[Lawmakers in Texas and Florida are actively discouraging the
dissemination of information about covid vaccinations]
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HOW LAWMAKERS IN TEXAS AND FLORIDA ARE UNDERMINING COVID VACCINATION
 
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Amy Maxmen
November 7, 2023
KFF Health News
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_ Lawmakers in Texas and Florida are actively discouraging the
dissemination of information about covid vaccinations _

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Katherine Wells wants to urge her Lubbock, Texas, community to get
vaccinated against Covid-19. “That could really save people from
severe illness,” said Wells, the city’s public health director.

But she can’t.

A rule added to Texas’ budget
[[link removed]] that
went into effect Sept. 1 forbids health departments and other
organizations funded by the state government to advertise, recommend,
or even list covid vaccines alone. “Clinics may inform patients that
COVID-19 vaccinations are available,” the rule allows, “if it is
not being singled out from other vaccines.”

Texas isn’t the only state curtailing the public conversation about
Covid vaccines. Tennessee’s health department homepage, for example,
features the flu, vaping, and cancer screening but leaves out Covid
and Covid vaccines. Florida is an extreme case, where the health
department has issued guidance against Covid vaccines that runs
counter to scientific studies and advice from the Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention.

Notably, the shift in health information trails rhetoric from
primarily Republican politicians who have reversed their positions on
covid vaccines. Fierce opposition to measures like masking and
business closures early in the pandemic fueled a mistrust of the CDC
and other scientific institutions and often falls along party lines:
Last month, a KFF poll
[[link removed](84%25)%20say%20they%20are%20confident%20in%20the%20safety%20of%20the%20COVID%2D19%20vaccine%2C%20compared%20to%20one%20in%20three%20(36%25)%20Republicans.] found
that 84% of Democrats said they were confident in the safety of covid
vaccines, compared with 36% of Republicans. It’s a dramatic drop
from 2021, when two-thirds
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Republicans were vaccinated.

As new vaccines roll out ahead of the expected winter surge of Covid,
some health officials are treading carefully to avoid blowback from
the public and policymakers. So far, vaccine uptake is low, with less
than 5% of Americans receiving an updated shot, according to the
Department of Health and Human Services. Wells fears the consequences
will be dire: “We will see a huge disparity in health outcomes
because of changes in language.”

A study published in July
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that Republicans and Democrats in Ohio and Florida died at roughly
similar rates before Covid vaccines emerged, but a disparity between
parties grew once the first vaccines were widely available in 2021 and
uptake diverged. By year’s end, Republicans had a 43% higher rate of
excess deaths than Democrats.

Public health initiatives have long been divisive — water
fluoridation, needle exchanges, and universal health care, to name a
few. But the pandemic turned up the volume to painful levels, public
health officials say. More than 500
[[link removed].] left
their jobs under duress in 2020 and 2021, and legislators in at least
26 states passed laws to prevent public officials from setting health
policies. Republican Arkansas state Sen. Trent Garner told KFF Health
News
[[link removed])-,Republican%20legislators%20in%20more%20than%20half%20of%20U.S.%20states%2C%20spurred,the%20public%20against%20infectious%20diseases.] in
2021, “It’s time to take the power away from the so-called
experts.”

At first, vaccine mandates were contentious but the shots themselves
were not. Scott Rivkees, Florida’s former surgeon general, now at
Brown University, traces the shift to the months after Joe Biden was
elected president. Though Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis initially
promoted
[[link removed]] Covid
vaccination, his stance changed as resistance to Covid measures became
central to his presidential campaign
[[link removed]].
In late 2021, he appointed Joseph Ladapo surgeon general. By then,
Ladapo had penned Wall Street Journal op-eds skeptical of mainstream
medical advice, such as one asking, “Are Covid Vaccines Riskier Than
Advertised
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As bivalent boosters rolled out last year, the Florida health
department’s homepage
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information on Covid vaccines. In its place were rules against
mandates and details on how to obtain vaccine exemptions. Then, early
this year, the department advised against vaccinating children and
teens.

The state’s advice changed once more when the CDC recommended
updated covid vaccines in September. DeSantis incorrectly said
[[link removed]] the
vaccines had “not been proven to be safe or effective.” And the
health department amended its guidance
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say men under age 40 should not be vaccinated because the department
had conducted research and deemed the risk of heart complications like
myocarditis unacceptable. It refers to a short, authorless document
posted online rather than in a scientific journal where it would have
been vetted for accuracy. The report
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an unusual method to analyze health records of vaccinated Floridians.
Citing serious flaws, most other researchers call it misinformation.

Scientifically vetted studies, and the CDC’s own review
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contradict Florida’s conclusion against vaccination. Cases of
myocarditis following mRNA vaccines have occurred but are much less
frequent than cases triggered by covid. The risk is sevenfold higher
from the disease than from mRNA vaccines, according to an analysis
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in a medical journal based on a review of 22 other studies.

Since leaving his post, Rivkees has been stunned to see the state
health department subsumed by political meddling.

About 28,700 children and adults
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birth to age 39 have died of Covid in the United States.
Florida’s anti-vaccine messaging
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people of all ages, Rivkees added, not just those who are younger.

He points out that Florida performed well compared with other states
in 2020 and 2021, ranking 38th in Covid deaths per capita despite a
large population of older adults. Now it has the sixth-highest
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of Covid deaths in the country.

“There is no question that the rise of misinformation and the
politicization of the response has taken a toll on public health,”
he said.

As in Florida, the Texas health department initially promoted Covid
vaccines, warning that Texans who weren’t vaccinated were about 20
times as likely
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suffer a Covid-associated death. Such sentiments faded last year, as
state leaders passed policies to block vaccine mandates and other
public health measures. The latest is a prohibition against the use of
government funds to promote Covid vaccines. Uptake in Texas is already
low, with fewer than 4% of residents getting the bivalent booster that
rolled out last year.

At Lubbock’s health department, Wells managed to put out a press
release saying the city offers Covid vaccines but stopped short of
recommending them. “We aren’t able to do as big a push as other
states,” she said.

Some health officials are altering their recommendations, given the
current climate. Janet Hamilton, executive director at the Council of
State and Territorial Epidemiologists, said clear-cut advice to get
vaccinated against Covid works when people trust the scientific
establishment, but it risks driving others away from all vaccines.
“It’s important for public health to meet people where they
are,” Hamilton said.

Missouri’s health department took this tack on X
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formerly known as Twitter: “COVID vaccines will be available in
Missouri soon, if you’re in to that sort of thing. If not, just keep
scrolling!”

_Amy Maxmen [[link removed]] is a science journalist in New
York City who covers the entanglements of health, climate, policy and
of the people behind research. Her stories appear
in Nature, National Geographic and The New York Times, among
other outlets. She is a contributing correspondent for KFF Health
News._

_KFF Health News [[link removed]], formerly known
as Kaiser Health News (KHN), is a national newsroom that produces
in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core
operating programs at KFF [[link removed]] — the
independent source for health policy research, polling, and
journalism._

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