The Politicization Of A Pandemic : Science & The Public's Health Under Attack
"I am not a political operative, I am a physician who was, until today, charged with protecting the people of Tennessee ... against preventa
“Fiscus said tension with GOP lawmakers escalated when she publicized a public document on Tennessee’s "Mature Minor Doctrine,” a state Supreme Court case ruling from 1987 that states Tennesseans 14 to 18 years old may be treated “without parental consent unless the physician believes that the minor is not sufficiently mature to make his or her own health care decisions.”
“Within days, legislators were contacting TDH asking questions about the memo with some interpreting it as an attempt to undermine parental authority,” Fiscus said, adding that her conduct was called “reprehensible” by a Tennessee lawmaker.
“That member went on to call for the 'dissolving and reconstitution’ of the Department of Health in the midst of a pandemic where one out of every 542 Tennesseans has died from Covid-19 on their watch and less than 38 percent of Tennesseans have been vaccinated,” Fiscus wrote.
As of Monday, state and federal data showed 38 percent of Tennesseans were fully vaccinated against Covid-19, lagging behind much of the nation.
“We now have our most hesitant population being rural male conservative whites, who really do hang their hat on this political ideology that Covid-19 isn’t real, isn’t a threat, or that getting the vaccine somehow props up the left-wing part of our political system,” she said.
Fiscus told Hayes that the greatest challenges the state faces with raising its vaccination rate were the “politicization of public health and in people’s choosing not to protect themselves.”
