Florida’s Republican Governor Ron DeSantis is warning that Democrat President Joe Biden’s administration is lying about changes to COVID-19 vaccine policies for children.
During a Monday visit to Callahan, just north of Jacksonville, Gov. DeSantis warned that the media is helping the Biden admin “amplify” falsehoods about Florida’s policies.
The governor made the remarks when he was asked about a debate on vaccinations that occurred Friday and claims from the Biden White House last week that DeSantis had changed course and was ordering vaccines for young children.
“The White House is lying about it, surprise,” DeSantis said.
“Not surprised the White House would lie, definitely not surprised that legacy media would amplify the lie because that’s what they do.
“The State of Florida— they came out with an article saying ‘the State of Florida, its Department of Health, has not ordered mRNA jabs for the babies.’
“Yes, we didn’t. We recommend against it.”
“We are not going to have any programs where we’re trying to jab 6-month-old babies with mRNA,” he added.
“That’s just the reality.
“I think what they thought would happen was that we’d be embarrassed about it.”
WATCH:
On Friday, White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters that Florida had reversed course and is allowing health care providers to order the mRNA vaccines for children under six months to 5-years of age.
“Even though Governor DeSantis reversed course and is now ordering vaccines, we will pull every lever to get pediatricians across Florida vaccines as quickly as possible,” she told McClatchy.
“This is an encouraging first step, and we urge the state to order vaccines for its state and local health departments so that all Florida parents have the opportunity to get their children vaccinated.”
Earlier in the week, Florida Surgeon General Dr. Joseph Ladapo said he disagreed with the Food and Drug Administration’s decision to administer COVID vaccines for kids under 5.
On Monday, DeSantis said the state would not be ordering any mRNA vaccines for children.
“That was always that, we still have not ordered it, we are not going to order it,” he said.
“Now what they’re saying is because practitioners and hospitals can order it, somehow we’ve reversed.
“I said from the beginning that we’d be able to do that.
“We don’t have the authority to prevent it, and quite frankly if someone wants to make a different decision, I would just caution people to look at the actual data in the clinical trial.”
“We’re confident that people can make their own judgments,” he said.DeSantis continued by noting that the recommendation is to give the mRNA shot to “young babies and kids who have already recovered from Covid,” and that there was no data on the efficacy of that.
He also slammed the White House for touting that the U.S. is the “first” country giving shots to this younger age group, saying that it was not necessary, and other nations know it, too.
As to the White House’s recommendations, he said “they were wrong” in a variety of areas, from having schools closed, businesses closed, and other restrictions.
He claimed that the White House and government agencies have basically “become subsidiaries of the pharmaceutical industry.
“They are not independent regulators, they are basically there to rubber-stamp what Pfizer wants to do.”
“We have not ordered any for the Department of Health, there has been zero change in our recommendations,” DeSantis said.
Most parents, he said, are not giving the mRNA vaccine to their kids in Florida.
The New Yorker was among he media outlets to promote the Biden’s admin claims in a Monday article by Dexter Filkins.
“This month, as vaccines were approved for children younger than five, every state in the country rushed to order supplies—except for Florida, where DeSantis resisted until he was overwhelmed by criticism,” Filkins wrote.
DeSantis’s Press Secretary Christina Pushaw addressed the issue on Twitter by posting the article and writing, “This is a blatant lie from Dexter Filkins at @NewYorker.
“They did NOT fact-check this story- neither with our office, nor FL Dept of Health.”Governor DeSantis’ & State of Florida’s position on child Covid vaccines HAS NOT CHANGED.
“And he’s never been ‘overwhelmed by criticism.'”
This is a blatant lie from Dexter Filkins at @NewYorker. They did NOT fact-check this story- neither with our office, nor FL Dept of Health.
Governor DeSantis’ & State of Florida’s position on child Covid vaccines HAS NOT CHANGED. And he’s never been “overwhelmed by criticism”🤦♀️ pic.twitter.com/avSOcSx5KM
— Christina Pushaw 🐊 🇺🇸 (@ChristinaPushaw) June 20, 2022
DeSantis’s position that young children do not need to be vaccinated is consistent with the data that shows children are not dying en masse from the disease, his administration claims.
DeSantis has described the data as “weak” and has recommended against the vaccination for children under 5 but has not prohibited it.
According to the CDC, 143 children aged 1-4 died with COVID-19 between January 1, 2020, and May 28, 2022.
On Monday Dr. Marty Makary summarized Rochelle Walensky’s decision to push for vaccination by writing:
“A more honest announcement would have been: ‘We approved the vax for babies & toddlers based on very little data.'”
A more honest announcement would have been:
"We approved the vax for babies &toddlers based on very little data. While we believe its safe in this population, the study sample size was too low to make a concl about safety. Note that studies were done in kids w/o natural immunity" https://t.co/NmGIRDXUlk— Marty Makary MD, MPH (@MartyMakary) June 20, 2022
