 (Fed. Cl. Nov. 29,

2023)................................................................. 7

Missouri v. Biden,

83 F.4th 350 (5th Cir. 2023) .......................... 24

Terminiello v. City of Chicago,

337 U.S. 1 (1949) ............................................. 3

United States v. Babichenko,

No. 1:18-cr-00258-BLW, 2021 U.S. Dist.

LEXIS 50193 (D. Idaho Mar. 15, 2021) ........ 25

Whitney v. California, 274 U.S. 357 (1927) ....... 19

iii

Constitution and Statutes

U.S. CONST. Amend. I............................................ 2

18 U.S.C. § 1001................................................ 7, 9

42 U.S.C. § 300aa-25 ............................................ 6

Miscellaneous

“30 Colleges With the Most Federal Funding

2024” (Dec. 29, 2023)

https://www.collegevaluesonline.com/

colleges-benefiting-from-governmentspending/ ........................................................ 27

Peter Aaby, et al., “Evidence of Increase in

Mortality After the Introduction of

Diphtheria–Tetanus–Pertussis Vaccine to

Children Aged 6–35 Months in GuineaBissau,” 6 Front Public Health 79 (2018)

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/

articles/PMC5868131/ ................................... 18

“COVID-19 Vaccine Safety Articles and

Studies by Topic”

https://www.cdc.gov/vaccinesafety/

research/publications/index.html ................. 14

“Florida State Surgeon General Calls for Halt in

the Use of COVID-19 mRNA Vaccines” (Jan.

03, 2024)

https://www.floridahealth.gov/newsroom/

2024/01/20240103-halt-use-covid19-mrnavaccines.pr.html ............................................ 26

iv

Nicolas Huscher, Roger Hodkinson, William

Makis, Peter A. McCullough, “Autopsy

Findings in Cases of Fatal COVID-19

Vaccine-Induced Myocarditis,” ESC Heart

Fail. (Jan. 14, 2024).

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/

38221509/ ....................................................... 11

Ryan King, “Sen. Ron Johnson accuses CDC of

‘censorship’ of own COVID vaccine info,”

New York Post (Aug. 30, 2023).

https://nypost.com/2023/08/30/senjohnson-lambasts-cdc-demands-docs-oncensorship-of-vaccine-data/ ............................. 8

Ian Kracalik, et al. “Outcomes at least 90 days

onset of myocarditis after mRNA

COVID-19 vaccination in adolescents and

young adults in the USA: a follow-up

surveillance study,” 6 Lancet Child

Adolesc Health 788-98 (Nov. 6, 2022)

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/

36152650/ ....................................................... 11

Bettina Krug, et al., “Adventitious Agents

and Live Viral Vectored Vaccines:

Considerations for Archiving Samples of

Biological Materials for Retrospective

Analysis,” 34 Vaccine 6617-25

(Dec. 12, 2016)

http://tinyurl.com/yb32rkef ..................... 20, 21

“Moderna vaccines on hold due to allergic

reactions found in Tulare, Kings & Kern

counties,” FOX26 News (Jan. 18, 2021)

https://kmph.com/news/local/batch-ofmoderna-vaccines-on-hold............................. 23

v

“Options for Poliomyelitis Vaccination in the

United States: Workshop Summary,”

Institute of Medicine (US) Vaccine Safety

Forum; (C.J. Howe and R.B. Johnston, eds.

1996).

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/

NBK231543/ .................................................. 16

Walter A. Orenstein & Rafi Ahmed, “Simply

Put: Vaccination Saves Lives,”

114 PNAS 4031 (Apr. 10, 2017)

https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/

pnas.1704507114 ............................................ 15

Physicians for Informed Consent, “Diphtheria –

Disease Information Statement (DIS)” (Nov.

2023)

https://physiciansforinformedconsent.org

/diphtheria-dis/ .............................................. 18

Physicians for Informed Consent, “Measles –

Disease Information Statement.”

https://physiciansforinformedconsent.org/

measles-disease-informationstatement.pdf ................................................. 16

Quotefancy.com, http://tinyurl.com/8tzfafya ....... 5

Siri & Glimstad LLP, “CDC’s Covid-19

Vaccine v-safe Data Released Pursuant

to Court Order,” PR Newswire (Oct. 3, 2022)

https://www.prnewswire.com/newsreleases/cdcs-covid-19-vaccine-v-safe-datareleased-pursuant-to-court-order301639584.html ............................................. 14

vi

Allie Skalnik, “Stanford labs received over

$651M in NIH funding last year. Some

researchers say that still isn’t enough.”

The Stanford Daily (Feb. 26, 2023)

http://tinyurl.com/4jkf9c4r ....................... 27-28

Karen Sloan and Nate Raymond, “Stanford

Law official who admonished judge during

speech is on leave, dean says,” Reuters

(Mar. 22, 2023) http://tinyurl.com/4jkf9c4r .. 28

James A. Thorp, et al., “COVID-19 Vaccines:

The Impact on Pregnancy Outcomes and

Menstrual Function,” 28 Journal of

American Physicians and Surgeons 28

(Spring 2023)

https://jpands.org/vol28no1/thorp.pdf ..... 10, 25

William G. Valiant, et al., “A history of

adventitious agent contamination and the

current methods to detect and remove them

from pharmaceutical products,” 80 Biologicals

(Oct. 2022) https://tsapps.nist.gov/

publication/get_pdf.cfm?pub_id=934732 ...... 22

VAERS, https://vaers.hhs.gov/about.html .......... 7

https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/reportedparalytic-polio-cases-and-deaths-in-theunited-states-since-1910 ............................... 16

https://www.cdc.gov/respiratory-viruses/dataresearch/dashboard/vaccination-trendsadults.html .................................................... 24

https://www.cdc.gov/vaccinesafety/

ensuringsafety/monitoring/v-safe/

index.html ...................................................... 14

https://www.fda.gov/media/74035/download ..... 17

No. 23-411

IN THE

Supreme Court of the United States

VIVEK H. MURTHY, SURGEON GENERAL, ET AL.,

Petitioners,

v.

