The following is presented as part of The Columbian’s Opinion content, which offers a point of view in order to provoke thought and debate of civic issues. Opinions represent the viewpoint of the author. Unsigned editorials represent the consensus opinion of The Columbian’s editorial board, which operates independently of the news department.
There’s a tendency to assume the best about Ron DeSantis because, after all, he isn’t Donald Trump. But DeSantis is no moderate. He is an extremist, cut from the same cloth as Trump, just with a better tailor.
On Tuesday, the anti-vax co-front-runner announced that he was forming a new committee at the state level to counter recommendations from the Food and Drug Administration and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and that a statewide grand jury would be investigating “crimes and wrongdoing” related to the COVID vaccine.
The past president of the Florida chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics said she was “stunned” by what she described as “another example of politicizing health care. … We know vaccines save lives. The data is very clear. Those of us in the scientific community are outraged by this.”
DeSantis’ choice to head the new public health committee is an avowed anti-vaxxer who has recommended that children not be vaccinated and has raised questions about the efficacy of the vaccines for anyone but the elderly.
The new committee, said its leader, will study autopsy results in cases of “sudden deaths of individuals that received the COVID-19 vaccine in Florida.”
DeSantis’ press office accused pharmaceutical companies and the Biden administration of pushing the distribution of mRNA vaccines “through relentless propaganda while ignoring real-life adverse events.”
The so-called experts who spoke with DeSantis this week included signatories to the Great Barrington Declaration, which was released in 2020. The declaration opposed COVID restrictions, including lockdowns and quarantines, and came out in favor of herd immunity, the approach followed with disastrous results in Sweden. The Great Barrington Declaration offered no scientific data to support its argument, doubtless because there isn’t any.
In a statement, a spokeswoman for Pfizer pointed out the obvious: mRNA vaccines against COVID “have saved hundreds of thousands of lives, tens of billions of dollars in health care costs, and enabled people worldwide to go about their lives more freely.”
But don’t tell that to DeSantis. He is busy playing games. “In Florida,” DeSantis warned, “you know, it is against the law to mislead and to misrepresent, particularly when you’re talking about the efficacy of a drug.”
Who is misleading whom?
DeSantis is Trump without the tantrums. Precisely because he seems to be more reasonable, he is as scary as Donald Trump.
The CDC has been criticized for taking politics into account and undermining public confidence. But the answer is hardly a political panel of pseudo-scientists. And the idea that DeSantis will do for America what he has done in Florida is a recipe for disaster.
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