Louisiana Forbids Public Health Workers from Promoting COVID, Flu and Mpox Shots: NPR
NPR, Dec. 20, 2024. Edit.
A group of high-level managers at the Louisiana Dept. 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 Dept. 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... Read More,
https://www.npr.org/sections/shots-health-news/2024/12/20/nx-s1-5223440/louisiana-ban-public-health-promoting-covid-flu-mpox-vaccines-landry-rfk-jr-anti-vaccine
Timewas
(2,318 posts)appalachiablue
(43,086 posts)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."
Timeflyer
(2,721 posts)The Unmitigated Gall
(4,612 posts)2naSalit
(93,420 posts)That should knock down the population a bit.
appalachiablue
(43,086 posts)Danmel
(5,259 posts)Between this, the abortion ban with no exception for rape and incest and the 10 commandments, I can't possibly consider going there.
My daughter went to Tulane and we loved visiting there.
I make a good gumbo, there's Jazz at Lincoln Center and we vaccinate in New York.
appalachiablue
(43,086 posts)and history but I won't be returning with this political insanity. Thanks for posting.