MISSOURI, ET AL.,

Respondents.

On Writ of Certiorari to the United States Court of

Appeals for the Fifth Circuit

INTERESTS OF AMICUS CURIAE1

Amicus Association of American Physicians and

Surgeons (“AAPS”) is a national association of

physicians, founded in 1943. AAPS is dedicated to

protecting the patient-physician relationship, and has

been a litigant in this Court and in other appellate

courts. See, e.g., Ass’n of Am. Physicians & Surgs. v.

Mathews, 423 U.S. 975 (1975); Ass’n of Am. Physicians

& Surgs. v. Tex. Med. Bd., 627 F.3d 547 (5th Cir. 2010);

Ass’n of Am. Physicians & Surgs. v. Clinton, 997 F.2d

898 (D.C. Cir. 1993).

1 Pursuant to Supreme Court Rule 37.6, no counsel for a party

authored this brief in whole or in part, and no such counsel or a

party made a monetary contribution intended to fund the

preparation or submission of this brief. No person or entity –

other than amicus, its members, and its counsel – contributed

monetarily to the preparation or submission of this brief.

2

AAPS publishes a medical journal and posts it on

the internet, which contains the very type of medical

opinions

and

hypotheses

that

the

Biden

Administration and its allies have sought to censor.

Accordingly, AAPS has strong interests in the

censorship issues presented here.

SUMMARY OF ARGUMENT

Our national motto is not “In Vaccines We Trust,”

or even “In Government We Trust.” The right to

criticize vaccines and government mandates of

vaccines should not be abridged as brazenly sought

here by the American Academy of Pediatrics,

American Medical Ass’n, et al. (“AMA Amici”) and

other allies of the Biden Administration. Freedom to

criticize is an essential safeguard against tyranny, and

a First Amendment right. U.S. CONST. Amend. I. It is

alarming that any professional organization would

argue for censorship as the AMA Amici do in this case.

Abuse of government power through misuse of

scientific or medical assertions is not new, and a robust

First Amendment free of government censorship is

necessary to deter such abuse. The slogan

“vaccinations save lives” might make for an effective

marketing campaign, but it is not medical or legal

analysis. There are multiple historical examples of

inadequately tested vaccines causing widespread

harm, and the benefits of vaccination have been

grossly exaggerated. It is essential to allow public

criticism, especially when vaccination is administered

without a risk-benefit analysis and informed consent.

Vaccination is merely one of multiple approaches for

combatting a disease, and at times has been harmful.

Of course there must remain a full First Amendment

3

right to say that. Harm caused by the Covid-19 vaccine

is suggested by a mountain of government data

managed by its own programs, some of which have

been made publicly available.

The proper antidote to alleged false information is

a stronger right to free speech, not a weaker one.

Federal courts have repeatedly so held based on the

teachings by this Court, and this fundamental

principle should be affirmed again here. “First

Amendment jurisprudence is clear that the way to

oppose offensive speech is by more speech, not

censorship ….” Gathright v. City of Portland, 439 F.3d

573, 578 (9th Cir. 2006) (citing Terminiello v. City of

Chicago, 337 U.S. 1, 4 (1949)).

“Vaccine hesitancy” is not a psychological

condition, as proponents of censorship pretend, but

rather is justified self-defense against a government

that abuses its power by imposing vaccine mandates.

The public is not reluctant to receive treatments that

are safe and beneficial, but that showing was never

made for the Covid vaccine. Covid vaccine mandates

included making them a condition of attending

schools, serving in the military, working in hospitals,

and pursuing other everyday activities. Yet the AMA

Amici ignore the issue of vaccine mandates while

insisting on censorship of criticism of vaccines, which

is an essential part of opposing the government policy.

Censoring such criticism as sought by the AMA Amici

would directly infringe on political speech, which is at

the core of First Amendment rights.

The argument by the AMA Amici to declare a

compelling interest in vaccination such that

censorship of it would be allowed should be firmly

rejected here. There have not been any new categories

4

of unprotected speech in more than 50 years, and there

is no textual, historical, or logical basis for making

vaccine criticism unprotected. See, e.g., Brown v.

Entm’t Merchs. Ass’n, 564 U.S. 786, 791 (2011) (after

recounting the well-established narrow categories of

unprotected speech, holding that “new categories of

unprotected speech may not be added to the list by

a legislature that concludes certain speech is too

harmful to be tolerated”) (emphasis added).

Criticism of vaccination is warranted in response to

the exaggerations of benefits of vaccination and the

denial of its proven harms, as illustrated by the AMA

Amici brief here. A sharp decline in the prevalence of

diseases cited by the AMA Amici began before the

relevant vaccine became commonly used, thereby

disproving the asserted cause-and-effect. Meanwhile,

glaringly absent from the AMA Amici’s brief is any

reference to the immense harm caused by certain

novel or contaminated vaccines, such as the first polio

vaccine and many others.

Allowing censorship of vaccine criticism would

create an unaccountable license to play God in

tinkering with human biology. Indeed, the Covid-19

mRNA injection is not a traditional vaccine, as the

terminology in the articles cited by the AMA Amici

concede by uniquely referring to it as an ”mRNA”

vaccine. By seeking censorship of criticism of the

Covid-19 mRNA vaccines, the AMA Amici implicitly

seek censorship of criticism of anything that may be

called a vaccine in the future under yet another

redefinition of that term. Surely there is a

constitutional right to criticize future horrors that

might emerge from genetic modification.

5

If adopted, the AMA Amici’s arguments would

green-light government censorship of the presidential

candidate Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., whose motion to

intervene to protect his First Amendment rights was

denied by this Court in this case. His best-selling book,

The Real Anthony Fauci, could be banned by

government under the approach sought by the AMA

Amici, because this book criticizes some vaccination.

The same arguments made by the AMA Amici could be

extended to other types of speech disfavored by the

Biden Administration, such as criticism of

transgender procedures and late-term abortion.

