Why does Louisiana hate America?

This is just absurd.


“ As first reported by NPR, the state health department informed its employees that they were not allowed to promote COVID, influenza, or mpox vaccines. The directive, which department officials said they would not put into writing, related to all aspects of public health employees' jobs: 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, according to the story. They also could not put up signs at the department's clinics that COVID, flu, or mpox vaccines were available on site.”

The given reason is apparently that the Louisiana state health department believes that telling people about the availability and benefits of vaccines constitutes coercion. When pressed on the issue:

“In response to an email from MedPage Today, a Louisiana Health Department spokesperson did not respond to specific questions but instead sent a statement saying that "the department is shifting away from one-size-fits-all paternalistic guidance to a more informative approach aimed at enabling individuals, in consultation with their doctor, to make better decisions for themselves."

"The department's stance is that immunization for any vaccine [sic], along with practices like mask-wearing and social distancing, are an individual's personal choice," the statement continued. "If an individual has questions on whether or not they should get a certain vaccine, that discussion and decision should occur between a patient and their healthcare provider, who best understands their individual situation and medical history."

What a load of bafflegab! Posting information about vaccine availability and benefits in no way interferes with personal choice and/or consultation with a healthcare provider. I suppose the next step is remove all traffic signs and signals to shift away from one-size-fits-all paternalistic guidance to a more informative approach aimed at enabling individuals, in consultation with their local law enforcement, to make better decisions for themselves.

However, gagging public health employees will endanger not only the citizens of Louisiana, but the people living in anyplace on the planet that unvaccinated Louisianans might visit. People who cannot be vaccinated for some reason are endangered by the loss of herd immunity when too many of their neighbors go unvaccinated. 

There is zero benefit to this policy and the potential harm is incalculable. As citizens of a United States of America, we must be united in protecting one another from suffering and death from preventable disease. Shame on Louisiana for seceding from American public health!

 

https://www.medpagetoday.com/infectiousdisease/vaccines/113508?xid=nl_mpt_DHE_2024-12-20&mh=eb71348a5ff6ae370cc6759bc5dc3300&utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Daily%20Headlines%20Evening%20-%20Randomized%202024-12-20&utm_term=NL_Daily_DHE_dual-gmail-definition 

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