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by Brian Shilhavy
Editor, Health Impact News
The biggest news story this past week in the Alternative Media was the announcement by the CDC that their Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) was recommending that the 2023 childhood and adult immunization schedule include “approved or authorized COVID-19 vaccines.”
Here is the CDC’s Press Release (emphasis added):
Today, CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) recommended updates to the 2023 childhood and adult immunization schedules, which includes incorporating additional information for approved or authorized COVID-19 vaccines. CDC only makes recommendations for use of vaccines, while school-entry vaccination requirements are determined by state or local jurisdictions.
It has been almost two years since COVID-19 vaccines were first rolled out in the U.S., and nearly 630 million doses have since been administered nationwide, providing people with critical protection against severe COVID-19. ACIP’s recommendation to add COVID-19 vaccines to the routinely recommended vaccine schedule represents another step in the nation’s recovery.
It’s important to note that there are no changes in COVID-19 vaccine policy, and today’s action simply helps streamline clinical guidance for healthcare providers by including all currently licensed, authorized and routinely recommended vaccines in one document.
The updated schedules and program guidance will be published in early 2023. CDC will continue to update and work with health departments, providers, and other partners over the coming months to ensure a smooth transition of the COVID-19 vaccination program from emergency response to a routine immunization program activity. (Source.)
While here at Health Impact News we obviously vigorously disagree with the ACIP recommendation, this decision has been completely politicized by the Right Wing Alternative media and the Corporate Media outlet Fox News.
Tucker Carlson of Fox News addressed this issue, stating that if the CDC votes to recommend the vaccines be added to their immunization schedule, “your children will not be able to attend school without taking the COVID shot,” and his video clip went viral on Twitter with millions of views:
This then became such a rallying cry in Right Wing circles, that the CDC actually responded to Tucker Carlson’s claim on Twitter:
And as you can read from the official Press Release I just quoted above, the CDC reiterated this after the recommendation: “school-entry vaccination requirements are determined by state or local jurisdictions.”
Tucker Carlson doubled down on his statement, and claimed that the CDC was lying, basically because states take the advice of the CDC:
However, Carlson basically contradicts his own statements. He states that if the ACIP votes to add the COVID-19 vaccines to the immunization schedule,
“children will be forced to take the shot… in order to be educated in the United States in a public school.”
But he then goes on to give several examples where states require children get the shots based on the CDC vaccine schedule.
What he clearly fails to address, is that the states do NOT have to take the CDC recommendations. Just because all of them do, doesn’t prove that the CDC is forcing them to do so.
The other thing Carlson fails to address, is that every state has exemptions that can be filed if parents do not want their children to have the CDC recommended vaccines in order to attend a public school.
Admittedly, there are tremendous financial benefits to the states to require the CDC vaccination schedule, and just as some governors have taken a stand against mandating (that’s the magic word) the EUA COVID-19 vaccines, not a single one of them has taken any actions to prevent the EUA vaccines from being distributed in their states and being injected into the arms of millions of people, including children, so too they will not stop the schools from administering any of the vaccines, including the COVID-19 vaccines, once they are in the CDC schedule.
Since the CDC ACIP voted to include COVID-19 vaccines into the immunization schedule, some Republican Governors, probably taking their cue from Tucker Carlson, have made statements to the public to vow “not to institute mandates in their states.” (There’s that magic word again – “mandates!”)
Summit News covered this:
Following the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices voting 15-0 to add Covid-19 shots to the children’s recommended vaccine schedule, Republican governors have vowed not to institute mandates in their states.
The Covid-19 vaccine has been placed as a recommendation from 6 months of age and older, as well as being approved for the federally funded Vaccine for Kids program, which provides vaccines to children at no or low cost to families.
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis led the way in promising not to institute any COVID vax mandates.
“As long as I am Governor, in Florida there will not be a COVID-19 vaccine mandate for children in our schools,” DeSantis said.
He continued, “That is your decision to make as a parent. These are new shots. I get a kick out of it when people compare to MMR – things that have been around for decades and decades.”
Tennessee Governor Bill Lee said he will ignore the CDC in favour of “personal freedom”:
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