A bipartisan group of Democratic and Republican representatives from the Dallas Fort Worth area worked hard to prove bipartisanship is not dead in Texas. This coalition fought for prison reform requiring Texas prisons to install air conditioning in all facilities.

HB 357 bill passed the Texas House by a vote of 123-18. In normal times, the bill would have moved to the Texas Senate before heading to Governor Abbott’s desk to sign it into law. Despite bipartisan support for this criminal justice effort, the Texas Senate failed to schedule the bill for a hearing, debate, or vote.

Just in time for Summer, The Texas legislative session is now over, and Texas Prisoners will pay the price. Texas lawmakers killed a bill that would have required air conditioning in prisons and saved lives.

The Dallas Morning News (DMN) reported one out of five lockup facilities has no air conditioning or climate control systems for inmates. Forty-nine prisons only have partial air conditioning. Temperatures can rise well above 100 degrees during the Texas Summers. Inmates confined to their cells no options to keep cool and stay safe.

Some view climate control as a luxury. “[Air conditioning] is seen as a luxury and prison officials don’t want to be seen as running luxurious prisons,” stated David Fathi, director of the ACLU’s National Prison Project. But in Southern states like Texas, regulating temperature can be a matter of life and death.

The lack of air conditioning in Texas prisons places prisoners and staff at risk. Prolonged heat exposure can cause lead to dehydration and heatstroke. Prolonged exposure to extreme temperatures can damage the kidneys, liver, lungs, and brain. Prisoners are at risk of kidney failure and heart attacks.

The DMN published documents showing more than twenty inmates died from the heat inside Texas prisons between 1998 and 2012. Terry Canales, a South Texas Democrat from Edinburg, told the House, “The reality is that we are cooking people in prison in Texas.”

HB 357 provided the Texas prison system with seven years to bring climate control systems to all facilities. The project had a cost cap of $300 million, and the bill is contingent on State or Federal funds approval to assist with cooling costs.

The bill would provide essential climate control and air conditioning to incarcerated people throughout the Texas Penal system. During the vote in House, only 18 members voted against this legislation.

The bill’s sponsors were Democrats and Republicans from the Dallas Fort Worth Metroplex, including Jeff Leach of Plano, Lynn Stuckey of Denton, Speaker Pro Tem Joe Moody, Michelle Beckley of Carrollton, and Carl Sherman of DeSoto.

In 2021, The Texas Winter Storm caused problems in the Texas prisons that do not have climate control. Mother Jones reported Texas prisoners attempted to set fires to try and keep warm during the historic freezing subzero temperatures and failure of the power grid. Inmates used toilet paper, scrap paper, and socks as kindling.

Prison Air conditioning bills have failed over and over again in Texas. Despite being one of the hottest states in the US, lawmakers have failed to provide basic climate control systems for inmates. Many thought 2021 would be different. The bipartisan effort which passed with flying colors in the house seemed destined to succeed in the Senate.

Speaker Pro Tem Joe Moody offered gratitude to the House members for their votes, reminding them, “We dehumanize people who are justice-involved.”

Sadly, The Texas Senate did not bring the bipartisan bill to the floor in the 2021 legislative session.

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Houston Methodist Chief Executive Officer Dr. Marc Boom notified the staff via email of the new vaccine policy back in March. In April, the Methodist system mandated all staff to begin the vaccination series before Jun 7.

Vaccines reached the arms of 99% of the 26,000 employees, but 117 unvaccinated staff members have filed suit against Houston Methodist over the Covid-19 vaccine requirements.

ABCNews reports the lawsuit alleges that Covid-19 vaccine requirements in the hospital setting are illegal because the three US Covid-19 vaccines are FDA approved only under emergency use authorization. The complaint states the hospital violates the Nurenberg Code.

The Nurenberg Code is a set of medical ethics designed to protect human subjects voluntarily participating in clinical trials. The Nurenberg Code was created more than 70 years ago after the Nurenberg trials exposed the horrific truth of Nazi medical experimentation on Jewish prisoners at the Auschwitz concentration camp.

Although Houston Methodist was the first hospital to require vaccinations, The decision is backed up by clinical data. A CDC report showed the messenger RNA vaccines are 90 percent effective at preventing COVID-19 infections in healthcare workers and first responders.

The CDC published updated information on healthcare worker vaccine safety and efficacy in the March 29th Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. This update analyzed Covid-19 vaccines in a real-world setting. The findings showed the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna were 90 percent effective at preventing COVID-19 infections among healthcare personnel, first responders, and other essential frontline workers.

Improving the number of vaccinated workers reduces the risk of spreading the infection from health providers to patients.

Houston Methodist’s staff Covid-19 vaccine requirements align with the influenza vaccine policy it implemented in 2009. Religious and medical exemptions are allowed. Pregnant women may choose to wait until after delivery to start the Covid-19 vaccine series. Of note, multiple studies now show Covid-19 vaccines in pregnancy are safe for mom and baby.

The hospital considers employee vaccinations to be a patient safety issue. Like other required hospital vaccinations, employees will not be permitted to return to work unless they are vaccinated.

Most hospitals have an employee vaccination policy to help prevent medical professionals from inadvertently spreading infectious diseases to patients. The CDC recommends vaccinations for healthcare workers. The recommendations include physicians, nurses, emergency medical personnel, dental professionals and students, medical and nursing students, laboratory technicians, pharmacists, hospital volunteers, and administrative staff.

These CDC-recommended vaccinations currently include Hepatitis B, Influenza, MMR (Measles, Mumps, and Rubella), Varicella, and Tdap (Tetanus, Diptheria, Pertussis). Most hospitals also require annual tuberculosis risk assessments.

