In case you missed this, and you probably did seeing as though nobody in Louisiana’s legacy media seems to have picked up on it, on Friday Attorney General Jeff Landry popped out a press release which brings up a fairly important question: why is it that our public health complex has gone so completely overboard over the idea that every teenager in America needs to be vaccinated against COVID-19?

We aren’t anti-vaxxers here at The Hayride. Vaccines are a wonderful thing. We’re not opposed to the COVID vaccines, either; they’re without question an important aspect of the fight against that virus, though we’ve been perplexed and irritated from the very beginning over the strange lack of interest by the medical community in actually treating and curing the disease the Wuhan virus inflicts and we suspect the tens or hundreds of billions of dollars vaccines can generate for the pharmaceutical industry, particularly in comparison to the near-nothing Big Pharma could earn off mass distribution of ivermectin or hydroxychloroquine in the event one or both were to be indicated as an effective treatment for the virus, might have had something to do with these unusual reactions.

But one thing we know about COVID-19 is that unless you have some rather serious pre-existing comorbidity, if you’re young the virus is highly unlikely to affect you in significant ways. Getting it is really not much of a big deal to your health. And asymptomatic spread of the virus is far rarer than the media has sold to you.

Meaning there is very little real reason for school systems and other governmental entities to insist on vaccinating kids against COVID-19. If they get it and don’t get sick from it, they get the same immunity without any potential side effects.

And it turns out those side effects, while rare, do exist. And they’re a big deal. Landry’s release brings that home, and it’s time we start tapping the breaks on these vaccine mandates.

Here’s what the Attorney General’s office put out on Friday…

Public Deserves Truth about Effects of COVID-19 Vaccines on Kids
AG Landry, SG Murrill Cite Troubling Reports of Myocarditis and Pericarditis

BATON ROUGE, LA – Leaders of the Louisiana Department of Justice are demanding transparency from the federal and state governments about the effects of COVID-19 vaccines on youth.

In blistering letters to the CDC and the Governor, Attorney General Jeff Landry and Solicitor General Liz Murrill expressed concerns over increasing reports of myocarditis and pericarditis in young adults who received a COVID-19 vaccine.

“Myocarditis is a serious medical condition that can result in heart failure, heart attack or stroke, arrhythmias resulting from damage to the heart muscle, and sudden cardiac death. Both myocarditis and these consequences of having it can be fatal if not treated immediately,” wrote Attorney General Landry to Dr. Tom Shimabukuro, chairman of the CDC COVID-19 Vaccine Task Force.

“Similarly, pericarditis can last as long as three weeks and can also be recurring or chronic. It can lead to pericardial effusion, chronic constrictive pericarditis, and cardiac tamponade (a life-threatening condition that requires emergency treatment),” continued Attorney General Landry.

Attorney General Landry further voiced frustration with the CDC’s misleading and inaccurate statements about these dangerous side effects’ connection to the vaccine. By refusing to address these facts, Attorney General Landry believes the CDC’s push to vaccinate otherwise healthy children and young adults could have serious consequences.

In a separate letter to Governor John Bel Edwards and officials at the Louisiana Department of Health, Solicitor General Murrill criticized the Edwards Administration’s media campaign to vaccinate children despite the increasing occurrence of myocarditis and pericarditis.

“There is no doubt myocarditis and pericarditis are confirmed adverse reactions to the vaccines and the problem is getting worse, not better,” wrote Solicitor General Murrill.

Solicitor General Liz Murrill included a personal account of her son’s battle with myocarditis just days after receiving the second dose of the vaccine.

Attorney General Landry is calling for the CDC and the Louisiana Department of Health to release clear and accurate information regarding the potentially deadly consequences the COVID-19 vaccine is having on children and young adults.

“While in a ‘cost-benefit’ analysis of overall numbers of vaccinated persons, the CDC may conclude that this risk is outweighed by its benefits, it will provide little comfort to those suffering from the long-term damage caused by these conditions and to parents who may lose their children to sudden cardiac arrest,” concluded Attorney General Landry.

