Doctor assistant Danis Walker vaccinates a development employee exterior a Lowes House Enchancment retailer in New Orleans on June 11, 2021.
Rosemary Westwood/WWNO
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Rosemary Westwood/WWNO
A gaggle of high-level managers on the Louisiana Division of Well being walked right into a Nov. 14 assembly in Baton Rouge anticipating to speak about outreach and group occasions.
As a substitute, they had been instructed by an assistant secretary within the division and one other official that division management had a brand new coverage: Promoting or in any other case selling the COVID, influenza or mpox vaccines, a longtime follow there — and at most different public well being entities within the U.S. — should cease.
NPR has confirmed the coverage was mentioned at this assembly, and at two different conferences held inside the division’s Workplace of Public Well being, on Oct. 3 and Nov. 21, by interviews with 4 workers on the Division of Well being, which employs greater than 6,500 individuals and is the state’s largest company.
In keeping with the staff, who spoke on the situation of anonymity as a result of they concern shedding their jobs or different types of retaliation, the coverage can be carried out quietly and wouldn’t be put in writing.
Staffers had been additionally instructed that it applies to each facet of the well being division’s work: Workers couldn’t ship out press releases, give interviews, maintain vaccine occasions, give displays or create social media posts encouraging the general public to get the vaccines. In addition they couldn’t put up indicators on the division’s clinics that COVID, flu or mpox vaccines had been obtainable on web site.
The brand new coverage in Louisiana was carried out as some politicians have promoted false details about vaccines and as President-elect Donald Trump seeks to have anti-vaccine activist Robert F. Kennedy Jr lead the U.S. Division of Well being and Human Providers. And a few public well being consultants are involved that if different states observe Louisiana, the U.S. might face rising ranges of illness and additional erosion of belief within the nation’s public well being infrastructure.
Anti-vaccine activist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. spoke at a rally in Georgia on Oct 23. He’s President-elect Donald Trump’s option to develop into Secretary of the Division of Well being and Human Providers. On Dec. 6, 2021, Kennedy spoke at a Louisiana committee listening to and introduced false claims concerning the security of COVID vaccines. He sat beside then-Lawyer Basic Jeff Landry.
Jabin Botsford/The Washington Submit by way of Getty Pictures
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Jabin Botsford/The Washington Submit by way of Getty Pictures
At a Dec. 16 information convention, Trump addressed ongoing issues about Kennedy’s nomination, and whether or not it might result in vital adjustments in nationwide vaccine coverage.
Trump mentioned that Kennedy shall be “a lot much less radical than you’d suppose” and that he has “a really open thoughts.” Trump additionally referred to as himself a “massive believer” within the polio vaccine and mentioned “you are not going to lose the polio vaccine.”
A blow to public well being follow
Workers at Louisiana’s well being division concern the brand new coverage undermines their efforts to guard the general public, and violates the elemental mission of public well being: to forestall sickness and illness by following the science.
“I imply, do they need to dismantle public well being?” one worker on the well being division mentioned.
“We’re actually speaking about deaths,” mentioned one other. “Even a discount in flu and COVID vaccines can result in elevated deaths.”
On this file picture, Anthony Reed (left) and Christopher Bowles (proper) present the Band-Aids they received after receiving the mpox vaccine on the Southern Decadence Well being Hub in New Orleans on Sept. 4, 2022. The well being hub, on the annual LGBTQ celebration, was organized by the Louisiana Division of Well being.
Shalina Chatlani/Gulf States Newsroom
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Shalina Chatlani/Gulf States Newsroom
Gov. Jeff Landry’s workplace referred inquiries to the Louisiana Division of Well being, and didn’t reply when requested if Landry helps the adjustments.
In an announcement, the Louisiana Division of Well being instructed NPR it has been “reevaluating each the state’s public well being priorities in addition to our messaging round vaccine promotion, particularly for COVID-19 and influenza.”
The assertion described the transfer as a shift “away from one-size-fits-all paternalistic steerage” to a stance wherein “immunization for any vaccine, together with practices like masks carrying and social distancing, are a person’s private alternative.”
The assertion didn’t deal with mpox vaccinations.
The assertion mentioned that the flu vaccine can cut back sickness severity and due to this fact could assist high-risk sufferers — however falsely claimed “the flu vaccine doesn’t forestall one from getting the influenza virus.” In keeping with the Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention, the vaccine reduces the danger of getting the flu.
Specialists concern penalties of undermining belief in vaccine
Final 12 months, 652 individuals in Louisiana died of COVID, together with 5 kids. Louisiana at present is tied with DC for the highest fee of flu within the U.S. In 2022 alone, flu killed 586 individuals in Louisiana.