Vaccinating healthcare workers reduces the risk of hospital-acquired infections. Vaccinations protect hospital staff from infectious disease exposure and reduce the risk of a healthcare worker transmitting an infection to a hospitalized patient.

Updated guidance from the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission indicates employers may require vaccination stating “Federal EEO laws do not prevent an employer from requiring all employees physically entering the workplace to be vaccinated for COVID-19, so long as employers comply with the reasonable accommodation provisions of the ADA and Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and other EEO considerations.”

There are three FDA-approved vaccines for Covid-19 under emergency use authorization. Full FDA approval is expected as the results of ongoing clinical trials are completed and analyzed.

The two messenger RNA vaccines from Moderna and Pfizer offer 95% protection against Covid-19. The Covid-19 vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna use messenger RNA (mRNA). A single strand of mRNA delivers instructions to human cells to produce an antibody against the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein.

The Johnson and Johnson’s Janssen vaccine offers 72% protection against infection and 86% against severe disease. The Janssen vaccine uses Adenovirus 26 (AD26) as the vector to deliver DNA material into our cells to provoke an immune response.

The Moderna and Janssen vaccines are approved for those 18 years old and up. The Pfizer vaccine is approved starting at age 16.

All three vaccines are highly effective in preventing death.

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Little did they know their luncheon would lead to a clash between personal liberty and a 19th-century philosophy concept called the harm principle.

All in their 70–80’s, the women have varying degrees of health conditions. Diabetes, hypertension, asthma, and a cancer survivor sat at the round table inside a restaurant, enjoying a meal together.

The friends reconnected by reminiscing and sharing stories from their decades-long friendship. They hugged and returned home.

A few days later, the first in the group mentioned she tested positive for Covid-19. She did not call to warn the others or to recommend testing and quarantine. She casually mentioned her illness in passing.

She is a Covid-19 denier. She believes Covid-19 is real, but it is not the big deal the liberal #fakenews media portrays it to be. The pandemic did not deter her lifestyle.

She proudly sang in the choir at an evangelical Megachurch, where thousands of maskless worshipers celebrate their faith each week. She hosted her 30-person Sunday school inside of her home throughout the pandemic. She wondered aloud how she could have caught Covid-19.

She did not acknowledge she exposed her lifelong friends to a potentially deadly infection.

Luncheons, weddings, family barbecues, and other get-togethers serve as a reminder that our life choices now determine others’ fate. We may be socially isolated, but our lives are more connected than ever. Our decisions affect other people more than ever before. Our expression of personal liberty may impinge on the health and well-being of our loved ones.

“A person may cause evil to others not only by his actions but by his inaction, and in either case, he is justly accountable to them for the injury.” — John Stuart Mill.

Freedom to Do Whatever We Want vs. Others’ Rights Not to Suffer

Our world requires a collective effort to navigate through the pandemic. Each of us must make sacrifices to squelch the viral scourge.

Not all Americans share pandemic beliefs. The diversity of opinions are an inherent aspect of being an American. Historians will determine who is right and who is wrong. In the present, we each must make decisions about how we live our day-to-day life.

We are living in Pascal’s Wager.

Any of us may be asymptomatic carriers of SARS-Cov-2. Each of us may spread the virus before symptoms began and inadvertently pass the infection to another person.

Covid-19 is spread through person-to-person contact via respiratory particles. Breathing, talking, sneezing, and coughing spread large droplets. When we gather in groups, each of us is only as safe as the least compliant person.

We have two disparate choices:

1. The utilitarian approach follows nonpharmaceutical interventions such as social distancing, hand hygiene, and wearing a face mask. Individuals make a small sacrifice for the greater societal good. Wearing a mask is the easiest thing we can do to slow the spread of coronavirus and save others’ lives. Masks are an act of kindness towards others.
2. The deontological approach focused on personal freedom. In order to preserve individual liberty, one disregards precautions recommended by scientists, epidemiologists, hospitals, The Center for Disease Control, The World Health Organization, The Joint Commission, The American Medical Association, and The National Institute of Health.

Applying the Harm Principle

How do we reconcile the idea of honoring personal liberty while ensuring we limit the potential of hurting other people?

19th-century philosopher John Stewart Mill espoused the concept of the harm principle. This idea proposes people should be free to do whatever they want unless their actions cause harm to others.

Applications of the harm principle are evident throughout society. We respect the freedom of speech, but it is illegal to yell fire in a movie theater. People are free to drink alcohol but not drive a car while intoxicated.

Covid-19 deniers and skeptics are expressing individual freedom, but they are causing harm to others. Personal liberty does not include making others sick or possibly killing them.

I wear my mask to protect you. You wear one to protect me.

The United States has 6.8 million confirmed Covid-19 cases so far. There are over 31 million confirmed cases worldwide. 200,000 Americans are now buried in coffins. We have to do better.

We are living in dangerous times. SARS-Cov-2 does not care about our opinions or where we get our news. It infects and kills without considering its victim’s political views.

Covid-19 is a nonpartisan pandemic, but both political parties are deeply entrenched in their Covid-19 beliefs. We owe it to ourselves to pause for a moment of self-reflection asking, “What if I am wrong?”

We each should consider the possibility that our actions may be harming others. Until a vaccine or an effective treatment is available, the safest course of action is for every American to live as though we are all asymptomatic carriers.

One of America’s founding fathers famously said, “Give me liberty or give me death.” Our country celebrates an individual’s right to live life as they choose, but a functional society asks each person to consider the potential for harm to others.

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