The Louisiana Department of Health said it will cease the use of media campaigns or health fairs to promote vaccination against preventable illnesses.
Dr. Ralph Abraham, Louisiana’s surgeon general, wrote in a memo to department employees that the state would “no longer promote mass vaccination.”
“The State of Louisiana and LDH have historically promoted vaccines for vaccine preventable illnesses through our parish health units, community health fairs, partnerships and media campaigns,” Abraham wrote. “While we encourage each patient to discuss the risks and benefits of vaccination with their provider, LDH will no longer promote mass vaccination.”
Dr. Jennifer Avegno, director of the New Orleans Health Department, said the state’s largest city has an independent health department and is not subject to the state’s directive.
“We will not be abiding,” she said.
“When you deprioritize, when you create confusion and doubt to any kind of medical information, then the fact is that folks don’t get it,” Avegno told CNN. “We’re already seeing that; our childhood vaccination rate has dropped in the last year or so, like many other states in the country.”
“When vaccination rates drop, you get worse outbreaks,” she added.
The memo came the day after Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who has frequently scrutinized vaccines and been involved in litigation against vaccine companies, was confirmed as secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services. Avegno said she did not think the timing of Kennedy’s confirmation and the state’s memo were a coincidence.
“Now they have, in the ultimate health authority in America, someone who has been a champion of the same falsehoods that have been promulgated locally,” Avegno said. “During his Senate confirmation hearings, [Kennedy] was given opportunities to walk back his stances on vaccines, and he really didn’t take them. … I think it gives folks who, for whatever reason, are in his way of thinking license to proceed.”
The state’s vaccination rates against flu are already low and getting lower while the state is experiencing a surge in flu cases this winter. Eleven percent of Louisiana children were vaccinated against flu in December, which is down from 14% at the same time two years ago, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. For adults, 17% were vaccinated in 2024, down from 20% in 2022.
The national rates for flu vaccinations are closer to 40% for children and adults. Vaccinating a large percentage of the population is crucial for vaccine effectiveness. The World Health Organization estimated that vaccines over the past 50 years have saved 154 million lives, with 101 million of those lives being infants.
Louisiana is not the only state taking a page from Kennedy’s playbook. A Florida Senate Republican filed a wide-ranging bill Thursday that would bar public water systems from adding fluoride to water supplies.
The Florida legislation is backed by the state’s agriculture commissioner, Wilton Simpson. Following Kennedy’s support for President Donald Trump in the 2024 campaign, some Republicans have called for getting rid of fluoride in drinking water as Kennedy also supports the move.
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Communities across the United States have long added fluoride to their water to prevent tooth decay. Dental and other health groups have called for continuing this practice.
“Insufficient fluoride exposure can have significant negative effects on oral health,” the Florida Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics said in a December news release. They added that tooth cavities are the “most common chronic disease in childhood” and disproportionately affect “children of lower socioeconomic status who are less likely to have access to dental care.”