Louisiana’s surgeon general, Dr. Ralph Abraham, said his goal was to get politics out of medicine and improve patients’ informed consent when he decided to issue a directive ending mass vaccination programs in his state.
Critics have decried Abraham’s directive as anti-science and hyper-political, while also arguing it could further hamper an already overburdened health sector. Others have suggested the move will actually serve to decrease confidence in public health rather than improve it, as Abraham foresees.
But, he argues, the move is a critical step toward keeping patients in control of their healthcare, and serves to “depoliticize medicine” rather than further politicize it.
“In my opinion, it is probably not the best thing to just simply go into a herd mentality – just line up – and get a shot,” Abraham said during an exclusive interview with Fox News Digital. “Why would somebody want to do that when they can have that conversation? If you have these mass vaccination events, it takes away that patient-doctor relationship because that conversation then never happens.”
Fox News Digital spoke to Louisiana Surgeon General Dr. Ralph Abraham about his recent move to end statewide mass vaccination programs in an effort to improve patients’ informed consent. (Fox News Digital)
Following the announcement of the new directive, a group of Louisiana medical associations accused Abraham of politicizing vaccines. However, Abraham countered that these criticisms were unfounded.
“People say, ‘Well, you’re putting politics into medicine.’ No. Politics was in medicine from the get-go, starting with COVID,” Abraham said. “My job and my role and my desire is to depoliticize medicine. And the way you do that is to get that patient and that doctor on a one-on-one.”
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Attendees enter the COVID vaccination and negative test verification area before being allowed to enter Comic-Con International in San Diego, California, on July 23, 2022. (Robyn Beck/AFP via Getty Images)
Abraham, the state’s first surgeon general, ordered his staff last week to stop engaging in media campaigns, community health fairs and other mass vaccination efforts that encourage people to get vaccinated without any prior consultation with a doctor.
The move garnered backlash, including from GOP Louisiana Sen. Bill Cassidy, a physician himself. Cassidy said that Abraham’s order was ignoring “the reality of people’s lives,” arguing events like vaccine fairs “keep a child from having to miss school and a mother from having to miss work.”
“To say that cannot occur and that someone must wait for the next available appointment ignores that reality,” Cassidy argued.
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Other critics who spoke to ABC News suggested Abraham’s directive aimed, in part, at restoring confidence that has been lost in public health, will serve to continue to diminish it. They also argue that in an industry that has a shortage of healthcare workers, getting rid of mass vaccination programs could actually serve to overburden the industry even more, and potentially cost lives.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. talks with Sen. Bill Cassidy following his confirmation hearing on Capitol Hill, Jan. 30, 2025. (AP Photo/Rod Lamkey Jr.)
