The Louisiana Department of Health “will no longer promote mass vaccination,” a memo by the state’s top heath official said on Thursday.
A department spokesperson confirmed that Louisiana Surgeon General Ralph Abraham had ordered his staff to stop engaging in media campaigns and community health fairs to encourage vaccinations, even as the state has experienced a surge in influenza.
Abraham’s announcement occurred the same day vaccine skeptic Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was sworn in by the US Senate to serve as US President Donald Trump’s health secretary.
Photo: Bloomberg
In a separate letter posted on the department’s Web site, Louisiana’s surgeon general decried “blanket government mandates” for vaccines and criticized the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s COVID-19 vaccination push.
Individuals should make their own decisions about vaccinations, Abraham said.
“Government should admit the limitations of its role in people’s lives and pull back its tentacles from the practice of medicine,” said Abraham, a Republican.
The department will still “stock and provide vaccines,” the memo said.
Jennifer Herricks, founder of the advocacy group Louisiana Families for Vaccines, said she feared that the new directive would 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.
In liberal New Orleans, the city council passed a resolution on Thursday vowing to continue supporting vaccination efforts.
New Orleans Department of Health 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 to drop due to the state’s new policy and misinformation promoted by the surgeon general’s letter.
She added that vaccines are most effective when they are 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 city council on Thursday. “There’s not 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.”
Two Belgian teenagers on Tuesday were charged with wildlife piracy after they were found with thousands of ants packed in test tubes in what Kenyan authorities said was part of a trend in trafficking smaller and lesser-known species. Lornoy David and Seppe Lodewijckx, two 19-year-olds who were arrested on April 5 with 5,000 ants at a guest house, appeared distraught during their appearance before a magistrate in Nairobi and were comforted in the courtroom by relatives. They told the magistrate that they were collecting the ants for fun and did not know that it was illegal. In a separate criminal case, Kenyan Dennis
Young women standing idly around a park in Tokyo’s west suggest that a giant statue of Godzilla is not the only attraction for a record number of foreign tourists. Their faces lit by the cold glow of their phones, the women lining Okubo Park are evidence that sex tourism has developed as a dark flipside to the bustling Kabukicho nightlife district. Increasing numbers of foreign men are flocking to the area after seeing videos on social media. One of the women said that the area near Kabukicho, where Godzilla rumbles and belches smoke atop a cinema, has become a “real
Incumbent Ecuadoran President Daniel Noboa on Sunday claimed a runaway victory in the nation’s presidential election, after voters endorsed the young leader’s “iron fist” approach to rampant cartel violence. With more than 90 percent of the votes counted, the National Election Council said Noboa had an unassailable 12-point lead over his leftist rival Luisa Gonzalez. Official results showed Noboa with 56 percent of the vote, against Gonzalez’s 44 percent — a far bigger winning margin than expected after a virtual tie in the first round. Speaking to jubilant supporters in his hometown of Olon, the 37-year-old president claimed a “historic victory.” “A huge hug
A judge in Bangladesh issued an arrest warrant for the British member of parliament and former British economic secretary to the treasury Tulip Siddiq, who is a niece of former Bangladeshi prime minister Sheikh Hasina, who was ousted in August last year in a mass uprising that ended her 15-year rule. The Bangladeshi Anti-Corruption Commission has been investigating allegations against Siddiq that she and her family members, including Hasina, illegally received land in a state-owned township project near Dhaka, the capital. Senior Special Judge of Dhaka Metropolitan Zakir Hossain passed the order on Sunday, after considering charges in three separate cases filed
RSS