(C) Common Dreams
This story was originally published by Common Dreams and is unaltered.
. . . . . . . . . .
DeSantis lashes out at Jacksonville man who blamed his policies for racist murders [1]
['Steven Lemongello', 'Caroline Catherman', 'Senior Content Editor', 'Steven Lemongello Is The Senior Content Editor For Politics For The Orlando Sentinel.', 'Caroline Catherman Is The Health Reporter For The Orlando Sentinel.']
Date: 2023-09-07
Gov. Ron DeSantis railed at a Black questioner in Jacksonville on Thursday who suggested his policies bore some blame for the racist shooting there last month that left three Black people dead.
“You have allowed people to hunt people like me,” the man said, leading DeSantis to angrily respond, “I’m not going to let you accuse me of committing criminal activity! I am not going to take that.”
The confrontation happened at the end of an event in which DeSantis and state Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo continued their longstanding campaign attacking masks, vaccine boosters and other COVID measures.
The man said the governor and his policies have “allowed weapons to be put on the street in the hands of immature, hateful people that have caused the deaths of the people that were murdered.”
“You don’t get to come here and blame me for some madman,” DeSantis said as his supporters cheered. “That is not appropriate, and I’m not going to accept it. That is nonsense.”
DeSantis noted how gunman Ryan Palmeter was temporarily held for a mental health examination in 2017 under the Florida law known as the Baker Act.
“That guy was Baker Acted,” DeSantis said. “He should have been ruled ineligible [to own firearms], but they didn’t involuntarily commit him.”
DeSantis signed a bill this year allowing people to carry guns without getting a state permit.
The questioner was escorted out of the restaurant where the event was being held.
DeSantis was booed at a vigil in Jacksonville a day after the shooting deaths on Aug. 26 of three Black residents at a Dollar General store at the hands of a racist killer.
That reception for DeSantis at the largely African-American vigil came as Black leaders in Florida and across the country criticized DeSantis’ policies, including the NAACP civil rights group issuing a travel warning to Florida because it said the state was “openly hostile toward African Americans, people of color and LGBTQ+ individuals.”
The event on Thursday until then was a return to a familiar message for DeSantis amid his struggling presidential campaign against former President Donald Trump.
DeSantis and Ladapo spent most of the conference doubling down on anti-mask and vaccine rhetoric and railing against the federal government ahead of the new COVID-19 booster shot, which will be available soon, potentially as early as Sept. 13.
The shots, updated to target the XBB.1.5 omicron subvariant, are being produced by Moderna, Pfizer, and relative newcomer Novavax. They use the same mRNA technology that Pfizer’s and Moderna’s shots have always contained.
“They’re rushing these new mnra [sic] vaccines, COVID vaccines. They’re not even doing the trials necessary, and the FDA and CDC, they’ve basically become an arm of Big Pharma,” DeSantis said.
Ladapo incorrectly claimed that the coming booster had “no clinical trial done in human beings showing that it benefits people” and “no clinical trial showing that it is a safe product for people.”
Contrary to Ladapo’s claim, Moderna’s booster has undergone successful human clinical trials.
The vaccine shows “robust human immune responses” against the current most common strains of the virus, which are closely related to the XBB.1.5 strain the shots were based on, according to an August news release from the company.
Ken Goodman, director of the Institute for Bioethics and Health Policy at the University of Miami, emphasized that people should follow the scientific consensus when making decisions about whether to get the vaccine.
“I devoutly wish politicians would stop playing doctor,” Goodman said.
Kenneth Alexander, chief of the Division of Infectious Diseases at Nemours Children’s Health, emphasized that though adverse effects from the vaccine are possible, research indicates they are rare and that the threat from COVID-19 is much more serious.
“It’s easy to find somebody who showed an adverse event with a vaccine. That being said, there are … Americans who lost a family member and wish that their family member had been vaccinated,” said Alexander.
The Commonwealth Fund, an independent nonprofit, estimates the U.S. COVID-19 vaccination program prevented more than 18.5 million additional hospitalizations and 3.2 million additional deaths from December 2020 to November 2022.
Ladapo and DeSantis’ criticism continues a years-long back-and-forth with federal health agencies over masking and vaccination.
Earlier this year, the FDA and CDC sent a letter to Ladapo linking his anti-vaccine sentiments to public harm.
“It is the job of public health officials around the country to protect the lives of the populations they serve, particularly the vulnerable. Fueling vaccine hesitancy undermines this effort,” the March letter stated.
[END]
---
[1] Url:
https://www.orlandosentinel.com/2023/09/07/desantis-lashes-out-at-jacksonville-man-who-blamed-his-policies-for-racist-murders/
Published and (C) by Common Dreams
Content appears here under this condition or license: Creative Commons CC BY-NC-ND 3.0..
via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds:
gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/commondreams/