Each well being division employees member, former employees member, public well being official and vaccine knowledgeable contacted by NPR repeated the scientific consensus that vaccines are protected, efficient, and important for stopping sickness, hospitalizations, and deaths.
“It is a step backwards,” mentioned Kimberly Hood, who led the Workplace of Public Well being, a subunit of the well being division, from 2021 to 2022. “It is a medical marvel that we’re lucky sufficient to dwell in a time the place these vaccines can be found to us, and to not make use of that device is unconscionable.”
The coverage rises to the extent of “absurdity,” mentioned Dr. Paul Offit, director of the Vaccine Schooling Middle on the Youngsters’s Hospital of Philadelphia. “It is gotten to the purpose of parody, the place a public well being company would not promote the general public’s well being.”
“It is a harmful, harmful factor,” Offit mentioned. “It is essentially the most susceptible amongst us that suffer this, and will probably be our kids that suffer this. And my query shall be, will they be held accountable?”
The coverage is akin to “malpractice,” particularly given Louisiana’s poor well being outcomes, mentioned Dr. Georges Benjamin, the manager director of the American Public Well being Affiliation (APHA).
The U.S. vaccination program represents “one of the essential public well being interventions that we now have,” Benjamin added.
“It is reckless,” mentioned Lawrence Gostin, a professor of worldwide well being regulation at Georgetown College. “I believe it is a signal of what’s about to occur beneath the second Trump administration.”
If U.S. senators affirm Kennedy to run HHS, he mentioned, “we’ll see the fomenting of public mistrust of vaccines so we lose valuable herd immunity, and we’ll see main outbreaks of illness which are totally preventable over the subsequent 4 years.”
NPR reached out to Kennedy for remark however didn’t hear again.
Coverage change follows new governor’s election
Till turning into Louisiana governor in early 2024, Republican Jeff Landry served because the state’s lawyer normal for eight years. Through the pandemic, he criticized the state’s COVID response and filed lawsuits over federal and state vaccine mandates.
On Dec. 6, 2021, Lawyer Basic Landry spoke at a state committee listening to towards including COVID to the childhood immunization schedule. At his facet was Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., who introduced false claims about COVID vaccines.
This 12 months the Republican-controlled legislature handed 5 payments — all signed by Gov. Landry — and two resolutions geared toward loosening vaccine necessities, limiting the ability of public well being authorities and sowing doubt about vaccine security.
Lawyer Basic Jeff Landry speaks about medicines being donated by drug corporations throughout the coronavirus pandemic in Baton Rouge on April 6, 2020. in Baton Rouge, La. After Landry grew to become governor in 2024, his appointees on the Louisiana Division of Well being oversaw a coverage shift that forbid employees from selling vaccines for COVID, flu and mpox.
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BILL FEIG/AP
Gov. Landry additionally appointed Dr. Ralph Abraham, a household drugs physician, to be the state’s surgeon normal. That place co-leads the Division of Well being, and is tasked with crafting well being coverage that’s then carried out by the departmental co-leader, the secretary.
Dr. Wyche Coleman, an ophthalmologist, was named deputy surgeon normal.
At a Sept. 26, 2024 legislative assembly on the state’s dealing with of the COVID pandemic, Abraham and Coleman repeated misinformation about COVID vaccine security and the debunked hyperlink between vaccines and autism.
“I see, now, vaccine harm day-after-day of my follow” from COVID vaccines, Abraham mentioned.
Abraham mentioned masking, lockdowns and vaccination necessities “had been virtually ineffective,” that COVID vaccine adversarial results have been “suppressed,” that “we do not know” whether or not blood from individuals who’ve been vaccinated is protected for donation and that “we hope and pray” COVID vaccines do not improve the danger miscarriages.
Surgeon Basic Abraham additionally mentioned “there’s nothing improper” with Louisiana conducting its personal analysis into whether or not childhood vaccines trigger autism.
“You may most likely fill Tiger Stadium with mothers who’ve children that had been regular sooner or later, received a vaccine and had been then autistic after,” mentioned Deputy Surgeon Basic Coleman at that assembly.
These public feedback by Abraham and Coleman are inaccurate and alarming, in accordance with public well being consultants.
“Anybody who’s articulating that these vaccines aren’t effectively examined, they are not protected, they are not efficient, just isn’t supplying you with the science as we all know it in the present day,” mentioned APHA’s Benjamin.
“To have prime public well being officers peddling such scientific falsehoods and threatening the well being of their populations, whom they’ve sworn an oath to serve, virtually makes me cry,” mentioned Georgetown’s Gostin.
