Ingo Rademacher Sues ABC Over ‘General Hospital’ Vaccine Mandate

Gene Maddaus
·2 min read
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“General Hospital” star Ingo Rademacher sued ABC on Monday, arguing that the company’s COVID vaccine mandate is unconstitutional and amounts to religious discrimination.

Rademacher, who played Jasper “Jax” Jacks on the soap for nearly 25 years, was fired last month after refusing to get vaccinated. According to his lawsuit, Rademacher sought a religious exemption from the mandate, which ABC rejected.

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Rademacher is represented by John W. Howard, an attorney who has filed several lawsuits challenging vaccine mandates, and Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.

“I am entitled to a religious exemption against mandatory vaccination for COVID-19 on the basis of my deeply and sincerely held moral belief that my body is endowed by my creator with natural processes to protect me and that its natural integrity cannot ethically be violated by the administration of artificially created copies of genetic material, foreign to nature and experimental,” Rademacher wrote in an Oct. 11 email to Disney’s HR department.

Related video: How Ingo Rademacher's character left 'General Hospital'

Rademacher then had an interview with an HR lawyer, which, according to the suit, “was more akin to cross-examination.” The suit argues that ABC was required to honor Rademacher’s religious exemption, and that questioning the sincerity of his beliefs amounts to religious discrimination.

Steve Burton, another “General Hospital” star, confirmed on Nov. 23 that he, too, had been fired from the show for refusing to comply with the vaccine mandate. Burton revealed on Instagram that he had applied for religious and medical exemptions, but that ABC had denied them.

Rademacher’s suit also claims that the vaccine mandate violated his right to privacy.

“This should not be a political issue,” the suit states. “There is no need for everybody to get the COVID-19 shot, even if the president demands it.”

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