Usually at this time of year, as the winter respiratory virus season looms, most people check with their doctor or pharmacist to get vaccinated. This year, however, there are reports of at pharmacies and limited supply due to guidance at the federal level.
Where patients used to be able to walk into their local pharmacy and get a shot, this year, they might need a prescription. That’s because h law allows pharmacies to give shots without a prescription as long as the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, or ACIP, recommends them. This year for the first time, the updated COVID shot isn’t recommended for anyone 6 months or older, but only for those 65 years and older or those with an underlying health condition that puts them at higher risk. That’s largely thanks to Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
We have to say that this outcome was hardly inconceivable as Kennedy and other vaccine skeptics have steadily asserted their ideology, against scientific evidence, over the many who clearly still want easy access to vaccines. But it is still disheartening.
At first, the rhetoric remained on the fringes. While there were those who questioned the safety and efficacy of vaccines, most people recognized their long and beneficial role in public health. Officials holding positions of authority assured the public of the need for vaccinations, even as states, such as h, began to see in the rates of childhood vaccination. Vaccines were widely available to those who wanted them.
Then the arrival of the COVID vaccine during the pandemic unleashed an array of conspiracy theories from the right and the left that led to some confusion. Yet again, responsible public health officials were consistent in providing clear guidelines and vaccines were still readily available to the masses.
But soon after the pandemic waned, there began to be cracks in that unified front among public health leaders. We sounded the alarm when h Surgeon General announced that the h Department of Health would from promoting vaccines on its website and at its clinics. At the time, we noted that Abraham’s order came the same day the Senate confirmed Kennedy to lead the Department of Health and Human Services.
We had urged U.S. Sen. Bill Cassidy to the nomination to no avail. But it is worth noting what Cassidy said in speaking out against the h Department of Health order de-emphasizing vaccines.
He warned that absent leadership "prevents making health care more convenient and available for people who are very busy.”
And now here we are.
Busy parents and workers need increased access to basic health care, not more obstacles.
If public health officials put in positions of authority don’t want to take on that responsibility, it would have been better for all if they had stayed on the fringes.
