Chris Ingalls, Taylor Mirfendereski
From King5. Thanks to Mike C.
An Ellensburg doctor removed her mask as she entered a small medical exam room in October and began signing a COVID-19 vaccine exemption form for a first-time patient, without asking a single question about her medical history.
It was just one week before thousands of unvaccinated Washington state, school and health care employees faced losing their jobs over a statewide vaccine mandate.
The only way most workers who were opposed to being vaccinated against COVID-19 could potentially keep their jobs was to seek a religious or medical exemption before the Oct. 18 deadline. But such medical exemptions required documentation from a licensed physician, like Dr. Anna Elperin.
“Patient Taylor Mirfendereski due to a medical condition is exempt from getting the COVID-19 Vaccination,” wrote Elperin, a doctor of osteopathic medicine and the owner of the functional medicine clinic, Awake Health, in Ellensburg.
Credit: Awake Health / KINGA letter, signed by Dr. Anna Elperin on Oct. 11, 2021, exempts an undercover journalist from getting the COVID-19 vaccine.
The patient, undercover KING 5 investigative reporter Taylor Mirfendereski who visited Elperin’s Kittitas County office on Oct. 11, does not have a medical condition that precludes her from getting the COVID vaccine.
But Elperin never asked Mirfendereski if that were true. And she wrote her the exemption.
For a $150 cash fee, Elperin filled out and signed her name on three separate exemption forms that excused the undercover reporter from following local and state COVID mask and vaccine mandates because of doctor’s orders.