Tennessee abandons ALL vaccine outreach to minors due to Republican state lawmakers

[NRSKarenRN]

On Monday, July 12, the Tennessee Department of Health fired Dr. Michelle Fiscus, the top vaccine official in the state government. Fiscus said she was scapegoated to appease Republican state lawmakers who are angry about efforts to vaccinate teenagers. After losing her job, Fiscus released a 1,200-word statement about the ordeal. 

Then on Tuesday 7/13/21, Tennessee  Dept. of Health issued notice to stop outreach promoting adolescent vaccines for all diseases including COVID-19.       Karen

 

Tennessee abandons vaccine outreach to minors — not just for COVID-19

Brett Kelman

Nashville Tennessean    7/13/21

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The Tennessee Department of Health will halt all adolescent vaccine outreach – not just for coronavirus, but all diseases – amid pressure from Republican state lawmakers, according to an internal report and agency emails obtained by the Tennessean. If the health department must issue any information about vaccines, staff are instructed to strip the agency logo off the documents.

The health department will also stop all COVID-19 vaccine events on school property, despite holding at least one such event this month. The decisions to end vaccine outreach and school events come directly from Health Commissioner Dr. Lisa Piercey, the internal report states.

Additionally, the health department will take steps to ensure it no longer sends postcards or other notices reminding teenagers to get their second dose of the coronavirus vaccines. Postcards will still be sent to adults, but teens will be excluded from the mailing list so the postcards are not “potentially interpreted as solicitation to minors,” the report states. ...

..And these changes will take effect just as the coronavirus pandemic shows new signs of spread in Tennessee. After months of declining infections, the average number of new cases per day has more than doubled in the past two weeks – from 177 to 418. The average test positivity rate has jumped from 2.2% to 5.4% in the same time period..

 

Senator Mitch McConnell spoke well on the need for vaccines as a survivor of childhood Polio.  Tennessee is subjecting its  adolescent children to diseases they DON'T have to experience with the advent of modern vaccines.

 

 

[vetpharmtech]

1 hour ago, Pixie.RN said:

Luckily my county in Tennessee has an independent health department that makes its own decisions. This is embarrassing. My mom had polio as a child, she was lucky and survived without any ill effects. I think people have just forgotten what it was like to lose kids to preventable diseases. At this rate, they will be reminded. 

I am happy for your mother. Again and again, when Christianity is fused in evidence-based health science, everything gets messed up.

Hopefully residents in Tennessee will find a way to combat this theocratic medicine.

[nursej22, MSN, RN]

https://www.tennessean.com/story/news/health/2021/07/15/tennessee-top-vaccine-official-got-glowing-reviews-before-being-fired/7980386002/

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A top Tennessee health official called last week for the firing of the state's then-vaccination chief Dr. Michelle Fiscus, criticizing her leadership and management skills, newly released documents show. But Fiscus' termination, which touched off a national media firestorm, followed years of glowing performance reviews ultimately approved by the very same official, additional records reveal. 

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Tennessee Department of Health Chief Medical Officer Dr. Tim Jones sent a memo to Commissioner Dr. Lisa M. Piercey dated Friday, recommending Fiscus' termination, according to the document released Thursday by the state health department. 

In it, Jones wrote Fiscus should be fired because of a "failure to maintain good working relationships with members of her team, her lack of effective leadership, her lack of appropriate management and unwillingness to consult with superiors and other internal stakeholders."

Uh, oh, those darn performance reviews finally came in handy. 

[toomuchbaloney]

27 minutes ago, nursej22 said:

https://www.tennessean.com/story/news/health/2021/07/15/tennessee-top-vaccine-official-got-glowing-reviews-before-being-fired/7980386002/

Uh, oh, those darn performance reviews finally came in handy. 

Kind of sounds like they pulled rationale for termination right out of their orifices. I'm certain they will maintain that the performance evaluations were wrong. 

[toomuchbaloney]

Tennessee resumes nearly all covid vaccine outreach to minors after GOP pressure paused advocacy - The Washington Post

https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2021/07/23/anger-targets-vaccine-holdouts-delta-surge/?outputType=comment&no_nav=true

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The news is the latest in the controversy over how Tennessee has gone about trying to vaccinate its young people during the pandemic and how political pressure has played a role in that messaging. Michelle Fiscus said she was fired from her job as director of immunization programs at the Tennessee Department of Health last week as retaliation for the department’s efforts to vaccinate teenagers against the coronavirus, a plan that she said angered several state legislators.

“This is about a partisan issue around coronavirus vaccines and around people in power in Tennessee not believing in the importance in vaccinating the people, and so they terminated the person in charge of getting it done,” Fiscus told The Washington Post last week. “The government is sacrificing public health to be in the good graces of our legislators; it’s a horrid dereliction of duty.”