Andy Harris
09/14/2026 | Press release | Distributed by Public on 09/14/2026 15:08
REP. HARRIS: FIVE YEARS AFTER THE ADIRIM MANDATORY VACCINE MEMO, PUT HER UNDER OATH
WASHINGTON, D.C. - Today, Congressman Andy Harris, M.D., physician and former Naval Reserve medical officer, calls on Chairman James Comer, Chairman Rand Paul, and Chairman Ron Johnson to bring Dr. Terry Adirim in to testify under oath. Five years ago today, September 14, 2021, Dr. Terry Adirim, then acting Assistant Secretary of Defense for Health Affairs, signed the memorandum that told DoD providers they "will" use EUA-labeled product interchangeably with fully approved vaccines to vaccinate the force.¹
Three weeks earlier, on August 24, 2021, Secretary Austin had limited the mandate to vaccines with full FDA licensure, "in accordance with FDA-approved labeling and guidance."² But because of the subsequent Adirim memorandum, our troops now call September 14 "Reign of Terry" day. Rep. Andy Harris, M.D. (R-Md) said Congress should treat the anniversary the way the force already does: as the anniversary of the day that two-page order left her desk, with serious and dire results.
Harris is a Johns Hopkins-trained anesthesiologist and former Naval Reserve medical officer. In March 2021 he administered COVID shots at clinics in his district. That spring the GOP Doctors Caucus agreed that you should talk to your physician and decide. He said then what he said in April 2023 and is saying again: freedom to choose to be COVID vaccinated, not mandates-and the more than 8,400 troops fired for refusing should have been reinstated.
"I know the difference between a clinical recommendation and an order with a discharge packet attached," Harris said. "I would never tell a healthy infantryman his career depended on an EUA vial. The record since does not let us pretend it was just 'following the science.'"
The regulator (the FDA) said should. Her memo said will.¹ It cited no statute, no presidential waiver, no legal analysis-only a footnote to an FDA web page. Under 10 U.S.C. § 1107a, a warrior given an EUA product must be told he can refuse. Only the President can waive that right, in writing, for national security.³ DoD Instruction 6200.02: **only the Secretary of Defense may even ask.**⁴ They never asked. They mandated it anyway.
In July 2021 DoD told Justice it could not require an EUA product without that waiver.⁵ No waiver issued. In November 2021 DoD conceded in open court that the President had not executed one. A federal judge called DoD's reading of § 1107a "unconvincing" and wrote that without a waiver "the DOD cannot mandate vaccines that only have an EUA."⁶ FDA's Peter Marks swore the licensed and EUA products remained legally distinct.⁷ At Holloman AFB, a service member was told the Adirim memo was why an EUA lot could be forced on him.⁸
On April 23, 2025, Secretary Hegseth said the last administration "issued unlawful orders on mandatory vaccines on an experimental vaccine, COVID-19,"⁹ and signed a remedies memo the same day.¹⁰ On May 7, 2025, USD(P&R) wrote that the mandate "was unlawful as implemented."¹¹ Hegseth later called it "wrongfully forced" and "unjust."¹² Two weeks ago, Politico and the Times reported an Army physician, in a deposition in the Adirim case, said she is reviewing thousands of unverified service-member death reports for HHS and the Pentagon.¹³ That is not a completed finding. It is why this file cannot close.
About 8,600 service members were ejected. Tens of thousands left early. Another 20,000 retired early. Nearly a million ordered to take it. Anthony Fauci got an autopen scribble pardon. Dr. Adirim has no pardon.
"I changed what I was willing to say about the vaccines as the facts changed. That is what a physician does," Harris said. "Our Warriors deserve the truth. Put her under oath. Let her look those service members whose careers were ruined and family-members of the deceased that were decimated by her memo in the eye."
He called on Chairman James Comer (Oversight), Chairman Rand Paul (HSGAC), and Chairman Ron Johnson (PSI) to put Adirim on the record about that destructive and unlawful memo and its human cost.
2. Secretary of Defense memorandum, Aug. 24, 2021, Coker v. Austin, ECF 31-2.
4. DoDI 6200.02 (Feb. 27, 2008), Enc. 3 § E3.4
5. 45 Op. O.L.C. __ (July 6, 2021), at 17.
6. Doe #1-#14 v. Austin, 572 F. Supp. 3d 1224 (N.D. Fla. Nov. 12, 2021), ECF 47 at 12, 14; Tr. ECF 45 at 52:8-9. PI denied on proof; no merits holding the mandate was unlawful.
7. Decl. of Peter Marks, M.D., Ph.D., Coker, ECF 65-14 ¶ 11.
8. Holloman AFB declaration, Coker, ECF 68-1 (lot 30155BA).
10. SecDef memorandum, April 23, 2025
11. USD(P&R), May 7, 2025, "unlawful as implemented"
Rep. Andy Harris, M.D., represents Maryland's 1st District. Johns Hopkins-trained anesthesiologist, former Naval Reserve medical officer, Chairman of the House Freedom Caucus, Chairman of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Agriculture, Rural Development, FDA, and Related Agencies.
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