In three conferences, shock and confusion at new coverage
The brand new ban on vaccine promotion represents a brand new stage of political interference, in accordance with two present well being division workers.
“We have by no means felt so uncertain of our future,” one in all them mentioned. “Like, why am I right here? Why am I doing this anymore? Since you’re simply so stifled and you aren’t serving to individuals.”
Dr. Ralph Abraham, then a member of Congress for Louisiana, speaks at a enterprise occasion on March 18, 2019 in Baton Rouge. In 2024, Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry appointed Abraham as Surgeon Basic, who units coverage for the Louisiana Division of Well being.
Melinda Deslatte/AP
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Melinda Deslatte/AP
Within the Oct. 3 assembly, Deputy Secretary Dr. Pete Croughan, an inside drugs doctor, instructed the state’s regional medical administrators that they weren’t allowed to carry routine fall flu vaccination occasions, in accordance with a employees member with data of what was mentioned on the assembly.
These flu shot occasions had develop into a key a part of the well being division’s flu marketing campaign lately, which included spending over $170,000 yearly on exterior public consciousness campaigns that included paid billboards, bus adverts, radio, digital, and social media adverts urging the general public to get vaccinated for the flu.
This 12 months, as an alternative of flu vaccine occasions, the medical administrators had been instructed to pivot to Narcan giveaways.
The division’s influenza web page would not seem to have been up to date this 12 months; it nonetheless promotes occasions from 2023.
The division additionally seems to have pulled again from vaccination messaging on social media channels.
Final fall, it printed six Instagram posts selling flu and COVID vaccinations, and particular vaccine occasions. Within the final three months, the well being division’s Instagram has had no posts about vaccination, and only a single put up about flu.
That current put up lists preventative measures like hand washing, however not vaccination.
That stands in stark distinction to a flu put up from the autumn of 2020 which said “it is extra essential than ever to get your flu vaccination to guard your self and people round you.”
Regional medical administrators are liable for finishing up the well being division’s coverage and applications throughout the state.
Within the assembly, Croughan instructed them in the event that they need to carry doses of flu vaccine to a neighborhood occasion, they can not use signage and even tablecloths that includes the well being division’s emblem.
“You can not ask individuals, ‘Hey, we now have flu pictures. Would you want one?'” at a group occasion, in accordance with the employees member with data of the assembly. “But when they arrive as much as us, realizing we’re the well being division and say, ‘Hey, we hear y’all may need flu pictures,’ we are able to say, ‘Sure, would you want one?'”
The medical administrators had been instructed that as a result of the well being division is a authorities company, employees aren’t allowed to “coerce individuals” by selling vaccinations, particularly for COVID, flu and mpox. “They’ve undoubtedly made it clear that we aren’t imagined to be pushing vaccines in any respect,” the employees member added.
There was no clarification for why these explicit vaccines had been grouped collectively.
“Why on earth they selected COVID, influenza and mpox vaccines, that are fully totally different vaccines for fully totally different functions, simply reveals a scarcity of sophistication and understanding of science,” Gostin mentioned.
“I am unable to consider any motive aside from political causes,” mentioned Hood, the previous head of the Workplace of Public Well being.
Opposition to COVID vaccines has gained momentum inside the Republican Celebration, as a part of the backlash to pandemic-related public well being measures. In the case of the flu vaccine, Kennedy’s anti-vaccination nonprofit, the Youngsters’s Well being Protection, has made a number of false claims about its risks.
Coverage could stem from surgeon normal’s letter Â
On the Nov. 14 assembly, the brand new prohibitions had been relayed to program employees by Tonya Joiner, an assistant secretary within the division and the top of the Workplace of Public Well being, and Katye Magee, a coverage director.
Workers had been instructed that Joiner and Magee had been relaying the coverage as a result of Surgeon Basic Ralph Abraham couldn’t attend.
Staffers requested them what precisely they’ll say about COVID, flu and mpox vaccines, going ahead.
They had been instructed acceptable public vaccine messaging ought to be one thing alongside the strains of: Discuss to your medical supplier.
“That gave the impression to be the catchphrase for all of this,” mentioned one employees member with data of the assembly.
The secretive rollout of the brand new coverage raised issues about authorities transparency and accountability, and a former state worker with data of the state’s well being insurance policies mentioned it was “extremely irregular” to intentionally hold the coverage out of writing.
“I am very stunned that anybody would name a state assembly, not present an agenda for that assembly, not present a written set of notes from that assembly,” mentioned Hood. “I believe that, to me, it seems like persons are attempting to keep away from public information legal guidelines.”