Entities that have acted in concert with the Biden

Administration in censoring vaccine criticism should

be considered state actors for the purposes of this First

Amendment case. That includes Stanford University,

whose arguments to evade scrutiny for its role in

censoring vaccine criticism is also rebutted here.

“As to the evil which results from censorship, it is

impossible to measure it, because it is impossible to

tell where it ends,” observed the legal philosopher

Jeremy Bentham.2 Allowing government censorship of

criticism of vaccination would cause far more harm

than good. “Surely, this is to burn the house to roast

the pig,” as Justice Frankfurter famously observed in

striking down censorship of another type of speech.

Butler v. Michigan, 352 U.S. 380, 383 (1957). The

Constitution prohibits government and those acting in

concert with it from censoring this essential type of

speech, and the requested censorship by or with

government should be fully rejected here.

Quotefancy.com, http://tinyurl.com/8tzfafya (viewed Feb. 4,

2024).

2

6

ARGUMENT

I.

The Right to Criticize a Vaccine Is

Essential Especially When Government

Flagrantly Ignores Safety Issues.

To this day the government flagrantly ignores

significant safety issues with the Covid vaccine, and

briefs in support of the censorship campaign by

government suffer from this fatal flaw. It is

meaningless to imply, as the AMA Amici brief does,

that there is no evidence of significant harm from the

Covid vaccine while at the same time the government

fails to investigate and disclose pervasive evidence of

its actual and potential harm.

A. The Warnings on Safety in VAERS Are

Ignored by the Biden Administration and

the Proponents of Censorship.

The government manages and publicizes the

Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS)

database pursuant to a federal statute in order to

facilitate public scrutiny and criticisms of vaccination.

The very existence of this program stands against

allowing any government censorship of vaccine

criticism. There would not be any point to posting this

data publicly if there were not a right by the public to

comment on it. The executive branch cannot properly

engage in a censorship campaign after Congress has

adopted a policy of transparency and robust public

debate, as is implicit in the federal law requiring the

posting of the VAERS data. See 42 U.S.C. § 300aa-25.

More than six hundred federal court decisions have

cited to VAERS, including this summary of its purpose

by a federal court:

7

The Vaccine

Adverse

Event

Reporting

System (“VAERS”) is a national warning system

designed to detect safety problems in U.S.-licensed

vaccines. See

About VAERS, VAERS,

https://vaers hhs.gov/about.html (last visited July

17, 2023). It is managed by both the CDC and the

FDA. VAERS monitors and analyzes reports of

vaccine related injuries and side effects from both

healthcare professionals and individuals.

Guzman v. Sec’y of HHS, No. 21-2030V, 2023 U.S.

Claims LEXIS 3264, at *3 n.4 (Fed. Cl. Nov. 29, 2023)

(citation to another decision omitted). It is long

overdue for this Court to recognize this “national

warning system” that is mandated by Congress and

“managed by both the CDC and FDA.” Id.

The integrity of the VAERS data is fully

safeguarded by laws making any fraudulent reporting

to it a crime. See 18 U.S.C. § 1001. Yet proponents of

vaccine mandates and censorship of vaccine criticism

repeatedly omit any meaningful reference to VAERS

and its overwhelming data about likely harm caused

by the Covid vaccine, the very harm that the Biden

Administration attempts to censor others from

speaking about.

Discussion of this government-run database has

been a target of the unlawful censorship. On Jan. 3,

2022, U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) posted on Twitter

(now known as X) the following factually correct

information based on this government database:

Sadly, we passed two milestones on VAERS. Over

1 million adverse events and over 21,000 deaths.

30% of those deaths occurred on days 0, 1, or 2

following vaccination. When will federal agencies

8

start being transparent with Americans? Why do

they continue to ignore early treatment? [followed

by a posting of a summary of VAERS data]

Th[is] post … got Sen. Ron Johnson slapped with a

misleading label on X, the platform formerly known

as Twitter, [and a further ban on this post being

“replied to, shared, or liked.”]

Ryan King, “Sen. Ron Johnson accuses CDC of

‘censorship’ of own COVID vaccine info,” New York

Post (Aug. 30, 2023).3 This censorship campaign by

Twitter of a U.S. Senator discussing a government-run

database is an illustration of what the Biden

Administration should be enjoined against causing.

The Biden Administration makes no mention of

VAERS in its merits brief here, despite how the record

reflects that postings on social media were a prime

target of its censorship activities and central to the

detailed findings by the district court in the proceeding

below. (Gov’t Applic. 5a, 44a, 47a, 48a). As the district

court found:

posts about the safety of masking and adverse

events from vaccinations, including VAERS data

and posts encouraging people to contact their

legislature to end the Government’s mask mandate,

were censored on Facebook and other social-media

platforms.

(Id. at 5a, reprinted from the district court decision)

And again the district court emphasized that:

3 https://nypost.com/2023/08/30/sen-johnson-lambasts-cdc-

demands-docs-on-censorship-of-vaccine-data/ (viewed Jan. 24,

2024).

9

On August 19, 2021, Facebook asked Crawford for a

Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System

(“VAERS”) meeting for the CDC to give Facebook

guidance on how to address VAERS-related

“misinformation.”… The CDC eventually had a

meeting with Facebook about VAERS-related

misinformation and provided two experts for this

issue.

(Id. at 44a)

Yet not a word in this Court about VAERS in the

arguments by the Biden Administration. Indeed, it

appears that this Court itself has never mentioned

VAERS in any of its numerous vaccine decisions. This

“national warning system designed to detect safety

problems” as established by Congress, protected by

federal law against fraud, and run by the CDC and

FDA is the object of censorship by the federal

government when it dislikes the results reported in it,

and

apparently

censored

from

the

Biden

Administration’s own briefing lest this Court ever

mention VAERS in a decision.

