Louisiana’s Department of Health (LDH) “will no longer promote mass vaccination” according to a memo sent out by the state’s top health official on Thursday shortly after vaccine sceptic Robert F Kennedy Jr was confirmed by the Senate as Donald Trump’s new Health and Human Services Secretary.
In the memo addressed to all “LDH Team Members”, the southern state’s Surgeon General Ralph Abraham, former Republican congressman, ordered his staff to stop engaging with media campaigns and community efforts to encourage vaccinations, despite Louisiana recently suffering a particularly harsh flu season.
“The State of Louisiana and LDH have historically promoted vaccines for vaccine preventable illnesses through our parish health units, community health fairs, partnerships and media campaigns,” Abraham wrote, according to a copy of the memo obtained by CNN.
“While we encourage each patient to discuss the risks and benefits of vaccination with their provider, LDH will no longer promote mass vaccination.”
Abraham also urged healthcare providers to treat vaccines with “nuance”, stressing the distinction between “seasonal vaccines and childhood immunizations.”
In a separate letter posted on the department’s website, he went on to denounce “blanket government mandates” for vaccines and criticized the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)’s Covid-19 vaccination push, arguing that individual citizens should be free to make their own healthcare decisions and labelling the federal pandemic response “an offense against personal autonomy that will take years to overcome.”
“Government should admit the limitations of its role in people’s lives and pull back its tentacles from the practice of medicine,” Abraham wrote, adding that his department will nevertheless continue to stock vaccines and make them available to the public upon request.
His directive has already drawn an adverse reaction, with Jennifer Herricks of Louisiana Families for Vaccines warning that the surgeon general’s actions will lead to an increase in preventable illnesses and deaths.
“We are very concerned for people in Louisiana who have historically depended on vaccination drives to get easily accessible vaccines that are no longer going to be available,” Herricks said.
New Orleans City Council responded on Thursday by passing a resolution pledging to continue supporting vaccination efforts, stressing that it is not bound by the instruction.
Jennifer Avegno, the city’s Health Department Director, said state-supported efforts have led thousands of people to receive vaccines in the past.
Like Herricks, she said she anticipates vaccination rates for preventable diseases to drop as a consequence of Abraham’s new policy, warned of the likely spread of misinformation and pointed out that vaccines are most effective when their use is widespread.
“Public health is really united on this issue: For more than a century, vaccines of all kinds have been a cornerstone of improving public health in America,” Avegno told the council.
“There’s no scientific debate on this, this is as close as you can get to established fact that vaccinations, particularly mass vaccinations, and community immunity, saves millions and millions of lives.”
Speaking subsequently to CNN, Avegno continued: “When you deprioritize, when you create confusion and doubt to any kind of medical information, then the fact is that folks don’t get it.
“We’re already seeing that; our childhood vaccination rate has dropped in the last year or so, like many other states in the country.
“When vaccination rates drop, you get worse outbreaks.”
Asked about the timing of Abraham’s announcement coinciding with Kennedy’s confirmation in Washington, Avengo said she did not believe it was a coincidence.
“Now they have, in the ultimate health authority in America, someone who has been a champion of the same falsehoods that have been promulgated locally,” she said.
“During his Senate confirmation hearings, [Kennedy] was given opportunities to walk back his stances on vaccines, and he really didn’t take them... I think it gives folks who, for whatever reason, are in his way of thinking license to proceed.”
Dr Robert Collins, a Dillard University political analyst, told Fox 8 that he believed Abraham’s memo was entirely politically-motivated.
“What we’re seeing here is the Louisiana State Government under the direction of Governor [Jeff] Landry basically just trying to come in compliance with what they consider current Trump rules to be under the federal government’s guidelines,” he said.
“Even though Dr Abraham is a practicing physician, in his past life he was also a former congressman, he has deep ties to the Republican Party.
“He has deep ties to the national Trump organization. I think we have to put this in that political context.”
