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talltalestogo · 3 years

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IT GETS WORSE

‘Out for Blood’: Inside Tennessee’s Self-Imposed Vaccine Fiasco

Critics say Republicans turned what was just another vaccine-hesitant state into a creeping public-health disaster.

NASHVILLE—Less than a week before she was ousted as the top vaccine official in Tennessee, Dr. Michelle Fiscus received a package at her office. It had been sent via Amazon without any note or indication of who might be behind it, she told The Daily Beast.

Inside was a black leather muzzle with nylon straps that looked to be made to fit a dog.

Fiscus, who became head of the state’s immunization program in January of 2019 and practiced as a pediatrician in Middle Tennessee for 17 years, already knew she had a target on her back. At a June legislative hearing, she’d been singled out by name by Republican state lawmakers upset about the health department’s teen-focused vaccine outreach; at least one of them even threatened to dissolve the department over it.

In particular, GOP lawmakers seized on a memo Fiscus had sent to medical providers who administer vaccines in which she outlined the state’s Mature Minor Doctrine. It stems from a 1987 state Supreme Court decision that allows doctors to vaccinate minors above the age of 14 without parental consent.

The contentious hearing made headlines in Tennessee before the issue largely receded from the news. But within the Republican-dominated state government, pressure continued to mount. Two weeks ago, according to Fiscus’ husband, she was warned by supervisors that she might be fired. Then, on Monday, with COVID-19 cases rising again in the state and the share of Tennesseans fully vaccinated stuck below 40 percent—one of the worst rates in the country—she was terminated.

“Morale is terrible, and every day we were waiting for more restrictions on what we could do,” Dr. Fiscus told The Daily Beast.

Her ouster was the end-result of what interviews with lawmakers, health officials, and residents in the state suggest has been a titanic and bitterly partisan struggle over how to reach vaccine holdouts. Now, critics of the Republican majority in the state say Fiscus’ firing is poised to send the vaccine push even further off the rails—all to appease extremists.

“It is pretty clear what happened is that some ultra-conservatives in the state who bought into anti-vaccine and COVID-denialism were out for blood, and the governor’s administration offered up the head,” Senate Minority Leader Jeff Yarbo (D-Nashville) told The Daily Beast.

The Governor’s office did not respond to The Daily Beast’s request for comment. A spokesperson for the House Republican Caucus referred a request for comment to the Department of Health and the governor’s office, noting they “do not make personnel decisions regarding the executive branch.”

Bill Christian, a spokesperson for the Tennessee Department of Health, told The Daily Beast, “We cannot comment on HR or personnel matters. To be clear, our vaccination efforts have not been halted or shuttered.”

But Fiscus says her ouster is exactly what it looks like—a public-health official refusing to bow to anti-vaxxers or those catering to them in positions of power, and paying a price.

“Today, a 14-year-old in Tennessee can still go and get a vaccine without parental consent,” she told The Daily Beast. “According to the decree from the Tennessee Supreme Court ruling in 1987. I didn’t make the rule. I communicated to our providers that were getting COVID-19 vaccines what the rule was.”

That may be true, but it’s getting harder than ever for kids in Tennessee to access shots.

Fiscus’ firing was followed on Tuesday by a bombshell report from The Tennessean that the health department will cease all vaccine-related outreach to minors—not just for COVID-19, but for other diseases like the flu and HPV. The paper also reported that the health department will stop hosting COVID-19 vaccine events at schools and even stop sending postcards reminding teenagers who’ve been partially vaccinated to get their second dose.

Christian, the health spokesperson, explained it this way: “We are simply taking this time to focus on our messaging and ensure our outreach is focused on parents who are making these decisions for themselves and their families.”

But insiders say Tennessee has in a matter of weeks gone from being just another southern state with a vaccine-hesitancy problem to a showcase for Republicans who cower before hardcore anti-vaccine activists.

In May, days after the state began to administer vaccinations to children ages 12 and older, Fiscus sent a letter to more than 900 vaccine providers, clarifying that they could inoculate minors without a parent or guardian in the room.

The decision to inform providers about this option—stemming from what advocates describe as long-settled court precedent—touched a nerve among Republican lawmakers. In the heated June hearing, several state legislators spoke out against the health department promoting the fact that teenagers could get vaccinated on state social media accounts, calling it “reprehensible” and likening one ad providing life-saving information to “peer pressure.”

“The Department of Health is targeting our youth,” state Rep. Scott Cepicky (R-Culleoka) said during the hearing, while holding up a printout of the Facebook ad, according to The Tennessean. “When you have advertisements like this, with a young girl with a patch on her arm all smiling, we know how impressionable our young people are.”

