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Public health experts are increasingly concerned about the rise in anti-vaccination rhetoric among elected officials and the right-wing media as a new wave of coronavirus infections begins to sweep over Americans who have not. still been vaccinated.
Lawmakers in more than 40 states have introduced measures to ban vaccine passports, and many Republican governors have signed executive orders or laws banning their use.
In some cases, Republican governors and lawmakers are now repeating far-right talking points questioning the safety and efficacy of coronavirus vaccines, despite overwhelming scientific evidence that vaccines developed over the past year are among the safest and most effective ever. .
The Biden administration has forcefully pushed back Republican governors from states such as Missouri and South Carolina who complained that a door-to-door vaccination effort smacked of government overreach. The administration’s plans called on local health officials and trusted community voices to encourage greater acceptance of vaccines, and these governors quietly backed down.
Public health experts were particularly alarmed earlier this week when the Tennessee Department of Health fired Michelle Fiscus, the state’s top vaccine official, after the state legislature expressed its concerns about the public health guidelines she issued for adolescents seeking to receive the coronavirus vaccine.
At a Joint Government Operations Committee hearing, lawmakers accused health ministry officials of targeting young people for immunization. A Republican member of the committee suggested dissolving the Department of Health amid an ongoing global pandemic.
” It’s shocking. It’s not shocking that we have a fringe group that is anti-vaccine. This has been true since the first vaccine, ”said Paul Offit, director of the Vaccine Education Center at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. “It is shocking to me that people who represent the public and the health and welfare of the public choose to take this dramatic anti-science position.”
The Tennessee Department of Health has since stopped all vaccinations against minors – including regular injections which have been the most effective weapon against preventable diseases in modern history.
“This is really unacceptable,” said State Senator Heidi Campbell (R), a member of the committee who attended the hearing. “It has had a chilling effect on the state in general and the county health departments.”
The number of coronavirus cases reported on average per day in Tennessee has more than increased than seven times over the past two weeks, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Fifty-three percent of Tennessee residents over the age of 18 have received at least one dose of the coronavirus vaccine, and 47.5% are fully immunized. Both rates are well below the national average.
In an email, State Representative John Ragan (R), Chairman of the House of the Joint Committee, said Fiscus was fired for misusing taxpayer money in an advertising campaign urging young people to get vaccinated against a disease that has an extremely low death rate. among those under 18.
“For such a low risk of mortality, why would Dr Fiscus of the Department of Health allow millions of taxpayer dollars to be spent on advertising for these minors by encouraging them to obtain an emergency-use vaccine without parental consent? Ragan wrote. “Dr. Fiscus advocated giving the vaccine to children without parental involvement despite objections from members of the General Assembly.
Ragan declined to say if he had been vaccinated against the coronavirus. He said the data indicated that the vaccines currently available are “90 [percent] or more efficient.
None of the other Republicans on the committee responded to a request for comment.
The Republican rhetoric – amplified by far-right cable TV hosts – comes as a summer wave of coronavirus sweeps across the United States, which now almost entirely afflicts the unvaccinated.
The average daily number of cases over the past two weeks has more than doubled in Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, California, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Kansas, Iowa, Louisiana, Massachusetts, South Carolina and Vermont. Experts say the new spread is due to the delta variant, first identified in India, which they say is both more transmissible and more virulent.
In recent months, more than 99% of people who have died in America from the coronavirus have not been vaccinated, according to state and federal government data.
The anti-vaccination movement has been around for a century. Over the past several decades, it has been fueled by a study published in The Lancet by former physician Andrew Wakefield, since retracted, which claimed a link between vaccines and autism that has been completely debunked.
But modern technology – and social media – has allowed the retracted study to endure, giving voice to those who were once a fringe fringe.
“The rise of social media has enabled people who held these beliefs but had no contact with others to connect and spread these beliefs,” said Timothy Callaghan, assistant professor at Texas A&M University’s School of Public Health which studied vaccine anti-movement.
In a study published last month, Callaghan found that about 1 in 12 Americans say they still identify as an anti-vaccine, and a much higher proportion, 22%, identify with the movement at least certain occasions.
“We have to recognize that a much larger portion of the American public than we might expect at least sometimes identifies as anti-vaxxer,” Callaghan said.
The more recent reluctance or outright opposition to receiving a vaccine has followed strong partisan lines, with advocates of President Trump
Donald TrumpTexas’ family arrested for role in Capitol Riot Poll: McAuliffe holds 2 points ahead of Youngkin in Virginia governor’s race On The Money: spike in inflation puts Biden on the defensive | Senate Democrats hit spending slowdowns | Larry Summers snuggles up with the WH PLUS team say they are the most reluctant to get vaccinated. There is an irony to this position, given both that Trump applied for funding for the Operation Warp Speed program which delivered a vaccine in record time and that he himself was vaccinated.
“It may be a consequence of what was the previous administration, which was really an administration of science denial,” Offit said. “You have the magic ticket. You have an exit. And it is always denied.
The consequences of reluctance to immunize are now a protracted pandemic in a country where more than 607,000 people have died so far. And there may be follow-up effects if skepticism about the coronavirus vaccine spreads to other common and safe preventative measures to fight other preventable diseases.
“The risk is that the rhetoric surrounding COVID-19 could lead more people to become self-identified anti-vaccines,” Callaghan said. “The fact that the ideas and beliefs of what were once marginalized groups legitimized by political leaders has consequences. “
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