“They're very blatant,” stated Dorit Reiss, a professor at UC Regulation San Francisco who research vaccine regulation and coverage.
The group's founder and director is William Lionberger, a chiropractor who has been licensed to apply in California since 1981, and who as soon as maintained a apply north of San Diego. In keeping with public data, he has additionally served as a police officer in a city close to Sedona. (Lionberger declined a request for an on-the-record interview, and the group didn't reply an inventory of questions from Undark.) Interviewers who've hosted Lionberger on their exhibits describe him as affiliated with America's Frontline Docs, a gaggle that opposed Covid-19 vaccines and different public well being measures whereas selling unproven therapies like hydroxychloroquine.
Frontline Well being Advocates' webpage was first registered in March 2022, with a reputation echoing that of America's Frontline Docs. By April of that yr, the web site was inviting guests to “Get your exemption now.” In a 2023 interview, Lionberger described having a “staff of medical consultants” who “work with every kind of conditions,” evaluating shoppers each for “common vax accidents and common vax exemptive circumstances.”
He added: “Folks now don't even need their youngsters to get anyplace close to a daily vaccine.”
The group employs a pair of distinctive authorized methods. One in all these is to type itself as one thing known as a Personal Ministerial Affiliation. On-line, some teams that assist arrange such personal associations describe them as providing particular First Modification protections. A membership utility doc hosted on Frontline's web site describes the group as “a non-public, unincorporated ministry that operates as a lot as doable, outdoors the jurisdiction of presidency entities, businesses, officers, brokers, contractors, and different representatives, as protected by regulation.”
One other technique is to invoke federal incapacity regulation. Within the 2023 interview, Lionberger boasted that they drew on “essentially the most highly effective factor that you may convey in opposition to discrimination”—particularly, federal protections. A promotional video posted on the Frontline web site makes the same declare, promoting waivers “supported by the protections below US federal legal guidelines.” Undark obtained three near-identical exemptions despatched to New York households in 2024. In them, Frontline argues that the shopper's want for a medical exemption is protected below the Individuals with Disabilities Act, or ADA, which ensures sure lodging for individuals with disabilities and different medical wants.
