PANHANDLE HEALTH: Defend public health

I am appalled that the Panhandle Health District Board of Health invoked the Nuremberg Code at their March 12 meeting to discourage vaccination. If Nuremberg matters, start with Warp Speed.

The Nuremberg Code applies to unethical human experimentation, not licensed, FDA-approved vaccines that have completed safety and efficacy trials in clinical settings. Using it to frighten people away from routine vaccination is not informed consent. It is misinformation.

Hypocrisy will be this board’s downfall. It was Donald Trump who rushed COVID-19 vaccines through Operation Warp Speed, wanted to call it the “Trump Vaccine,” and complained he “never got the credit.” He also took the experimental Regeneron antibody infusion before it was available to the public to save his life, then got vaccinated privately before leaving office.

For the MAHA-aligned physicians on this board, I have bad news. Spreading unfounded vaccine fear violates your oath — first do no harm. A federal judge recently struck down RFK Jr.’s ACIP overhaul, ruling his appointees were “distinctly unqualified,” including vaccine skeptics like Dr. Robert Malone and Dr. Kirk Milhoan, a cardiologist fired by Harvard for refusing the COVID-19 vaccine. And at least six members lacked any vaccine expertise.

The science is equally unsparing. Defend Public Health’s Whopper of the Week detailed how multiple studies and data reviews, including those commissioned by RFK Jr.’s own HHS, have failed to find causal links between vaccines and chronic disease or autism. His own FDA appointees produced a pediatric mortality report so flawed that expert staff refused to sign it.

Speak out. Show up to Board of Health public meetings and hold this board accountable to science-based policy.

DR. KAREN BLOEM
Coeur d’Alene