The letters are pretty compelling…

Landry’s was sent to Tom Shimabukuro, who’s with the CDC’s Vaccine Safety team, in concert with the attorneys general of Montana and Alabama, and it makes three points – first, that the CDC has nowhere near enough data to indicate they know what the scope of the risk of these kinds of heart problems are on kids taking the vaccine, second, that myocarditis and pericarditis are no joke and shouldn’t be minimized like the CDC is doing, and third, rushing ahead with these vaccines could end up killing a not-small number of people.

But the one you really want to read is Liz Murrill’s letter, because she’s got a terrifying personal story which really ought to grind this whole thing to a halt. That’s why we’re reproducing it below…

Dear Governor Edwards, Dr. Phillips and Dr. Kanter:

I have been in direct contact with Chief of Staff Mark Cooper, Executive Counsel Matthew Block, Dr. Phillips and Dr. Kanter in recent weeks to express my continuing concerns regarding myocarditis and pericarditis in young adults and teens who received the second dose of Pfizer or Moderna COVID-19 vaccines. These medical conditions pose a grave threat to our children. My concerns are not theoretical – as you know, my 17-year-old otherwise healthy son spent four days in pediatric ICU with myocarditis just four weeks ago, only 24 hours after receiving his 2d dose of the Pfizer vaccine. As of today, as the CDC convenes additional emergency meetings on this issue, the numbers have dramatically grown and the CDC has acknowledged there is a link.

I was shocked and dismayed, therefore, to see this June 19, 2021, LDH-produced program, “COVID-19 Vaccines & Children: What you need to know,” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2uW0IYkQbow. It ran the day before the CDC’s originally scheduled Vaccine Safety Committee meeting on the myocarditis/pericarditis problem and is now posted on the LDH website and on YouTube. LDH provided a whole hour of grossly misleading propaganda with potentially deadly misinformation promoted by doctors, including Dr. Kanter, which completely undermines informed consent.

There is no doubt myocarditis and pericarditis are confirmed adverse reactions to the vaccines and the problem is getting worse, not better. The VAERS System for reporting adverse events takes time to confirm reports and collect data, and yet the data is already of great concern. Even the incomplete data ending May 31 showed a much higher than normal incidence of cases. In just a few weeks, the numbers of reported cases have risen dramatically. Attorney General Landry and the Attorney Generals of Alabama and Montana, out of their shared concerns over this issue, have sent the following letter to the CDC Vaccine Safety Committee.

Myocarditis and pericarditis are very serious medical conditions, but LDH is minimizing this fact. After seeing some public health officials’ statements on this issue, my son’s lifelong pediatrician – a proponent of vaccines – stated, the terms “mild” and “myocarditis” should not even be uttered in the same sentence. So you can understand my shock at the LDH video. LDH underemphasized the connection of these conditions with the vaccines (“It just happens,” “not sure yet,” “very, very, small numbers”) and also underemphasized the nature of the conditions themselves (“side effects are mild,” “benefits are greater,” “take a couple of days off,” “symptoms cleared”). Instead of directing parents and young adults to take this issue seriously, the LDH panel of “experts” (none of which were pediatric cardiologists), deflected (vaccines are “a medical miracle!” “our ticket to normalcy!” “safe and effective!”). All of these statements are flatly false and potentially deadly.