The enormous increase in injuries from the Covid

vaccine compared with other vaccines is highly

suggestive of harm caused by the Covid vaccine, while

no evidence of any misconduct in reporting this data

has ever been discovered. The AMA Amici falsely

accuse vaccine critics of having conspiracy theories,

when the biggest and most implausible conspiracy

theory of all is the assertion that hundreds of

thousands of diverse people are filing false reports in

VAERS in violation of federal law. See 18 U.S.C. §

1001. Nothing would be gained by such illegality, and

it is absurd for the Biden Administration to ignore

10

VAERS data as collected and posted by the federal

government itself.

In the posture of this appeal, this Court should

accept the factual findings by the district court

concerning the improper censorship of postings about

VAERS, and this Court should address VAERS itself

rather than continue ignoring this elephant in the

room. For example, a team of researchers reported in

a peer-reviewed medical journal that:

The proportional reporting ratio comparing

[adverse events] AEs reported after COVID-19

vaccines with those reported after influenza

vaccines is significantly increased (≥ 2.0) for

COVID-19 vaccine for menstrual abnormality,

miscarriage, fetal chromosomal abnormalities,

fetal malformation, fetal cystic hygroma, fetal

cardiac disorders, fetal cardiac arrest, fetal

arrhythmias, fetal vascular malperfusion, fetal

growth abnormalities, fetal abnormal surveillance,

placental thrombosis, fetal death/stillbirth, low

amniotic fluid, preeclampsia, premature delivery,

preterm premature rupture of membrane, and

premature baby death. When normalized by timeavailable, doses-given, or number of persons

vaccinated, all COVID-19 vaccine AEs far exceed

the safety signal on all recognized thresholds.

James A. Thorp, et al., “COVID-19 Vaccines: The

Impact on Pregnancy Outcomes and Menstrual

Function,” 28 Journal of American Physicians and

Surgeons 28 (Spring 2023).4

4 https://jpands.org/vol28no1/thorp.pdf (viewed Feb. 1, 2024).

11

Freedom of speech is guaranteed by the U.S.

Constitution, but on the issue of criticizing the Covid

vaccine this right appears to be more respected outside

of the United States, free of censorship by the Biden

Administration. For example, a prestigious peerreviewed European Heart Journal published the

findings by the American Dr. Peter McCullough and

other American experts definitively linking the Covid

vaccine to heart-related deaths in relatively young

men:

The mean age of death was 44.4 years old. The

mean and median number of days from last

COVID-19 vaccination until death were 6.2 and 3

days, respectively. We established that all 28

deaths were most likely causally linked to COVID19 vaccination by independent review of the clinical

information presented in each paper.

Nicolas Huscher, Roger Hodkinson, William Makis,

Peter A. McCullough, “Autopsy Findings in Cases of

Fatal COVID-19 Vaccine-Induced Myocarditis,” ESC

Heart Fail. (Jan. 14, 2024).5 See also Ian Kracalik, et

al., “Outcomes at least 90 days onset of myocarditis

after mRNA COVID-19 vaccination in adolescents and

young adults in the USA: a follow-up surveillance

study,” Lancet Child Adolesc Health, 6 Lancet Child

Adolesc Health 788-98 (Nov. 6, 2022) (acknowledging

and studying the incidence of myocarditis after Covid

vaccination).6

5 https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/38221509/ (viewed Feb. 1,

2024).

6 https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36152650/ (viewed Feb. 4,

2024).

12

But instead of addressing these priority issues of

harm by the Covid vaccine, the AMA Amici repeat as

strawmen the most implausible assertions of harm by

the Covid vaccine (AMA Amici Br. 19). The AMA Amici

ignore the many hundreds of thousands of reports of

likely harm in VAERS, and the detailed analysis by

the Harvard-trained Surgeon General of our third

largest state, University of Florida Professor Dr.

Joseph Ladapo. The AMA Amici mention the VAERS

only in passing, and omit any reference to Dr. Ladapo

entirely.

As to VAERS, the AMA Amici incredibly assert

that “the information in VAERS in no way

undermines vaccines’ strong safety track record.”

(AMA Amici Br. 17, emphasis added) A sharp rise in

VAERS reports compared with the baseline reporting

of injuries, as occurred from the Covid vaccine, is

strongly indicative of a problem. The failure by

government then to investigate and disclose details

about this uptick is grounds for further alarm, and not

a valid basis for denying possible harm.

B. V-Safe Data, Ignored by the Biden

Administration and the Censors, Confirm

the Vaccine Safety Problems.

Lawsuits became necessary to compel the

government to release safety-related data about the

Covid vaccine, which the government has mostly

concealed from the public throughout the pandemic.

In early January a federal judge observed, while

ordering government release of long-withheld data

about potential harm from the Covid vaccine:

While “Trust the Science” became something of a

national slogan, the American public’s trust in

13

science and scientists are at an all-time low. It is

with this background that Plaintiff aims to further

the ideals pledged by the Biden-Harris

administration: to “Promote trust, transparency,

common purpose, and accountability in our

government” by making available for public access

— and particularly for independent scientific and

medical research — all of the relevant health data

collected through the V-safe program.

Freedom Coal. of Drs. for Choice v. Ctrs. for Disease

Control & Prevention, No. 2:23-CV-102-Z, 2024 U.S.

Dist. LEXIS 2581, at *7-8 (N.D. Tex. Jan. 5, 2024)

(footnotes omitted).

On Oct. 3, 2022, after two lawsuits forced the

release of the check-the-box V-safe data, the concealed

data showed alarming adverse effects from the Covid

vaccine:

Out of the approximate 10 million v-safe users,

782,913 individuals, or over 7.7% of v-safe users,

had a health event requiring medical attention,

emergency

room

intervention,

and/or

hospitalization. Another 25% of v-safe users had an

event that required them to miss school or work

and/or prevented normal activities.

There were also 71 million symptoms reported in

the pre-populated fields. This is an average of more

than 7 symptoms reported per v-safe user. Reported

symptoms include, for example, over 4 million

reports of joint pain. While around 2 million of these

joint pain reports were mild, over 1.8 million were

for moderate joint pain and over 400,000 were for

severe joint pain.

