Top Tennessee Vaccine Official Says She Was Fired Over Shots for Teens
The New York Times
Michelle Fiscus, that state’s immunization leader, was only the latest state public health official to depart amid the pandemic.
NASHVILLE — Across the country, public health officials have left their jobs, strained by a pandemic unlike anything they had confronted before, then tested further as the coronavirus and vaccines became entangled in politics and disinformation. In Tennessee, the state’s top immunization official, Michelle Fiscus, said this week that she was forced from her job after writing a memo describing a 34-year-old legal doctrine that suggested that some teenagers might get vaccines without their parents’ permission. Dr. Fiscus’s memo came as conservative lawmakers in the state were lashing out at efforts by her agency to raise awareness of vaccines among teenagers. One Republican lawmaker, Scott Cepicky, accused the agency of employing “peer pressure” to prod young people into getting immunized.
Five years later, the coronavirus pandemic may seem far away and foggy, or as visceral as yesterday. Here are some stories of those enduring changes.
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