The Louisiana Anti-Vax Loons Strike Back

Too lengthy to include the entire article. I did get the part were Louisiana Gov. Landry and his appointed doctors are all decrying vaccinations in general claiming they can cause autism. In case you did not know (and I am sure Joel will back this up, right?) “there is no link between childhood vaccinations and autism.”

That a Louisiana state governor and his band of anti-vax followers would go public with an opinion of such nature is interesting. It is not true, even if a Kennedy says it is. I will repeat it again: repeat it again: “there is no link between childhood vaccinations and autism.”

Read on . . .

Louisiana forbids public health workers from promoting COVID, flu and mpox shots

– by Rosemary Westwood

NPR

A group of high-level managers at the Louisiana Department of Health walked into a Nov. 14 meeting in Baton Rouge expecting to talk about outreach and community events.

Instead, they were told by an assistant secretary in the department and another official that department leadership had a new policy: Advertising or otherwise promoting the COVID, influenza or mpox vaccines, an established practice there — and at most other public health entities in the U.S. — must stop.

NPR has confirmed the policy was discussed at this meeting, and at two other meetings held within the department’s Office of Public Health, on Oct. 3 and Nov. 21, through interviews with four employees at the Department of Health, which employs more than 6,500 people and is the state’s largest agency.

According to the employees, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they fear losing their jobs or other forms of retaliation, the policy would be implemented quietly and would not be put in writing.

Staffers were also told that it applies to every aspect of the health department’s work: Employees could not send out press releases, give interviews, hold vaccine events, give presentations or create social media posts encouraging the public to get the vaccines. They also could not put up signs at the department’s clinics that COVID, flu or mpox vaccines were available on site.

The new policy in Louisiana was implemented as some politicians have promoted false information about vaccines and as President-elect Donald Trump seeks to have anti-vaccine activist Robert F. Kennedy Jr  lead the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. And some public health experts are concerned that if other states follow Louisiana, the U.S. could face rising levels of disease and further erosion of trust in the nation’s public health infrastructure.

At a Dec. 16 news conference, Trump addressed ongoing concerns about Kennedy’s nomination, and whether it could lead to significant changes in national vaccine policy.

Trump said that Kennedy will be “much less radical than you would think” and that he has “a very open mind.” Trump also called himself a “big believer” in the polio vaccine and said

“you’re not going to lose the polio vaccine.”

A blow to public health practice

Staff at Louisiana’s health department fear the new policy undermines their efforts to protect the public, and violates the fundamental mission of public health: to prevent illness and disease by following the science.

“I mean, do they want to dismantle public health?” one employee at the health department said.

“We’re really talking about deaths,” said another. “Even a reduction in flu and COVID vaccines can lead to increased deaths.”

Gov. Jeff Landry’s office referred questions to the Louisiana Department of Health, and did not respond when asked if Landry supports the changes.

In a statement, the Louisiana Department of Health told NPR it has been “reevaluating both the state’s public health priorities as well as our messaging around vaccine promotion, especially for COVID-19 and influenza.”

The statement described the move as a shift “away from one-size-fits-all paternalistic guidance” to a stance in which “immunization for any vaccine, along with practices like mask wearing and social distancing, are an individual’s personal choice.”

However, the statement did not address mpox vaccinations.

The statement said that the flu vaccine can reduce illness severity and therefore may help high-risk patients — but falsely claimed “the flu vaccine does not prevent one from getting the influenza virus.” According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the vaccine reduces the risk of getting the flu.

Experts fear consequences of undermining trust in vaccine

Last year, 652 people in Louisiana died of COVID, including five children. Louisiana currently is tied with DC for the highest rate of flu in the U.S. In 2022 alone, flu killed 586 people in Louisiana.

Every health department staff member, former staff member, public health official and vaccine expert contacted by NPR repeated the scientific consensus that vaccines are safe, effective, and essential for preventing illness, hospitalizations, and deaths.

“It’s a step backwards,” said Kimberly Hood, who led the Office of Public Health, a subunit of the health department, from 2021 to 2022. “It’s a medical marvel that we’re fortunate enough to live in a time where these vaccines are available to us, and to not make use of that tool is unconscionable.”

The policy rises to the level of “absurdity,” said Dr. Paul Offit, director of the Vaccine Education Center at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. “It is to the point of parody, where a public health agency fails to promote the public’s health.”

“It’s a dangerous, dangerous thing. The most vulnerable among us will suffer from this, and it will be our children who suffer this. And my question will be, will they be accountable?”

The policy is akin to “malpractice,” especially given Louisiana’s poor health outcomes, said Dr. Georges Benjamin, the executive director of the American Public Health Association (APHA).

The U.S. vaccination program represents “one of the most important public health interventions that we have,” Benjamin added.

“It’s reckless,” said Lawrence Gostin, a professor of global health law at Georgetown University. “I think it’s a sign of what is about to happen under the second Trump administration.”

If U.S. senators confirm Kennedy to run HHS, he said, “we’re going to see the fomenting of public distrust of vaccines so we lose precious herd immunity, and we’re going to see major outbreaks of disease that are fully preventable over the next four years.”

NPR reached out to Kennedy for comment but did not hear back.

Policy change follows new governor’s election

Until becoming Louisiana governor in early 2024, Republican Jeff Landry served as the state’s attorney general for eight years. During the pandemic, he criticized the state’s COVID response and filed lawsuits over federal and state vaccine mandates.

On Dec. 6, 2021, Attorney General Landry spoke at a state committee hearing against adding COVID to the childhood immunization schedule. At his side was Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., who presented false claims about COVID vaccines.

This year the Republican-controlled legislature passed five bills — all signed by Gov. Landry — and two resolutions aimed at loosening vaccine requirements, limiting the power of public health authorities and sowing doubt about vaccine safety.

Gov. Landry also appointed Dr. Ralph Abraham, a family medicine doctor, to be the state’s surgeon general. That position co-leads the Department of Health and is tasked with crafting health policy that is then carried out by the departmental co-leader, the secretary.

Dr. Wyche Coleman, an ophthalmologist, was named deputy surgeon general.

At a Sept. 26, 2024 legislative meeting on the state’s handling of the COVID pandemic, Abraham and Coleman repeated misinformation about COVID vaccine safety and the debunked link between vaccines and autism.

“I see, now, vaccine injury every day of my practice” from COVID vaccines, Abraham said.

Abraham said masking, lockdowns and vaccination requirements “were practically ineffective,” that COVID vaccine adverse effects have been “suppressed,” that “we don’t know” whether blood from people who’ve been vaccinated is safe for donation and that “we hope and pray” COVID vaccines don’t increase the risk miscarriages.

Surgeon General Abraham also said “there’s nothing wrong” with Louisiana conducting its own research into whether childhood vaccines cause autism.

“You could probably fill Tiger Stadium with moms who have kids that were normal one day, got a vaccine and were then autistic after,” said Deputy Surgeon General Coleman at that meeting.

Those public comments by Abraham and Coleman are inaccurate and alarming, according to public health experts.

“Anyone who’s articulating that these vaccines are not well tested, they’re not safe, they’re not effective, is not giving you the science as we know it today,” said APHA’s Benjamin.

“To have top public health officials peddling such scientific falsehoods and threatening the health of their populations, whom they’ve sworn an oath to serve, almost makes me cry,” said Georgetown’s Gostin.

AB: Psst . . . “there is no link between childhood vaccinations and autism.”