14

Siri & Glimstad LLP, “CDC’s Covid-19 Vaccine v-safe

Data Released Pursuant to Court Order,” PR

Newswire (Oct. 3, 2022).7

Amid widely publicized reports of young athletes

suddenly collapsing from unexpected cardiac arrests

and pointed criticism by the Florida Surgeon General,

the CDC did finally admit that the Covid vaccine does

cause myocarditis, which is an inflammation of the

heart muscle, and pericarditis, which is an

inflammation of the lining surrounding the heart. See

“COVID-19 Vaccine Safety Articles and Studies by

Topic.”8 These studies relied in part on the same

VAERS reports and data which the AMA Amici try to

downplay. (AMA Amici Br. 17-18) The CDC used the

V-safe data – which the federal government collects in

a secure and reliable manner9 – to corroborate the

alarming adverse effects from the Covid vaccine

reported in VAERS. Yet the AMA Amici make no

mention of the government V-safe data in their

misguided quest to authorize censorship of vaccine

criticism.

7 https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/cdcs-covid-19-

vaccine-v-safe-data-released-pursuant-to-court-order301639584.html (viewed Jan. 24, 2024).

8

https://www.cdc.gov/vaccinesafety/research/publications/index.ht

ml (viewed Jan. 24, 2024).

9

https://www.cdc.gov/vaccinesafety/ensuringsafety/monitoring/vsafe/index.html (viewed Jan. 24, 2024).

15

II.

The

“Vaccinations

Save

Lives”

Assertion Is a Marketing Slogan that Is

Vastly Exaggerated by Those Who Want

Vaccine Mandates.

The phrase “vaccinations save lives” is a marketing

slogan, not legal or medical analysis. It is the heading

of the first argument by the AMA Amici here, and

repeated throughout their brief. One of their cited

articles, co-authored by former CDC official Professor

Walter Orenstein, who is a longtime advocate of

immunization, has an even nearly identical title:

“Simply Put: Vaccination Saves Lives.” (AMA Amici

Br. 18) Some vaccination has saved lives and some has

not; the statement is no more meaningful than a

sweeping assertion by a prison official that

“incarceration saves lives,” to support longer prison

sentences for all. The flaw in these slogans is their

failure to recognize that there are significant ignored

harms, and that the benefits can be exaggerated.

Prof. Orenstein’s article10 consists of comparing the

mortality rate in 2016 for an assortment of longcombatted diseases with their mortality rates early

and throughout the 20th century, when the medical

understanding of these diseases was primitive. Of

course the mortality rate from diseases has declined,

as it has for cancer and most diagnosed health

problems. Sanitation and hygiene today are far

superior to a generation ago; medical treatments for

disease are far better today; and an understanding of

how diseases spread is more advanced today. Polio,

which is often cited by proponents of vaccination, was

10 https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.1704507114

(viewed Jan. 31, 2024).

16

already sharply declining for several years prior to the

use of a vaccine for it,11 and between 1975 and 1992

the vast majority of polio cases in the United States

were caused in healthy people victimized by the

vaccine itself.12

Another often-exaggerated assertion of a vaccine

overcoming a disease is the example of measles. The

measles vaccine was not approved in the United States

until 1963, after the mortality from measles had been

reduced to nearly zero. “Between 1900 and 1963, the

mortality rate of measles dropped from 13.3 per

100,000 to 0.2 per 100,000 in the population, due to

advancements in living conditions, nutrition, and

health care.” Physicians for Informed Consent,

“Measles – Disease Information Statement,” p. 2.13 A

deficiency in Vitamin A, which is inexpensively

available without a prescription, is the primary cause

of measles mortality worldwide and hospitalization in

the U.S. See id. Vitamin A is thus an inexpensive

competitor to vaccination; promoters of one approach

have motivation to criticize the other. Censorship of

11 https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/reported-paralytic-polio-

cases-and-deaths-in-the-united-states-since-1910 (viewed Feb. 1,

2024).

12 “Between 1975 and 1992, 189 confirmed cases of paralytic

poliomyelitis disease were reported in the United State,” of

which 152 were associated with the vaccine and the secondlargest category was imported cases. “Options for Poliomyelitis

Vaccination in the United States: Workshop Summary,”

Institute of Medicine (US) Vaccine Safety Forum; (C.J. Howe

and R.B. Johnston, eds. 1996).

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK231543/ (viewed Feb. 2,

2024). The slogan “vaccinations save lives” was not true for

those who contracted polio from the vaccine.

13 https://physiciansforinformedconsent.org/measles-diseaseinformation-statement.pdf (viewed Jan. 31, 2024).

17

criticism of the measles vaccine (commonly referred to

as “MMR” as it is combination vaccine) can reduce

public awareness of the benefits of Vitamin A, as seen

during the Covid pandemic when promoters of the

vaccine insisted on censoring promotion of the

alternative

treatments

by

ivermectin

and

hydroxychloroquine.

Tetanus is cited by the AMA Amici and others as

another supposedly shining example of how

vaccinations save lives. The tetanus vaccine has been

widely used since the early 1940s, and is credited with

reducing mortality from tetanus. But the FDA and the

vaccine manufacturer candidly admit, as posted on the

FDA’s website, the same uncertainty about possible

harm to fertility from this very mature tetanus vaccine

– a concern that people also have about the novel Covid

vaccine:

13.1 Carcinogenesis, Mutagenesis, Impairment of

Fertility DAPTACEL has not been evaluated for

carcinogenic or mutagenic potential or impairment

of fertility.14

If applied consistently, the call for censorship by the

AMA Amici concerning the Covid vaccine would

require taking down the FDA’s above website posting

that it is unknown whether the tetanus vaccine harms

fertility.

The AMA Amici tout that “diphtheria and rubella

have both declined by more than 99.95% from [their]

peaks” in the last century, and they again attribute

that entirely to vaccination. (AMA Amici Br. 9)

Diphtheria is a scary sounding medical term for a

14 https://www.fda.gov/media/74035/download (viewed Jan. 31,

2024).

18

bacterial “throat distemper,” as it was commonly

called, which is typically asymptomatic and “is

associated with overcrowding and poor sanitation.”