The numbers are not small and myocarditis and pericarditis, if untreated or unknown, can be deadly. The numbers of reported incidents are growing larger day-by-day, and the CDC has acknowledged the problem. That is why it is stunningly disappointing to see LDH
minimizing it. I certainly expected the opposite. My 17-year-old son was in grave danger, but like many parents, I did not know it. Had the initial emergency room doctor actually been aware of this issue, perhaps she would not have dismissed my concerns. Given his subsequent test results, I am certain he would only have been permitted to return to Baton Rouge in an ambulance attached to a heart monitor with a defibrillator close by, if at all. Instead, I drove him home from Texas alone wondering what I would do if went into cardiac arrest on I-49 at 11 p.m. at night. With Troponin levels at 16, we were not in the Emergency Room at Our Lady of the Lake Children’s Hospital the next day for no reason. Nor was he hooked up to pulse-oxygen and heart monitors for four days and required to receive a 15-hour IVIg infusion, under the supervision of specialists in the pediatric intensive care, to treat “mild side effects.” In addition to an infusion to “stop his body from attacking itself,” he underwent daily ECGs, an MRI, and had bloodwork drawn every 6 hours, He was starting work as a camp counselor, where he could have had a massive heart attack and died had we followed the advice of Dr. Kanter and the LDH “experts” (one of which, I would note, is the “Doctor for the People” – a “medical broadcast journalist” who appears on Dr. Oz). Last week, a 13-year-old Michigan child died of myocarditis and pericarditis three days after receiving the 2d dose of the Pfizer vaccine,3 a completely avoidable tragedy had the CDC and State Departments of Health, like LDH, not downplayed this threat. Have you determined this is the price parents must unwittingly pay to reach higher statistics of vaccinated people in our State?

Not only are these conditions very serious, with the potential for long-term heart damage and possibly failure, but treatment and follow up care is costly. Our hospital bills and pre- and post-hospitalization doctor’s bills will exceed $30,000. My son requires specialized care from
pediatric cardiologists for at least six months while the damage to his heart heals. He will have to wear a Holter Monitor for a week in two months, after his heart has more time to heal. He is prohibited from engaging in athletics or even P.E. at school for six months.

As children head into summer camps, two-a-day football practices, cross country, volleyball, and other competitive athletics in the summer and fall, they could be literally running right into fatal cardiac arrest. And yet LDH said none of this. (“Scholarships! “Lottery prizes!”). Your and LDH’s misguided effort to promote the unnecessary vaccination of children and young adults in the face of a clear and present danger to their health and safety is irresponsible and could cause children to die. For health care professionals, this is gross medical malpractice. And it certainly undermines the informed consent that is necessary for parents and young adults to evaluate their own risks. Moreover, it is a violation of medical ethics to promote the vaccination of individuals for whom the risk outweighs the benefits (children) as a means of protecting someone else (older adults). Yet this is precisely what LDH promoted through this propagandized video.

Attorney General Landry and I oppose any mandates that individuals be vaccinated. But even absent a mandate, you should be providing the People with accurate information. This is even more important for young adults and teens, who have low to no risk even if they contract COVID-19. These vaccines have not been subjected to the full rigor, size, or scope of clinical testing of other fully-approved vaccines. With children and younger adults, in particular, the statistics referenced by LDH are highly misleading. The relevant population is not all individuals in the world who have been vaccinated, but the age group of young adults and children. The testing on this population is not even close to that of older adults. And the risk posed by COVID-19 is not the same either. 

I will continue to monitor this issue as it develops, and you can be sure that both Attorney General Landry and I will continue to provide information to the public on this issue as it develops. I ask that you promptly remove this grossly misleading and dangerous video from your website and from YouTube.

Others will take from this all kinds of anti-vaxx theories. Rather than go down that road, we’re going to chalk this up to the big government nanny-state impulse which runs out of control with Edwards and the public health bureaucrats he’s surrounded himself with. It was bad enough that vaccinating teenagers against a virus which is highly unlikely to make them seriously ill was unnecessary. Now, when it’s beginning to look like doing so causes a not-insignificant risk of a very serious complication (and after all of the patent BS the CDC and its public health bureaucrat brethren have put out over the past year, their minimizing this risk shouldn’t make you feel any better), it’s worse than that.

And it brings up a rather interesting question about whether this is actionable when one of the kids they’ve forced to be vaccinated ends up kicking off of a heart attack during summer conditioning for high school football or two-a-day fall camp. Because as the evidence rolls in on these side effects, you start to exceed the standard by which a public official who exhibits not just gross negligence willful and intentional malfeasance in causing that harm.

Just something to think about. And we wouldn’t recommend going along with this push to vaccinate your kids for COVID-19 without getting some damned good answers to some very pointed questions about whether the risk of contracting the virus really is worse than the risk from those vaccines.

These are kids, after all. They aren’t 70-year-olds. And one size most certainly does not fit all.