A FALSE CLAIM that an US court ruled that mRNA vaccines are not actually vaccines have spread widely across the internet.

A version of the claim has been shared among Irish users, including celebrity financial advisor Eddie Hobbs and a candidate that ran in the recent local elections.

But these claims are false: the court simply had decided a previous case about immunisation requirements should not have been dismissed.

It did not make a ruling on that case, nor did it evaluate the claim made by the plaintiffs that mRNA vaccines are not effective.

“9th District Court of Appeal finds the Covid-19 shots are not ‘vaccines’”, reads a post by Eddie Hobbs shared hundreds of times on X.com since being published on June 7.

“As we know, a lot of the WHO’s strategy hinges on re-definitions of words like ‘vaccines’ etc.”

Hobbs has long complained about mRNA vaccines, which he has said are “the cause of excess deaths and serious harm”.

“Varadkar’s vaccine caused viral variants, it was a pandemic of the fraudlently ‘vaccined’ according to the 9th circuit court of appeal [sic],” local election candidate Dara O’Flaherty wrote to Telegram.

The claim has been spread widely by US political figures, including Ron Johnson, a Republican Senator for Wisconsin, and presidential candidate and conspiracy theorist Robert F Kennedy Jr.

“The ranks of the conspiracy theorists now include the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, which just ruled Covid vax mandates unconstitutional because the vaccine does not stop transmission,” Kennedy wrote on X.com.

Court case

The claims stem from the US Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals decision to revive a lawsuit, which a lower court had dismissed, over Covid-19 vaccination mandates for school staff in Los Angeles, California.

In simple terms: the US Ninth Circuit Court is the federal court of appeals (also called an appellate court) for most of the western United States.

The ruling came in a two-to-one majority decision comprising two judges appointed by former president Donald Trump.

That decision, available online, referenced the effectiveness and status of Covid-19 vaccines, which started rolling out in late 2020 and have since been administered to the majority of the US population.

But the assertion that the shots are not vaccines is an argument made by the plaintiffs, not the panel’s official determination.

“It is not a ruling that the Covid-19 vaccines are not vaccines,” said Dorit Reiss, a professor of law at the University of California-San Francisco whose research focuses on legal and policy issues related to vaccines.

The case in question centres on a Covid-19 vaccination policy the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) adopted several times throughout the pandemic, which the plaintiffs, including the Health Freedom Defense Fund, say violated their right to refuse medical treatment.

“Plaintiffs allege that the vaccine does not effectively prevent spread but only mitigates symptoms for the recipient and therefore is akin to a medical treatment, not a ‘traditional’ vaccine,” the appeals court wrote.

A district court had previously dismissed the lawsuit, in part because the mandate for school staff was no longer in place. The lower court also relied on a 1905 US Supreme Court case that held states could require vaccination when necessary.

“The lower court ruled that even if the plaintiffs could support their argument that the vaccines don’t reduce transmission, it wouldn’t be enough for their lawsuit to succeed because the government has a legitimate interest in preventing severe disease and death among individuals who are vaccinated,” said Lindsay Wiley, faculty director of the health law and policy programme at the University of California-Los Angeles.

“The appellate court panel overturned that ruling and decided that if the plaintiffs can prove the vaccines don’t reduce transmission, that might be enough for their lawsuit to succeed.”

Scientific claims not examined

But the Ninth Circuit court did not evaluate the plaintiffs’ scientific claims, legal experts said.

Instead, it is customary for appellate courts to assume plaintiffs’ allegations are accurate when assessing a motion to dismiss because fact-finding has not yet occurred, Reiss told AFP.

In this circumstance, Reiss said the court overturned the lower court’s dismissal of the case and “sent it back down to find if the plaintiffs are right”.

“The court said that since it must assume the plaintiffs’ claims are true, and since they are claiming Covid-19 vaccines just mitigate symptoms and do not prevent transmission, the case can go on to fact-finding,” she said.

“It did not directly rule on whether the vaccines prevent transmission or just ‘mitigate symptoms.’”

The appellate court’s majority specified they were merely “taking plaintiffs’ allegations as true at this stage of litigation.”

“At this stage, we must accept plaintiffs’ allegations that the vaccine does not prevent the spread of Covid-19 as true,” the ruling says.

“We note the preliminary nature of our holding. We do not prejudge whether, on a more developed factual record, plaintiffs’ allegations will prove true.”

Nicole Huberfeld, a professor of health law at Boston University, said this is standard procedure, even though the plaintiffs’ claims about Covid-19 vaccines are rife with “logical and scientific fallacies”.

“Judge Nelson’s opinion allows the litigation to proceed but does not rule in favor of the plaintiffs’ strange claims,” she said in an email to AFP.

“This is because judges generally must accept the pleadings as ‘true,’ even if they are rooted in conspiracy theories.”

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention defines a vaccine as “a preparation that is used to stimulate the body’s immune response against diseases”.

The agency says the Covid-19 vaccines “are safe and effective at protecting people from getting seriously ill, being hospitalized and dying”.

It reported in February 2024 that people who received the latest Covid-19 vaccines meant a person was 54% less likely to contract the disease over a four-month period .

The European Medicines Agency says that multiple studies have shown that Comirnaty, the mRNA vaccine developed by Pfizer and recommended by the HSE, is “effective at preventing Covid-19”.

Contains reporting by AFP.

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