Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis on Tuesday defended his launch of the Public Health Integrity Committee – a state alternative to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention – and in the process waded into vaccine-skeptic territory on friendly Fox News airwaves.
Laura Ingraham introduced DeSantis as someone who “has fought relentlessly against the medical cartel’s silencing campaign,” and referenced how the governor earlier in the day also called for a statewide grand jury investigation into what he labeled vaccine “crimes and wrongdoing.”
DeSantis, whose decision was strongly opposed by medical experts, downplayed the effectiveness of vaccines and booster shots when asked about “suppressed” voices that he is now defending.
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“It seems like the medical establishment never wanted to be honest with people about the potential drawbacks,” DeSantis asserted before criticizing colleges for requiring students to receive booster shots. “Any type of cost-benefit analysis would say the benefit for them taking the shot, as you alluded to — it doesn’t prevent them from getting infected or spreading it, anyways. The benefit is minuscule.”
Ingraham, who did not push back against DeSantis’ final point, cited critics who say the popular governor has “authoritarian ambitions” before asking, “Is your goal with this roundtable today to demonize public health and safety officials?”
DeSantis, who has sold campaign merchandise critical of Dr. Anthony Fauci, seemed to resist that notion.
“The authoritarians were the ones that wanted to mandate the [vaccine] on people. I protected people from having that happen and made sure Floridians could make their own choice,” he claimed. “At the end of the day, what we’re looking for is to provide truth, to provide accurate data and to provide accurate analysis.”
At the roundtable discussion earlier on Tuesday, DeSantis said of the CDC that “anything they put out, you just assume at this point that it’s not worth the paper it’s printed on.”
In a statement to The Washington Post, Pfizer spokeswoman Sharon J. Castillo responded to DeSantis’ vaccine claims, saying mRNA COVID vaccines “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.”
