In what has become a pattern of spreading vaccine misinformation, the Florida health department is telling older Floridians and others at highest risk from covid-19 to avoid most booster shots, saying they are potentially dangerous.

Clinicians and scientists denounced the message as politically fueled scaremongering that also weakens efforts to protect against diseases like measles and whooping cough.

A prominent Florida doctor expressed dismay that medical leaders in the state, leery of angering Gov. Ron DeSantis, have been slow to counter anti-vaccine messages from Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo, including the latest covid bulletin. Ladapo is a DeSantis appointee and the top official at the state health department.

The bulletin makes a number of false or unproven claims about the efficacy and safety of mRNA-based covid vaccines by Pfizer and Moderna, including that they could threaten “the integrity of the human genome.” Florida’s guidance generally regurgitates ideas from anti-vaccine websites, said John Moore, a professor of microbiology at Weill Cornell Medicine.

  • Jo Miran@lemmy.ml
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    5 hours ago

    I always get my booster shots when I am in Florida. Zero wait lines. I can just walk right in.

  • DMCMNFIBFFF@lemmy.world
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    8 hours ago

    Don’t take any vaccines, Trump supporters and Republicans!

    They’re poison!

    If you need to throw your money away, buy horse tranquilizers to consume and whatever crap Alex Jones is flogging!

    Do it! Now!

      • ramble81
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        6 hours ago

        Yes. We need their method to be quick so the virus can’t mutate in them and affect the rest of us.

      • 667@lemmy.radio
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        4 hours ago

        Equally bad idea because, like toilet paper, they will horde the syringes needed to inject it