- Tennessee officials have stopped outreach programs to children for all vaccines.
- Experts say the decision could cause an increase in COVID-19 cases among children, especially with the surging delta variant.
- They add that the decision could also produce an uptick in other illnesses that require vaccination, such as whooping cough and measles.
Officials at the Tennessee Department of Health have announced they will be ceasing all vaccine outreach programs to children.
Their directive isn’t just for COVID-19. It’s for vaccines of any kind.
The announcement came at the same time the state fired its top vaccine official, Dr. Michelle Fiscus, over what she says was an attempt to increase vaccination rates statewide and because of her quoting a 1987 Tennessee Supreme Court ruling stating that minors ages 14 to 18 could, in most cases, receive treatment without parental consent.
Fiscus and other critics have stated that the new position of the Department of Health is an explicitly partisan move driven by the state’s Republican legislators.
“I was told that I should have been more ‘politically aware’ and that I ‘poked the bear’ when I sent a memo to medical providers clarifying a 34-year-old Tennessee Supreme Court ruling,” Fiscus told NBC News.
“I am not a political operative. I am a physician who was, until today, charged with protecting the people of Tennessee, including its children, against preventable diseases like COVID-19,” she said.
These actions have raised alarm bells with physicians groups and patient advocates.
“We’re very concerned that now is not the time to take the foot off the gas in distributing information regarding the COVID-19 vaccine,” said Devin Jopp, EdD, MS, the CEO of the Association for Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiology (APIC).
APIC officials recently released a statement in response to Tennessee’s change in vaccine response, denouncing efforts to limit vaccine outreach.
“Sadly, their actions mean fewer people who are eligible to receive the vaccine will get it, which will lead to more cases, hospitalizations, and deaths,” Jopp told Healthline. “This would be a tragic outcome when we have vaccines that are 95 percent effective in preventing serious illness.”
Source: healthline