Anne Goyette is fighting leukemia and needs the COVID-19 booster now. Her pharmacy has it. She’s eligible.
But amid chaos under Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s upended vaccine policies, Goyette’s doctor, four nurses and the pharmacy have told her no.
Over seven days of ping-ponging between them, Goyette came to understand that some health care workers know their ability to give the vaccine has changed, but they don’t always know why.
Her primary care doctor asked her to wait until her next appointment, a month away. The pharmacy said they could give it to her, but only with a prescription. The doctor’s nurse said the pharmacy couldn’t take their electronic prescriptions. The pharmacy said certainly they could take electronic prescriptions. Another nurse said it’s just not policy.
Goyette tried her leukemia specialist but that doctor wasn’t immediately available.
Finally, some clarity: As U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s many changes to vaccine policy roll out, her Publix pharmacy no longer lets its pharmacists make the vaccination decision on their own. They want to see a prescription.
And over at Wellstar Health System, where her doctors and nurses work, officials are watching for a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention vaccine committee meeting Sept. 18 and 19 before they decide whether to let doctors give the booster. Though Kennedy’s HHS officially says that someone in danger like Goyette should be able to get the vaccine, her doctors have questions. They’re going to wait.
Goyette, who is also a nurse, says her cancer won’t let her wait. “Absolutely not. This is life or death for me.”
Credit: Courtesy
Credit: Courtesy
Fall vaccination policy is in chaos for many Georgia patients this month under Kennedy Jr. He doesn’t see it that way, and has said that he is restoring trust in America’s health agencies.
Credit: courtesy
Credit: courtesy
As he was grilled in Congressional hearings recently about the possible problems, Kennedy said healthy people shouldn’t get the COVID shot, but insisted, “Everybody can get the booster.”
A spokesman for Kennedy said last week that his “commitment to evidence-based science is why, in just seven months, he and the HHS team have accomplished more than any health secretary in history in the fight to end the chronic disease epidemic and Make America Healthy Again.”
The fear of situations like Goyette’s were a major subject of discussion at the Georgia Department of Public Health Board meeting this week.
Not only is there turmoil on the ground for doctors, pharmacists and patients right now, the state DPH board said they worried the general uncertainty under Kennedy will last into the future. Board members agreed in conversation that Georgia needs to take leadership for appropriate vaccination science and policy in the state even — or especially — if that science diverges in the future from the CDC.
The federal vaccine committee’s votes on which to recommend for patients have big implications under Georgia law, providing protection for health workers who give a vaccine if insurance companies decide not to pay or patients sue.
The federal committee is called the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices. Kennedy months ago fired all ACIP’s members, and he’s slowly appointing new ones more in line with his vaccine skepticism. One of his new members presented a scientific paper at the first meeting with new members that cited a nonexistent source, discovered by news reports.
Some board members mentioned a few other states that are going their own way on vaccines, forming state alliances to vet and decide on vaccines. In Georgia, that could take a change to state law and rules. The board chairman told the AJC it’s too early to say whether Georgia should do that. And academic groups like the American Academy of Pediatrics are issuing their own advice that now diverges from that of HHS.
The federal tumult could endanger vaccine access in other ways, they said.
Some DPH board members expressed concern about whether companies will keep manufacturing vaccines if federal investment and legal protections disappear.
Pediatricians “have witnessed how long it took pharmaceutical companies to invest in childhood vaccination programs, and the erosion is going to take a very long time to recover from,” said board member Dr. Lucky Jain.
“The companies are going to say, I think we’ll make cancer drugs,” said Board Chairman Jim Curran.
Board members agreed that DPH needs to use its expertise and reach to advance the science of vaccines — and avoid decisions like were made in Florida, where the state surgeon general has vowed to end requirements that children be vaccinated at school.
“I can’t tell you how many young faculty members who have young children have written to me just because they know I am on the DPH board, (asking) what we are doing preemptively to avoid a situation like what has happened in Florida,” said Jain, a retired pediatrician-in-chief and Department of Pediatrics chair at Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta, who was also chair of pediatrics at Emory University School of Medicine.
Goyette eventually heard on social media that CVS Minute Clinic was giving the shots to walk-ins, and she said she got hers Wednesday, after 10 days of trying. CVS Minute Clinics are different from CVS pharmacies and were not requiring outside prescriptions.
CVS pharmacies, like Publix, are not allowing pharmacists to give the COVID booster to customers without a prescription. Piedmont and Emory health systems have said their doctors will give the prescription. Emory is waiting for the CDC committee before it will give the shot on site.
“I think we are all very committed to immunizations,” said DPH Commissioner Kathleen Toomey. “As recently as this morning, we talked to the governor’s office about it. So I think that there’s a huge commitment and understanding of the importance of immunizations, particularly for children, for children’s health.”
DPH intends to carry that message, Toomey said. Meanwhile DPH is not giving out the vaccine.
“We are waiting to see the (vaccine committee) guidelines,” Toomey said. “If it is really out of line with what we feel is appropriate, given the science and epidemiologic trends as we know it, we can make decisions then.”
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