Louisiana officials Department of Health employees were ordered to stop promoting common vaccinations, including immunizations against COVID-19, influenza and mpox.
NPR reports that the state shifted its policy on vaccines over the last several months. Employees who spoke to NPR said officials asked that the anti-vaccine policy tweak be “implemented quietly” and kept out of writing but warned that it applied to every aspect of their work. Employees say they are barred from posting notices that the vaccines are available, making posts promoting inoculations, or giving press interviews encouraging the public to seek them.
The state employs over 6,500 health officials now constrained by the policy and reported the first severe human infection from bird flu in the U.S. this week.
Louisiana medical professionals condemned the state for quietly promoting an anti-vax message amid a rise in public vaccine skepticism.
“Public health is local. While we pivoted our attention to the damaging pending impact of an RFK Jr appointment, our local health department was already carrying out many of the very things we feared re: vaccine disinformation,” Louisiana pediatrician Kim Mukerjee said in a pair of posts to Bluesky. “Breaking down our public health infrastructure, instead of investing in and building it up, is shameful and reckless.”
Louisiana had one of the highest rates of flu symptoms in the nation last week, per CDC data, as respiratory illnesses in that state outpaced national averages this flu season.
The state policy comes as doctors brace for a radical shift in federal government vaccine guidances, with infamous vaccine misinformation pusher Robert F. Kennedy Jr. set to take the lead on the nation’s health policy in Donald Trump’s second term.
