Lawsuit: 56 students faced expulsion from school because of wild child vaccinations

Late last month, 56 Long Island students in 22 counties were expelled or threatened with expulsion because of invalid vaccination records, according to a federal lawsuit. This shows more students than previously disclosed were affected by what the state saw as fraudulent vaccinations, according to a former Amityville nurse.

At least nine students were unable to attend classes on Sept. 27, when the lawsuit against the state health department and school districts was filed in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York. Others were just days away from attending school, according to the complaint.

One of the students, a senior from Sayville, was threatened with immediate removal, according to the complaint. The student, described in court documents as a “football star,” is being recruited and could lose the opportunity to play college football at some schools if he is cut from the team, the complaint says.

A similar lawsuit filed in state court was dismissed Oct. 1.

The cases stem from a state investigation into former Amityville nurse Julie DeVuono and her practice, Wild Child Pediatrics, which the state has accused of falsifying child immunization records that students are required to provide under state law to attend school. DeVuono and her company pleaded guilty last year in connection with a COVID-19 vaccination card scheme.

Sean Clouston, an epidemiologist and public health professor at Stony Brook University, said he thinks it’s fair to exclude students if they can’t prove they’ve been vaccinated.

“Vaccines have the amazing property that a vaccinated person is not only better able to protect themselves, but can also help protect more vulnerable people around them,” he wrote in an email. “Many people, including other students, may have weakened immune systems. … They cannot use vaccinations themselves and are only protected through vaccinations from others.”

The state Department of Health last month invalidated the vaccination records of 133 children on Long Island and one from Orange County for measles, mumps, diphtheria and other vaccinations because it said DeVuono had falsified them. It previously sent subpoenas to more than 100 school districts asking for vaccination records for about 750 children. It’s unclear how many students on Long Island were suspended.

Newsday reported last week that Plainedge District had excluded four students due to wild child vaccines.

The state Department of Education referred questions to the state Department of Health this week. State Department of Health spokeswoman Erin Clary said the state “does not maintain real-time data on school suspensions.”

The current status of most of the students named in the lawsuit is also unclear.

The 22 counties named as defendants either declined to comment on pending litigation or did not respond to a request for comment. They also declined to comment on the vaccination or enrollment status of individual students. Christine Criscione, superintendent of Mount Sinai Schools and one of the defendants, said no district students have been excluded because of wild child vaccines.

A lawyer for the parents would not say whether the students named were actually expelled or whether they have returned to school. Hauppauge-based attorney Chad LaVeglia said he couldn’t comment on the details, but he and co-counsel James Mermigis would file an amended complaint.

In a statement he wrote: “When the government takes away a fundamental right like education, it must ensure due process. The constitution requires this. That’s what this lawsuit is about.”

Mermigis had also filed a similar lawsuit in state court on behalf of many of those parents. Both sought a court order to prevent the health department and school districts from expelling students.

Nassau County Superior Court Judge Christopher T. McGrath, who dismissed the state’s case, noted that parents have a choice: get required vaccinations or undergo blood tests to detect antibodies. You could also teach your children at home.

In the state lawsuit, which named many of the same districts as defendants, the schools claimed they were acting under the direction of the state health department and therefore had no position other than to follow state guidance, the judge noted.

Mermigis did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

The state attorney general’s office, which is defending the state Department of Health, declined to comment Friday.

In a court filing, Assistant Attorney General Rudolph M. Baptiste emphasized to Federal District Court Judge Nusrat J. Choudhury that the second lawsuit was “in a long line of recent and similar unsuccessful challenges” that the plaintiffs sought to stop the department from complying with its law Duty to protect public health and safety.

Mermigis and LaVeglia said in separate filings in federal court that the state court’s decision was neither “binding nor persuasive.”

“The Nassau County judge ignored all of our constitutional arguments,” Mermigis wrote. “Children have been expelled from school and/or threatened with expulsion without any process or opportunity for a hearing.”

Lisa Chin, a lecturer in public health at SUNY Old Westbury, said: “We are not neglecting the importance of individual rights, but there is something bigger at stake here.”

She has witnessed students being expelled from their college because they did not have documentation showing they had been vaccinated.

“One of the things I tell my students is the fact that we actually no longer have that historical memory of children and people dying of polio,” she said. “We forgot.”

With Lisa L. Colangelo

Dandan Zou covers education for Newsday. She previously worked for a community newspaper in Maryland and a personal finance magazine in Washington, DC