Physicians for Informed Consent, “Diphtheria –

Disease Information Statement (DIS)” (Nov. 2023).15

Diphtheria is easily treated today by antibiotics. As

sanitation improved in the United States, “[b]etween

1900 and 1945, before widespread use of the

diphtheria vaccine, the mortality rate of diphtheria

dropped from 40.3 per 100,000 to 1.2 per 100,000 in

the population.” Id. (emphasis added). The diphtheria

vaccine has, in fact, increased mortality, as

demonstrated by multiple reported studies. See, e.g.,

Peter Aaby, et al., “Evidence of Increase in Mortality

After the Introduction of Diphtheria–Tetanus–

Pertussis Vaccine to Children Aged 6–35 Months in

Guinea-Bissau,” 6 Front Public Health 79 (2018) (“All

studies of the introduction of DTP have found increased

overall mortality.”).16

The AMA Amici’s sweeping claim that vaccinations

save lives relies on an article praising the use of the

WI-38 cell strain, which was derived from an aborted

fetus at a time when such federally funded research

was allowed. See S.J. Olshanksy & L. Hayflick, The

Role of the WI-38 Cell Strain in Saving Lives and

Reducing Morbidity, 4 AIMS Pub. Health 127, 127

(2017) (cited by AMA Amici Br. 9).17 But that article is

critical of a rival polio vaccine for which:

15 https://physiciansforinformedconsent.org/diphtheria-dis/

(viewed Feb. 2, 2024).

16 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5868131/

(viewed Feb. 2, 2024).

17 https://bit.ly/3G3Ugjp (viewed Jan. 31, 2024).

19

cells isolated from monkey kidneys (and never

transferred from the first or primary vessel) were

used to grow the viruses. However, it was

discovered that these primary cells were often

contaminated with dangerous viruses common to

monkeys. One contaminant, S.V. 40, was capable of

producing tumors in laboratory animals and

transforming cultured normal human cells into

cancer cells. Other contaminants were either lethal

for vaccine workers or could produce pathology.

Id. at 130. That sort of criticism of the first polio

vaccine could fall within the scope of the censorship

argued for here by the Biden Administration, the AMA

Amici, and others opposed to allowing criticism of

vaccination.

The slogan “vaccinations save lives” may be

rhetorically effective, but the slogan is biased and

unscientific. The best phrase for adoption by this

Court is the one used by Justice Brandeis in a seminal

decision nearly a century ago, presaging a

strengthening of First Amendment rights: “the remedy

to be applied is more speech, not enforced silence.”

Whitney v. California, 274 U.S. 357, 377 (1927)

(Brandeis, J., concurring).

III.

The Contamination of Vaccines by

“Adventitious Agents” Is Prevalent, and

Criticism of Vaccination Is Necessary

as a Safeguard Against It.

The contamination of vaccines and other biological

products is prevalent, which no one can credibly deny.

Government researchers have documented, studied,

and published articles about the need to address this

problem in vaccines, as the National Institutes for

20

Health (NIH) posts on its National Library of Medicine

website, also known as PubMed Central. See, e.g.,

Bettina Krug, et al., “Adventitious Agents and Live

Viral Vectored Vaccines: Considerations for Archiving

Samples of Biological Materials for Retrospective

Analysis,” 34 Vaccine 6617-25 (Dec. 12, 2016). 18

Researchers Krug, et al., explain that “there is a

need to safeguard against potential contamination

with adventitious agents,” which are:

defined by the World Health Organization (WHO)

as microorganisms that may have been

unintentionally introduced into the manufacturing

process of a biological medicinal product: these

include bacteria, fungi, mycoplasma/spiroplasma,

mycobacteria, rickettsia, protozoa, parasites,

transmissible spongiform encephalopathy (TSE)

agents and viruses.

Id. at 1-2 (footnote omitted). These researchers then

identify in this government-posted article multiple

vaccines that harmed many Americans with

adventitious agents, including:



“At least 10–30 million persons were estimated

to have been exposed to SV40-contaminated

polio vaccine in the U.S.A.” in the late 1950s and

early 1960s.



“Avian leucosis virus (ALV) is an exogenous

retrovirus that causes leukemia in chickens by

means of insertional activation of cellular

oncogenes” and contaminated the “yellow fever

(YF) vaccine” given to the Armed Services and

travelers during and after World War II.

18 http://tinyurl.com/yb32rkef (viewed Feb. 2, 2024).

21



An epidemic of deadly icteric hepatitis that

afflicted 330,000 U.S. Army service members in

1942 was traced in 1985 to contamination of the

YF vaccine by the Hepatitis B virus.



Endogenous avian retroviral particles were

found in 1996 in MMR (the measles, mumps,

and rubella combination) vaccines, along with

reverse transcriptase (RTase) activity.



The 1976–77 swine influenza vaccine was

contaminated “by Campylobacter, a now known

cause of GBS and endemic in poultry, from

which eggs used for influenza vaccine

production are sourced,” and that vaccine

caused an increased risk of Guillain-Barre

syndrome (GBS).



“Porcine circoviruses (PCVs) are small nonenveloped virus containing a single-strand

circular DNA genome virus,” and this

contamination was discovered in 2010 in the

widely used rotavirus vaccine after “~100,000

children had received the vaccine during clinical

trials and ~68 million doses had been

distributed worldwide.” The recipients of this

vaccine were deprived of the opportunity to

provide

informed

consent

about

this

contamination.

Id. at 4-8. The Krug authors further observed that

“[t]he development of some novel viral vaccines … pose

additional safety concerns.” Id. at 11.

The Covid vaccine is one of the “novel viral

vaccines,” and the risk of its contamination by

adventitious agents is very real. The “misinformation”

is to disparage the critics of safety and testing

22

concerning the Covid vaccine as though this vaccine

were perfect and not possibly contaminated. The socalled “misinformation” is predominantly from the

censors, not from the vaccine critics.

