Last month, the board of a regional public health department in Idaho voted to ban its department from providing COVID-19 vaccines to residents in six counties. The move follows a disturbing trend, one in which anti-vaccine beliefs are influencing public health decisions that will have serious consequences on citizens. Previously, policymakers in Texas prohibited health departments from promoting COVID-19 vaccines. Florida’s surgeon general also publicly recommended against the COVID-19 vaccine in 2023.
As reported by AP News, this appears to be the first regional health department in the nation to be restricted from giving COVID vaccines.
At the meeting, Dr. Perry Jansen, a district staff physician who gave a presentation before the vote, tried to make a case to convince the board to keep offering the vaccine, emphasizing that the vote wasn’t a vaccine mandate but would give citizens a choice.
"We really serve as a safety net provider for people who can't get health care in any other way, largely because of finances," Jansen told the board. "We're able to offer free and discounted services for people who don't have access through private care."
But board members of Southwest District Health decided in a 4-3 vote to no longer offer the shots. Public health experts describe the move as devastating.
Such a trend is an "incredibly slippery road to go down."
“It breaks my heart, local public health departments are one of the most trusted sources of health information to communities,” Katelyn Jetelina, an epidemiologist and author of the newsletter Your Local Epidemiologist, told Salon. “They also act as a safety net for accessibility and affordability to vaccines, given that 1 in 3 Americans don’t have a primary health care provider.”
She added such a trend is an “incredibly slippery road to go down.”
In 2021, mRNA technology — which was novel at the time — allowed for an effective vaccine to be developed in record time. Yet what the scientific community saw as a historic moment for biotechnology turned into a polarizing debate among American lawmakers enticed by conspiracy theories and misinformation, marking a pivotal turning point for the anti-vaccine movement.
Typically, misinformation about vaccines doesn't appear out of nowhere. There is usually a kernel of truth to it, and the misinformation persists because it lacks context. While some have experienced very rare adverse effects from the vaccines, like inflammation of the heart muscle (myocarditis) they happen to only a small percentage of people. COVID vaccines are considered extremely safe.
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Yet a significant number of Americans remain distrustful of the COVID-19 vaccines. According to a survey published in the journal Vaccine: X, 35% of adults reported that they did not trust COVID-19 vaccines, without much variation between 2021 and 2023. The growing distrust of the vaccines has led to hesitancy among parents getting their kids vaccinated to people not getting vaccinated for fear of loss of fertility. Notably, there is a partisan divide among those who trust and distrust the vaccines. Counties that voted Republican had significantly more deaths from COVID than counties that voted Democratic, in part due to reduced vaccine uptake.
What's happening in Idaho is part of a broader attack on public health. In 2023, state legislators introduced House Bill 154, which would make administering an mRNA vaccine a misdemeanor, effectively criminalizing most COVID vaccines. (Some, like Novavax, are not based on mRNA.) The bill is still pending. Idaho has also some of the most restrictive abortion laws in the country, causing an OB-GYN desert as reproductive health workers leave the state in droves.
"There is no rational reason to exclude COVID-19 vaccinations."
Dr. Amesh Adalja, an infectious disease and senior scholar at Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, said the latest news from Idaho is “more evidence of how politics and tribal mentalities have infused the control of communicable diseases.”
“Local state health departments have routinely provided immunizations in their jurisdictions; they are often places where individuals can find travel-related vaccinations, seasonal vaccinations, and routine childhood Immunizations,” he said. “Health departments are going to administer vaccines, there is no rational reason to exclude COVID-19 vaccinations.”
This week, president-elect Donald Trump picked Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to head the Department of Health and Human Services. If confirmed by the U.S. Senate, vaccines could be further under attack from a federal level as Kennedy has a history of vaccine skepticism and regularly promoting debunked claims about vaccines, including COVID ones.
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Jetelina told Salon there are many reasons why COVID vaccines have been highly scrutinized and surrounded by misinformation since the pandemic.
“Including vaccine mandates, disinformation campaigns, and, most importantly, frustration that people couldn’t find answers to their questions in a timely, understandable manner,” she said. Fewer Americans have been keeping up with their COVID shots. Only about 28% of Americans received updated shots last year, a decline from 69% when the first round of vaccines was released.
Jetelina said it’s important for the public to know that COVID vaccines are still recommended and needed.
“COVID-19 vaccines are needed once a year, especially to those over 65, because this virus continues to mutate,” she said. “COVID-19 vaccines are safer than getting the disease itself and provide additional protection year after year.”
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