Louisiana Health Department Says It Will Stop Promoting Mass Vaccination. Here's What That Could Mean
In a surprising announcement, Louisiana's surgeon general announced late Thursday that the state health department "will no longer promote mass vaccination."
In a memo to staff members, Dr. Ralph Abraham described vaccines as "one tool in a toolbox" to combat severe illness and that conversations about specific vaccines are best held between an individual and their health care provider.
Dr. Gregory Poland, a vaccinologist and co-director of The Atria Research Institute -- which focuses on disease prevention -- described the policy change as "anti-science" and said there is good public health research data to support mass vaccination.
"I've grown up in an era where other than smallpox, DPT and flu vaccine, we didn't have any of the vaccines we had today, and so we, or friends of ours, got infected, got sick, missed school, some developing polio," he told ABC News. "I mean, it's just shocking to think we would take such a critical public health tool and deconstruct it or invalidate it. I can't believe it."
A health professional is seen vaccinating a person.
Dr. Paul Offit, director of the Vaccine Education Center and an attending physician in the division of infectious diseases at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, said not promoting vaccinations could lead to increased hospitalizations and deaths, especially if an outbreak of an incredibly contagious disease, such as measles, emerges.
"On its surface, it makes no sense," Offit told ABC News. "If there was an outbreak of measles, for example, and it started to sweep through the state ... Would you then say, 'No, you can do what you want. If you want to get a vaccine, fine. If you don't, that's fine,' knowing that there are people in the state of Louisiana who can't be vaccinated, knowing that they depend on those around them to protect them?"
Offit said that the change in vaccine promotion in Louisiana appears to be endorsing the idea of medical freedom and individual freedom over collective responsibility, which is "dangerous."
He explained that vaccines don't just protect the individual, they protect the community by creating herd immunity, in which enough of a community is vaccinated, making it harder for a disease to spread. This also protects those who can't get vaccinated due to health reasons.
"This sort of medical freedom notion that you do what you want, the rest of society doesn't count, your neighbor doesn't count, is at best short-sighted, and at worst sort of absents you from any sort of societal responsibility," Offit said. "Do you have any responsibility for the person you sit next to on the bus, or you stand next to on the elevator? You do and you benefit, and they benefit" from vaccines.
Poland said not promoting mass vaccination could lead to a resurgence of preventable diseases that overwhelm the health care system.
He explained there is currently a shortage of health care professionals, and the current health care system may not be ready to handle an increase in the number of patients with complications from vaccine-preventable diseases.
Poland added that many younger health care professionals may be unfamiliar with what symptoms of these diseases look like because they are so rare.
"Our current crop of physicians, they've never seen measles, they've never seen rubella, they've never seen polio, they've never seen diphtheria," he said. "I mean, this is going to overload the health care system and lead to inadequate and poor quality of care."
In a separate, publicly posted press release, Abraham said there is a need to rebuild trust from COVID-19 "missteps" and that people have less trust in institutions like the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention over COVID vaccination requirements.
Rep. Ralph Abraham, leaves the House Republican Conference meeting in the Capitol on Wednesday, June 6, 2018.
Bill Clark/Getty Images, FILE
Offit agrees that trust is low in public health institutions, but says not promoting mass vaccinations is not going to help people regain their trust and may make people lose trust even further.
"There are anti-vaccine doctors, who are perfectly willing to say things that are not supported by the science; that's not surprising," he said. "But what's surprising here is that now you've stepped it up a level. You've stepped it up to someone who does represent the state's public health who is now making an anti-public health statement."
"And if the purpose of that is to gain more credibility, that's not going to happen," Offit continued. "All that's going to do is play into the notion that when we push for vaccinating all to protect the few who can't be vaccinated, that that was wrong, and it wasn't wrong. It was right."
