Froedtert Hospital says employees who claimed COVID vaccine exemption must get new option that does not use fetal cell lines
UPDATE: This story has been updated to clarify that the hospital's requirement is that employees must be fully vaccinated, not that they have to get the new omicron-specific booster shot.
Froedtert Hospital is alerting its employees who had taken religious exemptions for COVID-19 vaccination because they had concerns about the use of fetal cell lines in their development that they must now get vaccinated using a recently-approved shot.
Froedtert sent an email to its staff stating some employees now are unable to claim "religious or medical exemptions" as a reason not to be vaccinated against COVID-19. Other eligible staff continue to be exempt from a COVID-19 vaccine for religious and medical reasons, the hospital said.
The email said those employees can now be vaccinated by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration-approved Novavax vaccine. Novavax is protein, not mRNA-based. This means fetal cell lines were not used in its development.
In a statement to the Journal Sentinel Thursday, Froedtert said the change will affect less than 1% of its staff.
The policy was first reported by TMJ4.
The use of fetal cell lines in the mRNA vaccines allowed employees to receive religious or medical exemptions to the hospital's vaccination policy.
According to a fact check by Reuters, the Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna vaccines used fetal cell lines in their testing stages. Johnson & Johnson used a human fetal cell line called PER.C6, developed from the retinal cells of an 18-week-old fetus aborted in 1985 in its production and manufacturing stages.
These fetal cell lines are not taken from recent abortions, Reuters notes. Rather, they are derived from decades-old fetal cells that have been replicated for years in laboratory setting and are thousands of times removed from the original fetal cells.
Froedtert is among many health care systems that require all employees to be vaccinated against COVID-19. It does not require boosters.
Children's Wisconsin, Ascension Wisconsin, Mayo Clinic Health System and SSM Health also required all employees to get the COVID-19 vaccine.
Ascension Wisconsin, Mayo Clinic Health System and SSM Health did not respond to request for comment from the Journal Sentinel and USA TODAY Network-Wisconsin.
Andrew Brodzeller, a spokesman for Children's Wisconsin, said the hospital has not made any changes to its COVID-19 vaccination requirement process, which requires all employees including new hires to get their primary vaccination doses. The hospital encourages but does not require boosters.
The hospital did not explicitly address if the availability of the Novavax vaccine changes the status of any employees' religious exemptions.
"A process remains for those who want to request an exemption," Brodzeller said.
Froedtert's full statement is below:
"Froedtert Health requires staff and providers be fully vaccinated against COVID-19 as a federal requirement that is monitored for compliance. We join many other health systems around southeast Wisconsin and the U.S. that have made vaccination a condition of employment.
The Novavax vaccination for COVID-19 is now available. This protein-based vaccination option eliminates conflicts for those staff with religious or medical exemptions caused by mRNA-based vaccines and other concerns. Since those staff are now eligible for a vaccination that does not conflict with their religious beliefs or medical situation, their exemption will expire. This affects a small percentage of staff with a vaccine exemption. Eligible staff continue to be exempt from a COVID-19 vaccine for religious and medical reasons.
Froedtert Health respects the right of staff and providers to engage in activity protected by state and federal law."
Benita Mathew of USA TODAY Network-Wisconsin contributed to this story.
Contact Devi Shastri at 414-224-2193 or DAShastri@jrn.com. Follow her on Twitter at @DeviShastri. Van Egeren can be reached at jvanegeren@gannett.com or (920) 213-5695.
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This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Froedtert will terminate employees not vaccinated against COVID-19
