“The CDC is poised to add the Covid vaccine to the childhood immunization schedule, which would make the vaccine mandatory for children to attend school,” host Tucker Carlson. posted on Twittersharing a segment from his show that has been viewed more than 1.5 million times online.
But the claim was wrong: The CDC cannot mandate that schoolchildren receive vaccines, a decision left up to states and jurisdictions, the agency and many public health officials said. of initial tweet by Nicole Saphier, a radiologist at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, also misrepresented a planned meeting of CDC advisers, who voted Wednesday to add coronavirus vaccines to Vaccines for Children (VFC), a safety program that provides injections no way. cost. A special meeting set for Thursday will address the agency’s immunization schedule for children.
Public health experts said there’s a legitimate debate about whether schoolchildren should be required to get vaccinated against the coronavirus — but the inflammatory and erroneous claim by Fox News personalities is the latest example of how critics can twist the facts about the CDC and the coronavirus. , potentially contributing to lower vaccination rates, waning trust in federal health officials, and other public health consequences.
“This is a whole new level of dangerous misinformation,” wrote Jerome M. Adams, who served as surgeon general during the Trump administration and as Indiana’s top health official, in a text message to The Washington Post. “It could also harm children (by disrupting the VFC program, which helps disadvantaged children access vaccines) and endanger health officials (due to angry misinformed parents). We need to be able to have honest conversations about the pros and cons of vaccinating children, without resorting to blatant misinformation.”
The episode also illustrates how health care misinformation can spread rapidly, particularly around the coronavirus vaccine and fueled by many Americans’ frustrations and confusion with pandemic policies. But public health experts often feel stymied in their response, unsure when to engage with false claims that go viral. And when officials do weigh in, they are often constrained by their more deliberate, sometimes bureaucratic processes.
“I have been doing vaccine work for more than two decades. And what I’ve seen, thanks to social media, misinformation and misinformation can spread much faster now,” said Julie Morita, executive vice president of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and former Chicago public health commissioner. “There is no quick fix for this.”
While some honest individuals, like Kavita Patel, a physician and former Obama administration official, took to Twitter Tuesday night to criticize the false claims and refute them point by point, federal officials have been more muted in their response. In interviews Tuesday evening, several administration officials said they had no plans to address the false claims, worried about their amplification. But by Wednesday morning, the administration’s calculus had changed, following Carlson’s segment, amid growing anger at federal health officials after vaccine critics seized on the misreported claim that the CDC was set to mandate the shots for schoolchildren.
“Thanks to @GovRonDeSantis, COVID mandates are NOT allowed in FL, NOT pushed into schools and I continue to recommend against them for healthy kids,” Joseph Ladapo, Florida surgeon general. has written on Twitter.
CDC took on Twitter around noon Wednesday, citing Carlson’s tweet and noting that his independent vaccine advisory committee will vote Thursday “on an updated childhood immunization schedule.” The tweet also said, “States set vaccine requirements for school students, not ACIP or CDC,” and linked to a page explaining state vaccine requirements.
The CDC’s response drew criticism from public health experts, who said the agency did not explicitly dispute Carlson’s claim or speak in plain language. Two administration officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to comment publicly, said they were uncomfortable that the CDC — citing Carlson’s tweet — had inadvertently reinforced the lies in his video.
CDC’s independent expert advisory group meeting is focused on ensuring access to free COVID vaccines for children — just as we have provided free access to other vaccines for children; it is not about vaccination requirements. Any indication otherwise is untrue.
— Secretary Xavier Becerra (@SecBecerra) October 19, 2022
Meanwhile, Saphier’s original tweet was still posted Wednesday evening and had been retweeted more than 2,400 times as of 6 p.m. Asked about Saphier’s post, Fox News showed a second one I tweet she sent, more than nine hours later, that provided context that states were not always following the CDC’s recommendations. That tweet was retweeted 55 times. Saphier also appeared on a Fox News segment Wednesday afternoon, clarifying her comments but repeating her criticism that childhood vaccines needed further study.
Memorial Sloan Kettering said Saphier did not speak for the institution.
In a statement Wednesday, the CDC said the vaccine panel will update the 2023 childhood and adult immunization schedules, including whether to add approved or authorized coronavirus vaccines, as guidance for health care providers.
“It is important to note that there are no changes to the COVID-19 vaccine policy and this action would simply help improve clinical guidance for healthcare providers by including all currently licensed, authorized and recommended vaccines.” routine in a document,” CDC spokeswoman Kristen Nordlund. said in an email.
The revised immunization schedules won’t go into effect until January 2023. Early next year is also when the federal government will no longer provide free vaccines, federal health officials said. The practical impact of including vaccines on the CDC’s recommended immunization list means that they are usually covered by insurance.
The updated schedule also “is the one place everyone can look to see exactly what all the recommendations are for all vaccines for all ages,” said James Campbell, a professor of pediatrics at the University of Washington School of Medicine. Maryland and vice president of American. Academy of Pediatrics Committee on Infectious Diseases, which said the color-coded document is an essential tool for busy doctors.
Public health experts noted that recommendations issued by the CDC advisory panel do not necessarily translate into state-level mandates. For example, few states have adopted the panel’s 2006 recommendation that teenagers be vaccinated against human papillomavirus, or HPV.
The CDC has “wanted to stay away” from vaccination mandates and constantly pushes local officials, said Jason Schwartz, a Yale University associate professor who specializes in vaccine policy.
The survey found a significant partisan divide in perceptions of the CDC and other agencies. Nearly three-quarters of Democrats say they view officials at the CDC and other public health agencies favorably, compared to only a third of Republicans who do, according to a Pew Research poll conducted in September.
“This split will make it harder to get Republicans to get vaccines for future Covid variants,” said Robert Blendon, a senior Harvard University pollster.
Health care leaders also said the episode underscored the challenge of informing the public about controversial public health issues. Drew Altman, head of the nonpartisan think tank Kaiser Family Foundation, said his organization was focusing on fighting health care misinformation “as our next big thing.”
“It’s just not enough that we’re in the business of putting out good information. Now we must also be in the business of countering misinformation and deliberate misinformation,” Altman said.
