{"id":11547,"date":"2025-02-16T12:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-02-16T17:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cov19longhaulfoundation.org\/?p=11547"},"modified":"2025-02-15T16:25:23","modified_gmt":"2025-02-15T21:25:23","slug":"louisiana-to-end-mass-vaccine-promotion-surgeon-general-announces","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cov19longhaulfoundation.org\/?p=11547","title":{"rendered":"Louisiana To End Mass Vaccine Promotion, Surgeon General Announces"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Authored by Jack Phillips via The Epoch Times\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Louisiana Department of Health said it will no longer promote mass vaccination<\/strong>, according to a memo released by the state\u2019s surgeon general this week.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

A spokesperson for the Department of Health (LDH) confirmed that Louisiana Surgeon General Ralph Abraham had ordered his staff to stop engaging in media campaigns and community health fairs to encourage vaccinations and shared the memo with The Epoch Times on Friday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe 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,<\/strong>\u201d the memo said. \u201cWhile we encourage each patient to discuss the risks and benefits of vaccination with their provider, LDH will no longer promote mass vaccination.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Louisiana state officials will still provide and stock vaccines, according to the memo, which stressed that healthcare providers talk about the benefits and risks posed by vaccines with patients and answer all questions based on scientific evidence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In a separate letter posted<\/a> on the state health department\u2019s website on Feb. 13, Abraham was critical of blanket government mandates for vaccines and said that federal officials were erroneous in how they pushed for COVID-19 vaccines. He said individuals should make their own decisions instead.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

His letter chided what he called \u201cinaccurate and inconsistent guidance on masking, poor decisions to close schools, unjustifiable mandates on civil liberties, and false claims regarding natural immunity.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBut the greatest missteps were on vaccines and some continue to this day,\u201d the Republican surgeon general wrote. \u201cWithin months of their approval, COVID vaccines were shown to have no third-party benefit in terms of reduced transmission, yet they were still mandated\u2014through both policy and social pressure<\/strong>.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Describing that as an \u201coffense against personal autonomy that will take years to overcome,\u201d he was then critical of current Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) guidelines that recommend 6-month-old children get vaccines for COVID-19.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cGovernment should admit the limitations of its role in people\u2019s lives and pull back its tentacles from the practice of medicine,\u201d Abraham said, noting that he wants to regain the \u201cpublic trust\u201d by \u201cacknowledging past missteps, refocusing on unbiased data collection, and providing transparent, balanced information for people to make their own health decisions.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Democrat-controlled New Orleans, the city council passed a resolution on Thursday vowing to continue supporting vaccination efforts.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The city\u2019s health department director, Jennifer Avegno, said state-supported efforts have led thousands of people to receive vaccines in the past. However, she anticipates vaccination rates for preventable diseases will drop due to the state\u2019s new policy and asserted that vaccines are most effective when they are widespread.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201c\u2018[The Louisiana Department of Health] will no longer promote mass vaccination.<\/strong>\u2019 Now, I don\u2019t know what that means. Every year I\u2019ve been here, and before me, the New Orleans Health Department and the state Health Department has worked together on really successful mass vaccination events,\u201d Avegno told<\/a> local TV station Fox8.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Avegno also said that it\u2019s not clear what vaccinations the state health department will not promote.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Both the CDC and Food and Drug Administration (FDA) have said that COVID-19 vaccines\u2019 benefits outweigh their risks. As recently as mid-January, the CDC released<\/a> a study that asserted that 2023\u20132024 booster shots had \u201creduced the risk of COVID-19 hospitalization among older adults\u201d by around 50 percent and that children who got the vaccines saw a reduction in COVID-19-associated emergency room and urgent care visits.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, over the past several years, a number<\/a> of studies<\/a> have cast doubt on COVID-19 vaccines\u2019 effectiveness<\/a> and questioned whether they can lead to more long-term health issues<\/a>.<\/strong> The FDA and CDC say that mRNA vaccines produced by Pfizer and Moderna are associated with a higher risk of developing myocarditis, which is inflammation of the heart muscle, and pericarditis, which is inflammation of the outer sac that lines the heart.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This week, the U.S. Senate confirmed former independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to lead the Department of Health and Human Services, which oversees both the FDA and CDC. Kennedy has long been critical of certain vaccines, including ones for COVID-19 and childhood illnesses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kennedy said during the Senate confirmation hearing that he is not anti-vaccine but only wants vaccines to be rigorously tested as well as more transparency for federal health agencies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Associated Press contributed to this report.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Authored by Jack Phillips via The Epoch Times\u00a0 The Louisiana Department of Health said it will no longer promote mass vaccination, according to a memo released by the state\u2019s surgeon […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":11550,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11547","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cov19longhaulfoundation.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11547","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cov19longhaulfoundation.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cov19longhaulfoundation.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cov19longhaulfoundation.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cov19longhaulfoundation.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11547"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/cov19longhaulfoundation.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11547\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11549,"href":"https:\/\/cov19longhaulfoundation.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11547\/revisions\/11549"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cov19longhaulfoundation.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/11550"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cov19longhaulfoundation.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11547"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cov19longhaulfoundation.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11547"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cov19longhaulfoundation.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11547"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}