When workers within the assembly requested for the rationale for the coverage change, management referenced a letter signed by Abraham and Coleman stating that there isn’t any “conclusive proof” that masking prevents the unfold of respiratory viruses and that “proof proving efficacy in prevention of an infection, transmissions, hospitalization or deaths is much from conclusive” for the flu vaccine.
That letter offers a template for a Louisiana doctor to make use of to get an exemption from a hospital’s flu vaccination and masking insurance policies. The letter, on Louisiana Division of Well being letterhead, just isn’t obtainable on the division’s web site however was posted to X on Nov. 13, the day earlier than it was talked about within the assembly.
Within the letter, Abraham and Coleman additionally mentioned requiring hospital employees who don’t get the flu vaccine to put on a masks was “punitive coercion.”
One Louisiana well being skilled not employed by the division mentioned the letter was “loopy. I am simply going to say it. Full falsehoods.”
On the third assembly, on Nov. 21, the STD/HIV/Hepatitis program on the division held a employees assembly the place greater than 80 workers discovered of the ban on selling COVID, mpox and flu vaccines, in accordance with two employees members. Workers had been additionally instructed the coverage wouldn’t be put in writing.
When employees requested whether or not the coverage utilized to hepatitis B vaccinations, they had been instructed “there was no official response to that but,” mentioned a employees member who attended the assembly.
“There have been so many questions and issues,” the employees member mentioned. “Quite a lot of people had been dissatisfied and simply pissed off.”
A slippery slope to future illness outbreaks
Specialists instructed NPR they feared a coverage that undermines COVID, flu and mpox vaccinations might have a spillover impact, lowering public belief in vaccinations general, together with these given to kids to forestall a bunch of harmful and lethal diseases.
“I imagine that we are going to see measles instances. I imagine we are going to see whooping cough instances. I imagine we are going to seemingly see meningitis outbreaks,” mentioned Hood.
Within the Nov. 14 assembly, a employees member requested whether or not the ban on selling vaccines utilized to kids’s immunizations, however the reply was noncommittal, in accordance with an worker with data of the assembly’s particulars.
“My understanding was it isn’t clear to what extent we’d be capable to promote childhood vaccinations,” the employees member mentioned.
(The Louisiana Division of Well being’s assertion to NPR mentioned the adjustments in coverage and messaging don’t apply to childhood immunizations.)
Nationally, vaccination charges for severe childhood ailments have been falling lately, together with in Louisiana.
Given these tendencies, the brand new vaccine coverage in Louisiana could be very worrying, mentioned Dr. Joseph Bocchini, a pediatric infectious illness specialist in Shreveport, Louisiana, and the president of the Louisiana chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics.
Earlier in his profession, he noticed kids hospitalized with measles — a harmful illness that may trigger listening to loss, mind injury and dying.
“I have been a doctor for 50 years, so I’ve seen quite a lot of these ailments disappear, they usually’ve disappeared due to protected and efficient vaccines,” he mentioned.
The rise of public well being officers selling misinformation
Louisiana is not the one state the place public well being officers have just lately introduced controversial choices and repeated false or discredited well being theories.
Florida’s surgeon normal has made false claims about COVID vaccines, undermined faculty vaccine mandates for the measles and mentioned native officers ought to cease including fluoride to water provides.
Hood traced Louisiana’s new coverage, partially, to Kennedy’s ties to Louisiana’s Republican Celebration.
“Robert F. Kennedy Jr. got here to the legislature whereas I used to be nonetheless in my function on the Workplace of Public Well being, to talk out towards the COVID vaccine,” she mentioned, referencing his Dec. 6, 2021, look with Gov. Landry. “So I used to be not 100% shocked to listen to his affect was going to be felt on this administration.”
Louisiana’s ban represents an escalation in utilizing vaccine misinformation to direct state well being coverage, in accordance with James Hodge, a public well being regulation knowledgeable at Arizona State College’s Sandra Day O’Connor School of Legislation.
“What’s very distinct is a few form of official coverage superior by the state division of well being saying chances are you’ll not push and or promote these vaccines in any respect,” Hodge mentioned. “That is derelict. It is extremely controversial.”
However it’s the type of coverage the nation might see if Kennedy is confirmed as secretary for Well being and Human Providers, Hodge added. In a checklist he manufactured from doable actions the Trump administration might take, Hodges positioned “revising CDC vaccine suggestions” on the prime.
This story comes from NPR’s well being reporting partnership with WWNO and KFF Well being Information.
