While lambasting the Covid vaccine on Wednesday, Gov. Ron DeSantis questioned how effective flu shots are and whether physicians push them in return for compensation.
His comments came at a Tampa press conference to pressure lawmakers to permanently ban the Covid vaccine mandates he signed in 2021. DeSantis' opposition to the Covid vaccine, however, segued him into another pushed-for vaccine: the flu shot.
"That's a whole other thing, this flu shot—how effective that is...It doesn't exactly have a stellar record with efficacy," he said, before asking Florida Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo to look into how physicians are being compensated by pharmaceutical companies.
"The question is why is this stuff being pushed on the society? Because people make money off of it! That's why it's being pushed, I think we all know that," DeSantis added.
Getting a flu vaccine every year is highly recommended by various health agencies, including the Center for Disease Control and the Mayo Clinic. Because flu season usually runs from October to May, and because it's a mercurial virus subject to frequent changes, the vaccine is usually available around September.
The CDC estimated that the flu vaccination prevented 6 million flu-related illnesses in the U.S. in the 2022-2023 flu season, 2.9 million medical visits, 65,000 hospitalizations, and 3,700 deaths. Since 2010, the vaccine has averaged a 38% effectiveness rate.
DeSantis's vaccine skepticism is heavily reflected in the views of Surgeon General Ladapo, who has been a vocal anti-vaccine advocate and strongly aligned with Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy.
Florida opponents have accused Ladapo's direction of leading to an increase in cured diseases, such as Measles, which had a small outbreak in Broward and Orange Counties last year. Earlier this week, a Miami high school student came down with the highly infectious disease.