In 2022, two years into the Covid pandemic, federal

researchers at the Biomolecular Measurement

Division, Applied Genetics Group, National Institute

of Standards and Technology, located in Gaithersburg,

Maryland, published their concerns about the “many

instances where adventitious agents have been

detected within pharmaceutical products.” William G.

Valiant, et al., “A history of adventitious agent

contamination and the current methods to detect and

remove them from pharmaceutical products,” 80

Biologicals 6-17 (October 2022).19 This article confirms

the many historical examples of contamination of

vaccines, and identifies sources from which the

contamination occurs.

While imposing Covid vaccine mandates wherever

it could possibly assert authority, the Biden

Administration apparently did nothing to guarantee

that a particular lot of the Covid vaccine is free of

contamination. The government typically does not do

a comprehensive screening of distributed vaccines,

and thus the public depends on a robust criticism of

vaccine safety as a check-and-balance against unsafe

manufacturing, distribution, and storage of vaccines.

Reports of bad batches of Covid vaccines were by

chance based on someone noticing a cluster of

particularly frequent severe reactions, without any

screening to ensure the vaccines were not

19 https://tsapps.nist.gov/publication/get_pdf.cfm?pub_id=934732

(viewed Jan. 31, 2024).

23

contaminated. See, e.g., “Moderna vaccines on hold due

to allergic reactions found in Tulare, Kings & Kern

counties,” FOX26 News (Jan. 18, 2021) (“This

particular batch contains about 330,000 doses and was

distributed to almost 300 locations,” before being

identified as contaminated based on severe allergic

reactions).20

The public thus relies on outspokenness by vaccine

critics, including those harmed by receiving the

injections, to expose and stop the administration of

contaminated vaccines. Allowing censorship of such

criticism would be harmful to public health, in

addition to being unconstitutional.

IV.

“Vaccine Hesitancy” Is a Misleading

Pejorative, Misused by the Censors

against Justified Criticism of Vaccines.

The term “vaccine hesitancy” is a misleading

pejorative about people who decline a vaccine due to

religious reasons, medical contraindications, safety

concerns, or a lack of benefit. No one would properly

disparage an opponent of gun control as suffering from

“gun control hesitancy,” or someone opposed to

mutilating transgender surgery on children as being

plagued by “transgender hesitancy.” The Covid vaccine

has substantial safety issues amid doubtful benefits.

It is hardly surprising and not the result of a so-called

psychological “vaccine hesitancy” that the percentage

of children who have received the updated 2023-24

Covid vaccine is only 11%, and only 21.5% of adults

20 https://kmph.com/news/local/batch-of-moderna-vaccines-on-

hold (viewed Feb. 4, 2024).

24

have.21 Vaccination rates vary widely depending on

the potential risk-benefit ratio, and vaccination rates

are understandably far higher for mature vaccines

than novel ones. The variation in vaccination rates is

specific to the vaccine rather than being a general,

supposedly irrational and emotional opposition to all

vaccines.

As quoted by the Fifth Circuit below and repeated

in the brief by the AMA Amici (p. 22), this term

“vaccine hesitancy” is a favorite of the censors. A

Biden administration official, for example, referred

condescendingly to “vaccine hesitant stuff” while

demanding that Facebook engage in censorship:

that [the Biden White House officials] had “been

asking [] pretty directly, over a series of

conversations” for “what actions [the platform has]

been taking to mitigate” vaccine hesitancy, to end

the platform’s “shell game,” and that they were

“gravely concerned” the platform was “one of the

top drivers of vaccine hesitancy.” Another time, an

official asked why a flagged post was “still up” as

it had “gotten pretty far.” The official queried “how

does something like that happen,” and maintained

that “I don’t think our position is that you should

remove vaccine hesitant stuff,” but “slowing it

down seems reasonable.” Always, the officials

asked for more data and stronger “intervention[s].”

Missouri v. Biden, 83 F.4th 350, 360 (5th Cir. 2023)

(emphasis added).

21 https://www.cdc.gov/respiratory-viruses/data-

research/dashboard/vaccination-trends-adults.html (viewed Feb.

1, 2024).

25

Few appellate courts have ever adopted this

misleading, pejorative terminology of “vaccine

hesitancy,” and this Court should decline to buy into

it. Lower federal courts reportedly never used it prior

to 2021, and afterwards used it either in repetition of

parties’ arguments or to justify a court’s own vaccine

mandate policy. See United States v. Babichenko, No.

1:18-cr-00258-BLW, 2021 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 50193, at

*4-5 (D. Idaho Mar. 15, 2021) (declaring that “the

emerging variants, vaccine hesitancy, and who knows

what else could delay or derail a return to prepandemic times”).

According to the AMA Amici, “vaccine hesitancy”

includes not knowing whether the Covid-19 vaccine

causes infertility – it was not tested for that, so an

answer of “I don’t know” to a question about that is a

correct answer. Yet the AMA Amici complain that “as

of October 2021, polling showed that 31% of adults

surveyed either believed or were uncertain of the

veracity of the claim that COVID-19 vaccinations

cause infertility.” (AMA Amici Br. 20) Honest medical

experts do not know the answer either, yet the AMA

Amici pretend that this reflects some kind of

psychological vaccine hesitancy. Rather than demand

censorship of criticism concerning the lack of a full

understanding about the effect of the Covid-19 vaccine

on fertility, the proponents of vaccine mandates should

instead call for an adequate investigation with public

scrutiny of the data to resolve any doubts. As quoted

in Part I.A above from the peer-review, published

Thorp study, there is much to suggest that the Covid19 vaccine may have a harmful effect on menstrual

function and pregnancy outcome.

26

Vaccines are by no means the only approach to

addressing a pandemic or disease. One of the most

vocal critics of the mRNA Covid vaccine has been the

Florida Surgeon General, Dr. Joseph Ladapo, who has

enjoyed the full support of the duly elected Florida

Governor Ron DeSantis. Throughout the Covid

pandemic and to this day this Surgeon General of our

third-largest state has sharply criticized the Covid-19

mRNA vaccine, and urged treatment instead. This is

not “vaccine hesitancy.”

