There’s a scoop from the Tennesseean that actually seems to be taken from an article that appeared on Apple News last week, and it’s burning up Twitter. The impression going around is that Tennessee Republicans are doing all they can to keep kids from being vaccinated.
SCOOP: Tennessee Department of Health halts all vaccine outreach to kids – not just for COVID-19, but all diseases – amid pressure from GOP. Staff ordered to remove the agency logo from any documents providing vaccine info to the public, per internal dox. https://t.co/PX0Rvpc6Ot
— Brett Kelman (@BrettKelman) July 13, 2021
Here’s Chelsea Clinton responding to the Apple News article:
This is so disturbing. Public health officials in Tennessee should be encouraging teenagers to get vaccinated, not capitulating to anti-vaxxers. Teens who don’t get vaccinated against #covid19 are at greater risk of hospitalization, death, long-haul covid. https://t.co/UxT3O99ogt
— Chelsea Clinton (@ChelseaClinton) July 9, 2021
And here’s Dan Rather weighing in:
I am old enough to remember when childhood diseases – now controlled by vaccines – terrorized families, wreaking pain and heartbreak. This is lunacy. https://t.co/t84c8DKIUG
— Dan Rather (@DanRather) July 13, 2021
Dan Rather isn't old enough, it seems, to remember when we used to talk to the parents and guardians of children instead of going behind their backs to solicit minors. https://t.co/bZLBDYuk0M
— Aldous Huxley's Ghost™ (@AF632) July 13, 2021
Yeah, according to the article, the state will be sending reminder postcards to parents and not directly to children:
“Providing information and access are routine public health functions, and that has not changed,” the [Department of Health] said. “The department’s role is to provide adults with trustworthy information as well as access to the vaccine should they make that choice personally or for their children. The department has evaluated events, social media posts and other means to ensure it is explicitly clear that it is supporting parents in this process and there is no room for interpretation, otherwise.”
For those suggesting that Tennessee has now ceased all vaccine outreach to children, that simply isn't true: they've shifted it over to the Department of Education rather than the Department of Health, according to the original report pic.twitter.com/UFbIF9fLGC
— Ben Shapiro (@benshapiro) July 13, 2021
Tennessee's entire goal is to do vaccine outreach to parents rather than directly to children, btw, because of desire for parental consent — again, according to the original article pic.twitter.com/WyBMFWDrbx
— Ben Shapiro (@benshapiro) July 13, 2021
I understand that the media would love to portray Tennessee as a state that now wants to discourage vaccination for children, because RED STATES EVIL, but that's just not the story. This is a story about parental consent and which department handles the outreach.
— Ben Shapiro (@benshapiro) July 13, 2021
A bunch of people who should know better are spreading this around as if it is the clear and unvarnished truth
Some people have internalized that journalists lie and are to be treated skeptically and some people have not https://t.co/SYNdV5H4Y8
— PoliMath (@politicalmath) July 13, 2021
Let's look at the article
You can read it herehttps://t.co/kufWHHHqWh
— PoliMath (@politicalmath) July 13, 2021
"The TN DoH will halt all adolescents vaccine outreach"
link? None. You just gotta trust them
"amid pressure from GOP lawmakers"
What pressure? This link which does not actually show pressure, it shows the DOH CMO making a very sane decisionhttps://t.co/kfLnTg1Na2
— PoliMath (@politicalmath) July 13, 2021
The article says the health dept isn't going to send reminders to teenager get the second dose of COVID vaccines
People want you to think this is partisan slack-jawed yokel bullshit. It is, in fact, a risk-to-reward view adopted in the UKhttps://t.co/lLvLDOnSV9
— PoliMath (@politicalmath) July 13, 2021
Now, it could very well be that TN is actually doing a bad thing here (halting all vaccine outreach would be bad)
But that has not been established *at all* to a skeptical eye and a lot of smart people are treating it like the unquestioned truth.
— PoliMath (@politicalmath) July 13, 2021
And now, thanks to @sethingtondev, I see that I was absolutely right to be skeptical of this story
We all gotta develop better bullshit detectors, we're still way too gullible when we're being lied tohttps://t.co/gTnpvX4a6G
— PoliMath (@politicalmath) July 13, 2021
Even more context that seems importanthttps://t.co/lwCTSjqsNv
— PoliMath (@politicalmath) July 13, 2021
I know and trust Brett.
— J Emory Parker 🏳️🌈 Get Vaccinated (@jaspar) July 13, 2021
I'll wait until I can see the documents, given that I've read the reporting and even the stuff that can be checked is incredibly duplicitous
— PoliMath (@politicalmath) July 13, 2021
To be fair, there should never be vaccine outreach to kids, only to the parents and guardians of said kids.
— Someone you may know MPH (@memclar) July 13, 2021
We are talking about kids as young as 12 here.
Related:
Fake News Godfather Dan Rather claims people denying climate change are the ones refusing the vaccine, FACE PLANTS majestically over STATS https://t.co/srM9Rhr5ZO
— Twitchy Team (@TwitchyTeam) July 12, 2021
Join the conversation as a VIP Member