In The Politics of Autism, I analyze the discredited notion that vaccines cause autism. This bogus idea can hurt people by allowing diseases to spread. And among those diseases could be COVID-19.
Some of the spreaders of misinformation have credentials.
And some of the credentialed spreaders now hold office.
Rosemary Westwood at Louisana Illuminator:A group of high-level managers at the Louisiana Department of Health walked into a Nov. 14 meeting in Baton Rouge expecting to talk about outreach and community events.
Instead, they were told by an assistant secretary in the department and another official that department leadership had a new policy: Advertising or otherwise promoting the COVID, influenza or mpox vaccines, an established practice there — and at most other public health entities in the U.S. — must stop.
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Gov. Landry also appointed Dr. Ralph Abraham, a family medicine doctor, to be the state’s surgeon general. That position co-leads the Department of Health, and is tasked with crafting health policy that is then carried out by the departmental co-leader, the secretary.
Dr. Wyche Coleman, an ophthalmologist, was named deputy surgeon general.
At a Sept. 26, 2024 legislative meeting on the state’s handling of the COVID pandemic, Abraham and Coleman repeated misinformation about COVID vaccine safety and the debunked link between vaccines and autism.
“I see, now, vaccine injury every day of my practice” from COVID vaccines, Abraham said.
Abraham said masking, lockdowns and vaccination requirements “were practically ineffective,” that COVID vaccine adverse effects have been “suppressed,” that “we don’t know” whether blood from people who’ve been vaccinated is safe for donation and that “we hope and pray” COVID vaccines don’t increase the risk miscarriages.
Surgeon General Abraham also said “there’s nothing wrong” with Louisiana conducting its own research into whether childhood vaccines cause autism.
“You could probably fill Tiger Stadium with moms who have kids that were normal one day, got a vaccine and were then autistic after,” said Deputy Surgeon General Coleman at that meeting.
Those public comments by Abraham and Coleman are inaccurate and alarming, according to public health experts.