The FDA and CDC failed to adequately address

these concerns raised by Surgeon General Ladapo in

his letter to them dated December 6, 2023:

The Surgeon General outlined concerns regarding

nucleic acid contaminants in the approved Pfizer

and Moderna COVID-19 mRNA vaccines,

particularly in the presence of lipid nanoparticle

complexes, and Simian Virus 40 (SV40)

promoter/enhancer DNA. Lipid nanoparticles are

an efficient vehicle for delivery of the mRNA in the

COVID-19 vaccines into human cells and may

therefore be an equally efficient vehicle for

delivering contaminant DNA into human cells. The

presence of SV40 promoter/enhancer DNA may

also pose a unique and heightened risk of DNA

integration into human cells.

“Florida State Surgeon General Calls for Halt in the

Use of COVID-19 mRNA Vaccines” (Jan. 03, 2024).22

That is not an emotional or irrational “vaccine

hesitancy,” for which the AMA Amici demand

censorship to stamp out vaccine criticism.

22 https://www.floridahealth.gov/newsroom/2024/01/20240103-

halt-use-covid19-mrna-vaccines.pr.html (viewed Feb. 1, 2024).

27

Rather than rebut Surgeon General Ladapo’s

criticisms of the Covid-19 vaccine, the AMA Amici

resort to censorship to eliminate it. Censorship should

never become a substitute for reasoned debate.

V.

Stanford

University

and

Others

Become State Actors When They

Participate with Government in Its

Censorship Campaign.

Stanford University (“Stanford”), which reportedly

receives more federal funding that most state

universities,23 filed an amicus brief here insisting that

its censorship-related work with the Biden

administration should not be considered to be state

action subject the First Amendment. But there is no

exemption for higher education from respecting the

First Amendment, and state action has never been

limited to governmental actors alone. Accepting the

argument by Stanford would create an impermissibly

gaping loophole for the government to achieve its

censorship goals through coercion of higher education.

Relevant to the vaccine-criticism censorship at

issue here, Stanford “was awarded the sixth-most

funding from the National Institutes of Health (NIH)

among domestic universities in 2022 …. Stanford labs

were awarded over $651M in 2022, a $40 million

increase from $611M in 2021.” Allie Skalnik, “Stanford

labs received over $651M in NIH funding last year.

Some researchers say that still isn’t enough.” The

23 Stanford ranks #6 in federal funding among all universities. “30

Colleges With the Most Federal Funding 2024” (Dec. 29, 2023)

https://www.collegevaluesonline.com/colleges-benefiting-fromgovernment-spending/ (viewed Feb. 4, 2024).

28

Stanford Daily (Feb. 26, 2023).24 That prodigious

funding inevitably gave the NIH substantial leverage

over Stanford and its Virality Project during the Covid

pandemic. A factual analysis by a trial court is needed

to determine whether a private entity so intertwined

with government is engaging in state action. This

funding by the same administration that engages in

censorship is suggestive of state action by Stanford on

issues relating to NIH, as Covid vaccine criticism was.

Stanford evidently lacks strong safeguards against

retaliatory censorship. For example, last year a federal

appellate judge, Kyle Duncan, attempted to speak at

Stanford University Law School only to be shouted

down and silenced by law school students “who said

Duncan has taken positions that threatened the rights

of LGBTQ people, immigrants, Black voters, women

and others.” Karen Sloan and Nate Raymond,

“Stanford Law official who admonished judge during

speech is on leave, dean says,” Reuters (Mar. 22,

2023).25 The Stanford law school dean subsequently

apologized to Judge Duncan, but the episode

illustrates the problem of retaliatory censorship.

Stanford admits that its “Virality Project has been

a “collaborative project[] that tracked and studied

misinformation,

disinformation,

and

rumors

concerning … COVID-19 vaccines ….” (Stanford Br. 1)

Stanford further concedes that it collaborated with the

Biden administration on this (and other) political

issues, and yet argues that the collaboration should

24 http://tinyurl.com/4jkf9c4r (viewed Feb. 4, 2024).

25 https://www.reuters.com/legal/legalindustry/stanford-law-

official-who-admonished-judge-during-speech-is-leave-deansays-2023-03-22/ (viewed Feb. 4, 2024).

29

not be restrained by the First Amendment because

Stanford is a private university. (See id. 18, 27)

(arguing against state action doctrine applying to it).

The First Amendment prohibits government from

doing indirectly what it cannot do directly. Stanford

relies on its strawman argument that “private

research universities like Stanford and their

researchers are not state actors subject to

constitutional constraints just because they speak to

the government about their research.” (Stanford Br. 3)

No one enjoined Stanford from merely speaking to the

government. Censorship pressure and collaboration

with government are what trigger the state action.

Stanford and any educational institution are free to

remain independent without doing the partisan

bidding of an administration in control of government

and its purse strings. Hillsdale and Grove City

Colleges are two stellar institutions that have long

remained independent from government controls.

Stanford has not taken that direction of autonomy, but

rather has become dependent on government funding.

Regardless, Stanford has no valid basis for

objecting to an injunction against government officials

collaborating with it. Legitimate academic inquiry

does not require political direction from the White

House. Stanford admits that it labeled one of Biden’s

prominent nemeses on the internet, The Gateway

Pundit, as “one of the top misinformation websites.”

(Stanford Br. 22) Stanford’s conduct, which is what

matters in the test for determining whether a private

entity was a state actor, was highly partisan indeed.

Enjoining government from engaging in censorship

through collaboration with university programs is

30

appropriate relief under the First Amendment, and

the objections raised by Stanford are without merit.

CONCLUSION

The decision below should be fully affirmed, with a

holding additionally allowing an injunction against

the Biden Administration for its censorship-inducing

communications with Stanford University.

Dated: February 7, 2024

Respectfully submitted,

ANDREW L. SCHLAFLY

939 OLD CHESTER ROAD

FAR HILLS, NJ 07931

(908) 719-8608

aschlafly@aol.com

Counsel for Amicus Curiae