Louisiana surgeon general wants to ‘depoliticize medicine’ by ending statewide mass vaccinations

Louisiana’s surgeon general, Dr. Ralph Abraham, said his goal was to get politics out of medicine and improve patients’ informed consent when he decided to issue a directive ending mass vaccination programs in his state.

Critics have decried Abraham’s directive as anti-science and hyper-political, while also arguing it could further hamper an already overburdened health sector. Others have suggested the move will actually serve to decrease confidence in public health rather than improve it, as Abraham foresees. 

But, he argues, the move is a critical step toward keeping patients in control of their healthcare, and serves to “depoliticize medicine” rather than further politicize it. 

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“In my opinion, it is probably not the best thing to just simply go into a herd mentality – just line up – and get a shot,” Abraham said during an exclusive interview with Fox News Digital. “Why would somebody want to do that when they can have that conversation? If you have these mass vaccination events, it takes away that patient-doctor relationship because that conversation then never happens.”

Following the announcement of the new directive, a group of Louisiana medical associations accused Abraham of politicizing vaccines. However, Abraham countered that these criticisms were unfounded.

“People say, ‘Well, you’re putting politics into medicine.’ No. Politics was in medicine from the get-go, starting with COVID,” Abraham said. “My job and my role and my desire is to depoliticize medicine. And the way you do that is to get that patient and that doctor on a one-on-one.”

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Abraham, the state’s first surgeon general, ordered his staff last week to stop engaging in media campaigns, community health fairs and other mass vaccination efforts that encourage people to get vaccinated without any prior consultation with a doctor. 

The move garnered backlash, including from GOP Louisiana Sen. Bill Cassidy, a physician himself. Cassidy said that Abraham’s order was ignoring “the reality of people’s lives,” arguing events like vaccine fairs “keep a child from having to miss school and a mother from having to miss work.”

“To say that cannot occur and that someone must wait for the next available appointment ignores that reality,” Cassidy argued. 

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Other critics who spoke to ABC News suggested Abraham’s directive aimed, in part, at restoring confidence that has been lost in public health, will serve to continue to diminish it. They also argue that in an industry that has a shortage of healthcare workers, getting rid of mass vaccination programs could actually serve to overburden the industry even more, and potentially cost lives.

But Abraham said his critics were “cherry-picking what they want to fuss about.”

“If you look at the overall picture that we presented – if they argue with just good common sense, and if they argue with wanting to get that patient-doctor relationship back to where it’s supposed to be, then, you know, they’re just not debating in a very fair and logical manner.”

A former member of Congress and supporter of newly confirmed Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Abraham said he was “in no form or fashion” anti-vaccine. He added that as a family medicine physician he “always” recommends childhood immunizations, and called the Tetanus vaccine “life-saving.”

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“There are some vaccines that are good for most people. There are some vaccines that are good for some people. There are some vaccines that are good for a few people. And there are some vaccines that are good for no one,” Abraham said.

When asked about how he would respond to critics who would call his and Kennedy’s skeptical views on vaccines anti-science, Abraham said, “I would love to debate them.”

“I have science on my side that shows that these things that they are saying work certainly do not work [the way they claim],” Abraham said. “This statement we came out with – that LDH has done – it has certainly promoted conversation about these issues. That’s a good thing.”

Abraham told Fox News Digital that the move will not impact vaccine distribution in the state and the Louisiana Department of Health will still provide them as they have in the past. He also said the move will help clear up limited resources.