Casey DeSantis calls CDC ‘utter disgrace’ for keeping COVID-19 vaccine on its recommended list for children

Casey DeSantis, wife of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, called out the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on Wednesday for continuing to recommend the mRNA COVID-19 vaccine for babies and children, describing it as an “utter disgrace.”

DeSantis, who has three young children, was advocating for the state legislature to pass a permanent ban on COVID-19 vaccine mandates in Florida, as some of the current protections are set to expire in June.

“It is absolutely ridiculous and unconscionable that at this point, with what we know about the mRNA COVID vaccine, and frankly, what we don’t know about the COVID mRNA vaccine, that the CDC would still put this on … the shot, still on their recommended vaccine list for our children,” she said.

According to the CDC’s recommended schedule on its website, babies are eligible for the COVID-19 vaccine at 6 months old. The World Health Organization updated its guidance about 16 months ago and listed healthy children aged 6 months to 17 years old as “low-priority” targets for the vaccine.

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“Modelling shows that the public health benefit of vaccination is lowest for healthy children and adolescents,” the WHO said in a study on the vaccine, which also noted that the initial push to vaccinate healthy children was to “avoid school closures.” 

The first lady of Florida said vaccine recommendations should be “evidence-based, not agenda-driven.”

“The CDC loses further credibility when their recommendations are not justified by all of the available evidence that we are seeing,” DeSantis said.

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She also said she would like to see vaccine status not being used “as a way to discriminate against our fellow Floridians,” describing instances of mothers being kicked out of pediatricians’ offices and medical patients being denied care over COVID-19 vaccinations.

Her remarks came during a news conference in Tampa where Gov. DeSantis was endorsing legislation that would make vaccine mandate protections permeant in Florida. 

“I’m here as governor endorsing making these protections permanent,” the governor said. “You should not be forced to take an mRNA shot against your will, and that should be the right of every Floridian.”

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The governor also thanked his wife for standing with him in seeking permanent protections against vaccine mandates and for “her righteous anger at the CDC pushing the mRNA shots on our kids.”

Florida Surgeon General Dr. Joseph Ladapo, who has advocated for halting the use of the COVID-19 vaccine, was also present at the conference, as well as a young man negatively impacted by the vaccine.