Fired Tennessee Vaccine Chief Slams Her State’s ‘Toxic Leadership’ and ‘Crazy Ideas About Vaccines’

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Until Monday, Dr. Michelle Fiscus was the medical director for vaccine-preventable diseases and immunization programs at the Tennessee Department of Health, the state’s top vaccination official. Her termination letter did not specify the reason she was fired, but she believes she was scapegoated by Republican lawmakers who opposed efforts to encourage teenagers to get the Covid-19 vaccine. She’s not leaving the office quietly, releasing a 1,200 word public statement and giving interviews to reporters in which she excoriates the “toxic leadership” and “crazy ideas about vaccines” from the politicians who pushed for her ouster.

Fiscus shared her frustrations with Buzzfeed, describing how partisan divisions over the Covid-19 vaccine had driven the reaction to the department’s efforts to promote not just that vaccine, but all vaccines, to teenagers:

The Tennessee health department “has been rolling over and appeasing these legislators instead of standing up for public health and the people of Tennessee,” Fiscus told BuzzFeed News. She suggested that Gov. Bill Lee and Lisa Piercey, the Tennessee Department of Health commissioner who reportedly authorized the change, capitulated because of their political ambitions. “Politics has conspired to create toxic leadership.”

The state health department’s change comes amid growing anxiety over a state law called the “Mature Minor Doctrine,” which allows adolescents 14 and up to make medical decisions without parental consent. This could include getting COVID-19 vaccines, which have been approved for kids 12 and over. Republican lawmakers in the state accused the health department of “targeting” youth for vaccinations and then threatened to dismantle the agency to stop its outreach efforts.

But the new move by the state’s health department affects outreach on all vaccines, not just those protecting children from COVID-19, severely threatening public health in the state. The agency had previously recommended vaccination against flu, measles, mumps, rubella, HPV, and more.

Tennessee has one of the lowest rates of vaccination in the U.S., with only 38% of their population fully vaccinated, and the state’s coronavirus cases have been surging recently. Over the past two weeks, cases are up 400% and deaths are up 9%.

According to Fiscus, she became the focus of lawmakers’ outrage after she sent a letter to medical providers explaining the state law allowing minors above the age of 14 to get vaccines without parental consent — language that she said was provided by the health department’s own general counsel, which she had been told was “blessed by the governor’s office.”

This specific legal doctrine is over three decades old has been used very rarely regarding the coronavirus vaccines. Piercey testified in a legislative hearing that it had been used only eight times so far this year, and three of those were her own kids who were vaccinated while she was at work. That did not calm legislators’ outrage, who even discussed “dissolving the entire agency to stop it from promoting vaccines to teens,” reported the Tennessean.

Promotional graphic created by the Tennessee Department of Health as part of their vaccination awareness program. It has since been removed from their website.

“We have a legislature filled with people who are not scientists and not healthcare providers who have their own crazy ideas about vaccines,” Fiscus told Buzzfeed. “When they saw us trying to do our job of educating people, they saw that as undermining parental authority. They began saber-rattling about dissolving the Department of Health, in the middle of a pandemic, which is ludicrous, and the department’s leadership absolutely crumbled.”

In her public statement, Fiscus wrote that she was “ashamed” of her state’s political leaders, “afraid for [her] state,” and “deeply saddened for the people of Tennessee, who will continue to become sick and die from this vaccine-preventable disease because they choose to listen to the nonsense spread by ignorant people.”

“At this point, you are going to get vaccinated or you are going to get sick,” she concluded. “Yes, not getting the vaccine is a personal choice.  It’s true that you are likely to survive COVID-19.  It’s the 1 out of every 542 people surrounding you that will suffer the consequences of an unfortunate decision to remain vulnerable to this horrible disease.”