DeSantis Revives COVID-19 Bugaboo, Putting Floridians In Danger
Fear mongering and misinformation are again flourishing as Gov. Ron DeSantis, R-Fla., is the first governor in the nation to advise that residents at high risk of infection should not get the FDA-approved and CDC-recommended, COVID-19 vaccine boosters because of unproven potential dangers.
As they have before, scientists and clinicians said DeSantis’s politically fueled scaremongering weakens efforts to protect against potentially serious diseases like measles and whooping cough.
John Moore, a microbiology professor at Weill Cornell Medicine in New York City, said medical leaders in Florida have been slow to clarify vaccine safety, apparently fearing the wrath of DeSantis. Moore said Florida’s guidance generally regurgitates disproven ideas from antivaccine websites.
A bulletin issued by DeSantis’s surgeon general, Dr. Joseph Ladapo, includes false or unproven claims about the efficacy and safety of mRNA-based COVID-19 vaccines manufactured by Prizer and Moderna. The bulletin says the vaccines could threaten “the integrity of the human genome.”
Ladapo posted on X that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Food and Drug Administration “are gaslighting Americans with their new, unproven COVID-19 boosters, and recommend them for 6 month-old babies! We say bring data, acknowledge serious safety concerns & acknowledge the many people who believe they’ve been injured by these vaccines.”
Last year, Ladapo urged people younger than 65 to avoid COVID-19 shots while he also rejected public health protocols for fighting measles outbreaks.
Among its incorrect claims, the Florida bulletin says the new mRNA boosters wrongly target a viral variant, omicron, that is no longer circulating widely. The claim is as all major variants of COVID-19 in the past two years evolved from omicron and subsequent mutations, the spokeswoman said.
The bulletin incorrectly claimed that COVID-19 boosters don’t undergo clinical trials. The FDA said that COVID-19 booster shots, which have mRNA sequences that have changed slightly from previous shots, aren’t tested in large trials. Similarly, annual influenza vaccines are not tested because by the time the tests would be completed, flu season would be over.
The original mRNA shots underwent clinical trials, and as with flu shots, “a lot of evidence has been collected in support of the ongoing use of the vaccines,” said Natalie Dean, a biostatistician at Emory University’s Rollins School of Public Health.
Another false claim is that the shots pose a risk of infections, autoimmune disease, and other conditions. Serious side effects do occur, rarely, as with any medication. U.S. authorities were among the first to detect rare occurrences of myocarditis, an inflammation of the heart tissue, in young adults who got the COVID-19 vaccine. Most patients recovered quickly. Myocarditis is more commonly caused by COVID-19 infection itself, experts said.
Another unfounded claim is that the shots could cause elevated levels of spike protein and foreign genetic material in the blood. The concerns have circulated on social media but have been disproved or have not panned out. One expert said the billionths-of-a-gram quantities of bacterial DNA alleged to be contaminating COVID-19 shots are dwarfed by our other exposures.
Further misinformation is that Americans face “unknown risk” from too many booster shots. Scientists consider the possibility of “overvaccination” every time they study boosters. So far, no safety risks have been associated with multiple immunizations.
And lastly, the bulletin recommends that rather than getting the COVID-19 booster, Floridians should get exercise and eat vegetables and “healthy fats.” Exercise and a healthy diet are important but studies show they will not prevent COVID-19.
Treatment and prevention of COVID-19 has been a persistent partisan issue, fueled by misinformation and unproven conspiracies, led by high profile anti-vaccine figures like trump, DeSantis and Robert Kennedy Jr., a former Democratic candidate for president. Trump has said that if he is elected in November, he wants Kennedy in his cabinet to help vet senior health officials.
Trump also has said children receive too many vaccines and suggested that vaccines cause autism, a myth debunked by years of scientific research.
As president, trump downplayed the risks of COVID-19, ultimately adding to the death toll that surpassed 400,000 when trump left office in January 2021. Trump consistently questioned the effectiveness of masks to curb infections, hyped unproven and potentially harmful treatments and criticized his own health experts, including Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.
A 2021, Cornell University study of 38 million articles in English-language media around the world found that trump was the single largest driver of the misinformation. Analysis published by National Public Radio in December 2021 found that as American counties showed higher vote shares for Trump in 2020, COVID-19 vaccination rates significantly decreased and death rates significantly increased. NPR attributed the findings to misinformation.
DeSantis focused on his anti-vaccination efforts during his abortive 2023 campaign for the GOP nomination for president. During the pandemic, the governor protested loudly against vaccine mandates, lockdowns and other public health protections that were proven to save lives and curb COVID-19 infections.
A U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) spokesperson said the agency “strongly disagrees with the State Surgeon General of Florida’s characterization of the safety and effectiveness of the updated mRNA COVID-19 vaccines.” The vaccines met the FDA’s “rigorous, scientific standards,” said the spokesperson who urged people to get boosters because the population’s COVID-19 immunity has waned.
Among the latest COVID-19 related research, a large clinical trial showed that people taking the popular obesity drug Wegovy during the pandemic were less likely to die of Covid-19. The F.D.A. also approved updated COVID vaccines that offer greater protection for the frailest Americans.
