Apparently, Florida Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo forgot to check with the researchers whose work he cited when he announced that the state is recommending against COVID vaccines for children.
Four researchers told the Tampa Bay Times that their work was wrongly used by the state. One, Kathryn Edwards, a pediatrics professor at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, accused the state of “cherry-picking” sentences from a report, to make it look like the research supported the state’s conclusion. All four said they disagreed with the state’s recommendation and said vaccinating children against COVID is the best way to prevent severe disease.
Ouch.
If that weren’t enough, all three studies cited by the state actually said the vaccines are safe and effective. And yet those conclusions were conveniently left out of the announcement.
Ladapo used weasel words to cover himself, ever so slightly. In the Department of Health’s press release on the subject, he is quoted as saying that the risks of the vaccine in children “may” outweigh the benefits. He stops just short of a full declaration. That’s called plausible deniability, as any good politician knows.
‘First’ in the nation
And at the same time, that document trumpets that the Florida DOH is the “first state in the nation” to issue the guidance that the shots “may not” benefit children ages 5-17, even though U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention started recommending in November that children 5 and up should get the vaccine.
The underlying message — with all of the force of the state of Florida behind it — is that healthy kids don’t need the shots, even though that’s the opposite of what the researchers told the Tampa Bay Times.
Mark Sawyer, a pediatric-disease specialist from the University of California San Diego School of Medicine, said he raised concerns about myocarditis, a swelling of the heart muscle, during a meeting of the Food and Drug Administration’s vaccine advisory group. But that’s a rare side effect, and Sawyer told the Times that, “We concluded, and I still agree, that the risk-benefit still favors vaccination.”
A small number of children have died from COVID — about 1,000 in the United States — though children’s risks remain lower than other age groups unless they have additional medical conditions. The CDC has found that the vaccines are very effective in preventing hospitalization in kids. And don’t forget, infected children can pass the disease on to others. If we ever hope to come fully out of this pandemic, vaccines are a critical tool.
All of this tells us what had become evident from the moment Ladapo became Gov. Ron DeSantis’ pick for the top health post in Florida: his allegiance is to DeSantis’ agenda and not to public health. Kids are just another set of pawns for the GOP and for this surgeon general.
We hope parents dismiss Ladapo’s so-called guidance for the political ploy it is.
