Branches of the U.S. military violated their own COVID-19 vaccine exemption policies.
The Army and Air Force defied time requirements in processing vaccine exemption requests, according to the Pentagon’s inspector general. The average processing time for the requests was 192 days, although the Army is required to complete the filing within 90 days.
It took the Air Force an average of 168 days to review the requests, although they are required to finish the report within 30 days.
“Prolonged delays in addressing requests for religious accommodations could impact a Service member’s job placement and impede the command’s ability to make well-informed deployment and assignment choices,” IG Robert Storch said in a statement. “DoD’s lack of department-level guidance for uniformly characterizing discharges and assigning reentry codes for vaccination refusal resulted in Service members experiencing different impacts to their educational benefits and eligibility to reenlist after discharge.”
The IG’s report also found that soldiers discharged for refusing the COVID-19 vaccine “did not receive the same discharge type or reentry code.”
“This occurred because the DoD did not have department-level guidance requiring uniformity on the discharge type and reentry code for the Service members discharged for vaccination refusal,” the report said. “As a result, discharged Service members experienced different impacts to their educational benefits and eligibility to reenlist in military service after discharge.”
Lieutenant Ted Macie of the Navy Medical Service Corps revealed that health problems have drastically increased among pilots following COVID-19 vaccination.
Reading from data compiled over five years and comparing it to 2022, Macie said myocarditis increased by 151%.
Other diseases Macie explained had dramatic surges were: hypertensive disease (36%), ischemic heart disease (69%), pulmonary heart disease (62%), heart failure (973%), other forms of heart disease (63%), and cardiomyopathy (152%).