KFF Health News, a non-profit public health agency, has found that Republicans have far less confidence in the safety and efficacy of the vaccinations than Democrats. The agency found that two-thirds of Republicans are not worried about getting the virus and don’t plan to have updated vaccinations.
Among those who were previously vaccinated but haven’t gotten the new shot, two-thirds of Republicans (66 percent) and more than half of independents (57 percent) say that not being worried about getting COVID is at least a minor reason why they have not gotten the updated vaccine. The survey found that a third of Democrats (35 percent) said they were not troubled by fears of getting the illness.
In 2023, KFF launched the KFF Health Misinformation Monitor to track the spread of health misinformation in the U.S. and help Americans stay up to date and away from misinformation. The free monitor, published twice a month, summarized recent developments involving health misinformation and trust culled from hundreds of sources, including traditional news media organizations, social media platforms, peer-reviewed journals, and public opinion surveys.
To receive the monitor, visit www.kff.org.
Misinformation like the kind spread by Ladapo have been more readily accepted as Americans’ trust in experts and elected leaders has eroded as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a survey conducted in early May by the Pew Charitable Trust.
The survey found that confidence ratings for federal public health officials; state and local elected officials; and for President Biden fell in a range from 43 percent to 54 percent in the survey. The confidence was much lower than during the early stages of the pandemic, the survey found.
Overall, 52 percent of respondents said that public health officials had done an excellent or good job at managing the pandemic. That includes 72 percent of Democrats and only 29 percent of Republicans.
Public confidence in medical centers and hospitals remained high as 80 percent of respondents said those institutions were continuing to manage the pandemic well, a small decline from 88 percent two years ago.
The Florida vaccine warnings align with Project 2025, the controversial, far right Heritage Foundation policy blueprint for a second trump administration. Project 2025 does not recommend closing the CDC entirely, but it does propose significant changes to its structure and functions that would drastically reduce the CDC’s size and scope.
Project 2025 calls the CDC “perhaps the most incompetent and arrogant agency in the federal government.”
The Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) which was signed into law by President Biden two years ago, is specifically targeted for repeal in Project 2025.
The IRA caps annual out-of-pocket spending on prescription drugs (not just insulin) for seniors starting next year. The law also empowered Medicare to negotiate prices with Big Pharma for the first time in history, achieving significant discounts and saving billions.
Along with the many IRA benefits that would disappear if the law were repealed, Medicare Part D beneficiaries would lose their access to no-cost vaccines.
Coverage for older Americans, who are mostly provided for through Medicare, would be severely limited under the Project 2025 plan. The elderly have weakened immune systems, which increases susceptibility to infectious disease. In 2023, 88 percent of the 51.9 million Medicare beneficiaries who were enrolled in Medicare Part D at that time were ages 65 and older. The CDC recommends that older adults receive a variety of vaccines, including vaccines to prevent pneumococcal disease, shingles, RSV, COVID-19 and seasonal flu. In addition, vaccine boosters to prevent tetanus and diphtheria (Td) or tetanus, diphtheria, and pertussis (Tdap) are recommended every 10 years. Vaccines prevent shingles in older adults.
The Center for American Progress, an independent nonpartisan policy institute, determined that a repeal of the Inflation Reduction Act and elimination of no-cost vaccine coverage for Medicare beneficiaries would increase costs for Medicare enrollees and reverse gains in vaccine uptake.
The losses would be felt most acutely by older Black and Latino adults as well as older adults with lower incomes and those in states with the highest out-of-pocket vaccine costs prior to the IRA. Reimposing barriers to accessing vaccines would threaten the health and economic security of these vulnerable Americans, the center said.
IQVIA, a medical consulting company, found that older Black and Latino adults would be most harmed by Project 2025’s plan to repeal the IRA’s Medicare Part D no-cost vaccine requirement. According to IQVIA research, Black (42 percent) and Hispanic (44 percent) patients are more likely than white patients (28 percent) to forgo payer-approved vaccines when asked to pay a copay of between $10 and $40, a common copay range for Medicare Part D drugs.
In 2021, Black and Hispanic adults 65 and older were less likely to have received a pneumococcal vaccine and those 60 and older were less likely to have received a shingles vaccine, compared with their white peers.
The FDA approved and authorized the 2024–2025 mRNA COVID-19 vaccines on August 22. The FDA authorized Novavax COVID-19 Vaccine, Adjuvanted (2024–2025 Formula) under Emergency Use Authorization on August 30.
The CDC reports that everyone 6 months and older should get a 2024–2025 COVID-19 vaccine. Also, people 65 and older, those who are at high risk for severe COVID-19, or have never received a COVID-19 vaccine, should get the 2024–2025 COVID-19 vaccine.
Vaccine protection decreases over time, so it is important to stay up to date with the COVID-19 vaccine. COVID-19 vaccines are updated to give the best protection from the currently circulating strains.
Getting the 2024–2025 COVID-19 vaccine is especially important for people who:
Have never received a COVID-19 vaccine.
Are 65 years and older.
Are at high risk for severe COVID-19.
Live in a long-term care facility.
Are pregnant, breastfeeding, trying to get pregnant, or might become pregnant in the future.
And want to lower the risk of getting long COVID.