“For a department of ours to make it seem like you need a vaccine ... to fit in is peer pressure applied by the state of Tennessee,” Cepicky added. “Personally, I think it's reprehensible that you would do that, that you would do that to our youth.”

State Sen. Kerry Roberts (R-Springfield) reiterated a colleague’s complaint against flyers and advertisements featuring children with the phrases “Tennesseans 12+ eligible for vaccines” and “Give COVID-19 vaccines a shot.”

“Market to parents, don’t market to children. Period,” he said during the hearing, according to the outlet.

Cepicky and Roberts did not respond to The Daily Beast’s request for comment.

The Tennessean also reported last month that Lisa Piercey, the health department commissioner whose name was on Fiscus’ resignation letter, tried to assuage the Republican outrage. Specifically, Piercey said in the hearing that private healthcare providers and doctors in the state could deny shots without parental permission.

Internal emails obtained by the New York Times and The Tennessean show the state has halted vaccine-education efforts aimed at people under 18 for a variety of ailments, including the flu. Among the emails included was a directive from Piercey to remove the department’s logo from all vaccine-related materials going forward, and a note from another official to stop “proactive outreach regarding routine vaccines.” (Some major metro areas in their state have their own health-department policies, and are poised to continue vaccine outreach.)

As in many states, right-wing activists banded together in Tennessee earlier in the pandemic to oppose social-distancing and other safety measures, including vaccines.

One local group powering pushback in the Volunteer State is called Tennessee Stands. On their website, the group says they “completely reject the myth that non-pharmaceutical interventions such as mask mandates, stay-at-home orders, school closures, and business closures had any effect whatsoever on the magnitude or the trajectory of the pandemic.” Tennessee Stands has filed lawsuits against state and local officials over various public-health mandates and regulations, and was behind legislation that would allow religious exemptions to future COVID vaccine mandates at schools.

Similar legislation was ultimately passed into law. A spokesperson for the group did not respond to a request for comment for this story.

Beyond rote right-wing activism, in Tennessee, anti-vaccine sentiment has previously exploded into violence. A 36-year-old woman was arrested in May after witnesses said she drove her SUV through a COVID vaccination tent while yelling “no vaccine.”

Lawmakers are worried the state is increasingly catering to conspiracy theorists. Meanwhile, COVID deaths are rising, and the state’s best hope for boosting its lagging rollout may be tough to replace.

“What person who is qualified to do her job would want that job now?” Sen. John Ray Clemmons (D-Nashville), asked in an interview with The Daily Beast. “Are they going to take that job because they are some ‘wink wink’ understanding they are not going to fulfill all the tasks of the job?”

Calling out his Republican colleagues, Clemmons said “using kids as a political tool” and Fiscus as a “political scapegoat” will only continue to harm the already fragile public health system in Tennessee.

“You have to wonder what their endgame is here,” he said. “Right now, it looks like a short-sided political move to score some points from a handful of extremists.”

Got a tip? Send it to The Daily Beast here.

