A group of high-level managers at the Louisiana Department of Health walked into a Nov. 14 meeting in Baton Rouge expecting to talk about outreach and community events.

Instead, they were told by an assistant secretary in the department and another official that department leadership had a new policy: Advertising or otherwise promoting the COVID, influenza or mpox vaccines, an established practice there — and at most other public health entities in the U.S. — must stop.

NPR has confirmed the policy was discussed at this meeting, and at two other meetings held within the department’s Office of Public Health, on Oct. 3 and Nov. 21, through interviews with four employees at the Department of Health, which employs more than 6,500 people and is the state’s largest agency.

  • jmcs@discuss.tchncs.de
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    3 days ago

    Shouldn’t health insurance companies be up in arms over this? Vaccines are usually much cheaper than paying for treatment. Unless they are planning to say that lack of vaccination makes it the patient’s fault.

    • RampageDon@lemmy.world
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      3 days ago

      Why make no money off someone getting a preventative shot when you can force them to get expensive treatments after they get sick and deny most of the claims.

      • jmcs@discuss.tchncs.de
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        3 days ago

        The hospital makes money on treatments, the health insurance makes money on avoiding treatments.

        My (non-profit) statutory health insurance/Krankenkasse in Germany pays me to do yearly prophylactic checks every year for this reason.