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orbemnews · 3 years

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Russia’s Vaccine Is Safe and Effective, Published Study Shows MOSCOW — Russia cleared a hurdle in its vaccine rollout on Monday with the publication in the respected British medical journal The Lancet of late-stage trial results showing that the country’s Sputnik V vaccine is safe and highly effective. The publication is sure to buoy the Russian government’s promotion of the vaccine at home and around the world, strengthening the Kremlin’s hand in vaccine diplomacy with a credible endorsement of the product’s safety. Russia drew criticism from Western experts when it approved the vaccine for emergency use in August — before late-stage trials had even begun — and started vaccinations that month. Moscow claimed victory in the vaccine race, as it had decades earlier in the space race with the launch of the Sputnik satellite, though at the time other vaccines were further along in testing. In the end, its politicized rollout only served to deepen skepticism. The peer-reviewed article published Tuesday cleared those doubts. It showed the vaccine had an impressive efficacy rate of 91.6 percent against the virus, and was completely protective against severe forms of Covid-19. “The development of the Sputnik V vaccine has been criticized for unseemly haste, corner cutting, and an absence of transparency,” two independent researchers, Ian Jones of the University of Reading and Polly Roy with the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, wrote in a commentary published in The Lancet. “But the outcome reported here,” they continued, “is clear and the scientific principle of vaccination is demonstrated.” Their commentary did note that the design of the Russian vaccine, which relies on a genetically modified cold virus and is similar to half a dozen others including those made by Johnson & Johnson and AstraZeneca, is difficult to mass produce. Though quick out of the gate with regulatory approval, Russia has lagged in mass production and actual vaccinations, the process that in fact protects people from illness and death. The Russian financial company promoting the vaccine has said about two million people have been inoculated with Sputnik V worldwide, far fewer than with the Pfizer or Moderna vaccines. The company, the Russian Direct Investment Fund, does not break down the vaccinations by country. But of the two million vaccinations, at least hundreds of thousands have been in countries outside of Russia, suggesting the government has quietly prioritized exports. While beneficial for speeding global immunity to the disease, the policy has also reaped public relations and diplomatic benefits for the Russian government, even as residents of many provincial Russian cities still do not have access to shots. On Monday, for example, the authorities in the Leningrad region in northwest Russia said supplies had run out. So far, 15 other countries, including Argentina, Hungary and Serbia, have approved the Sputnik V vaccine for emergency use. Covid-19 Vaccines › Answers to Your Vaccine Questions Am I eligible for the Covid vaccine in my state? Currently more than 150 million people — almost half the population — are eligible to be vaccinated. But each state makes the final decision about who goes first. The nation’s 21 million health care workers and three million residents of long-term care facilities were the first to qualify. In mid-January, federal officials urged all states to open up eligibility to everyone 65 and older and to adults of any age with medical conditions that put them at high risk of becoming seriously ill or dying from Covid-19. Adults in the general population are at the back of the line. If federal and state health officials can clear up bottlenecks in vaccine distribution, everyone 16 and older will become eligible as early as this spring or early summer. The vaccine hasn’t been approved in children, although studies are underway. It may be months before a vaccine is available for anyone under the age of 16. Go to your state health website for up-to-date information on vaccination policies in your area Is the vaccine free? You should not have to pay anything out of pocket to get the vaccine, although you will be asked for insurance information. If you don’t have insurance, you should still be given the vaccine at no charge. Congress passed legislation this spring that bars insurers from applying any cost sharing, such as a co-payment or deductible. It layered on additional protections barring pharmacies, doctors and hospitals from billing patients, including those who are uninsured. Even so, health experts do worry that patients might stumble into loopholes that leave them vulnerable to surprise bills. This could happen to those who are charged a doctor visit fee along with their vaccine, or Americans who have certain types of health coverage that do not fall under the new rules. If you get your vaccine from a doctor’s office or urgent care clinic, talk to them about potential hidden charges. To be sure you won’t get a surprise bill, the best bet is to get your vaccine at a health department vaccination site or a local pharmacy once the shots become more widely available. Can I choose which vaccine I get? How long will the vaccine last? Will I need another one next year? That is to be determined. It’s possible that Covid-19 vaccinations will become an annual event, just like the flu shot. Or it may be that the benefits of the vaccine last longer than a year. We have to wait to see how durable the protection from the vaccines is. To determine this, researchers are going to be tracking vaccinated people to look for “breakthrough cases” — those people who get sick with Covid-19 despite vaccination. That is a sign of weakening protection and will give researchers clues about how long the vaccine lasts. They will also be monitoring levels of antibodies and T cells in the blood of vaccinated people to determine whether and when a booster shot might be needed. It’s conceivable that people may need boosters every few months, once a year or only every few years. It’s just a matter of waiting for the data. Will my employer require vaccinations? Where can I find out more? “Publication in The Lancet today really shows that Sputnik V is the vaccine for all mankind,” Kirill Dmitriev, the director of the Russian Direct Investment Fund, said in a statement. “Today is a great victory.” The vaccine is one of three that have completed late-stage trials showing an efficacy rate above 90 percent, along with the shots made by Pfizer and Moderna. The version of the Russian vaccine tested in the trials must be shipped and stored at difficult-to-manage temperatures below about zero degrees Fahrenheit. The Russian ministry of health has also approved a freeze-dried version that can be stored in a refrigerator. Russia is marketing Sputnik V at a price of about $10 per dose for the two-shot vaccine. The clinical trial conducted in Moscow late last year on about 20,000 volunteers showed only side effects commonly associated with vaccines, such as headaches or mild fevers. The researchers determined that no so-called adverse events, or serious medical problems among the trial participants, were associated with the vaccine. In total, they found 70 serious medical episodes in 68 people in the trial, in both the placebo and vaccine group. Notably, two people who were administered the vaccine died of Covid-19 following illnesses that began days after the first injection. The researchers said both people were likely infected before the trial began and fell ill before the vaccine had time to generate antibodies to the coronavirus. The “disease had progressed before any immunity from the vaccine developed,” they wrote. The Russian authors of The Lancet article also noted the trial in Moscow lacked ethnic diversity to ensure the vaccine is safe in nonwhite recipients. A trial of Sputnik V underway now in the United Arab Emirates includes a more diverse study group, the researcher say. Source link Orbem News #effective #Published #Russias #safe #Shows #Study #Vaccine

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