LAFAYETTE — Louisiana's Republican Representative Clay Higgins delivered a letter Monday urging a House subcommittee to ban federal funding for organizations that he says push the COVID-19 vaccine for children.
In a letter to the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, Health, and Human Services, Higgins accused the American Academy of Pediatrics of using its platform to "encourage the COVID-19 shot and influence state health departments' recommended pediatric immunization schedules, now contrary to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's guidance."
The CDC in May, under the direction of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., removed COVID-19 vaccinations from the lists of shots recommended for healthy pregnant women and children, ending the years-long recommendation.
At the time, Kennedy posted on X that the country was now "one step closer to realizing President Trump's promise to make America healthy again."
Rep. Higgins wants to include language in the annual Labor, Health, and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies (LHHS) Appropriations Act that would prohibit federal funding of any program that encourages the COVID-19 vaccine in children and adolescents.
“This language is one step to protect our children, codify President Trump’s COVID-19 oversight, and right the wrongs of the Biden Administration in the public health sector,” Higgins said in a news release.
Monday's letter comes more than a week after the congressman pushed to defund the New Orleans Health Department after the agency shared a social media post from the American Academy of Pediatrics that encouraged COVID-19 immunizations for children.
In a post on X, Higgins claimed that the COVID-19 vaccine was a "state sponsored weakening of the citizenry, absolute injury to our children and calculated decline of fertility."
In response, the President of the American Academy of Pediatrics, Dr. Susan J. Kressly, said in a statement that the organization would "continue to provide recommendations for immunizations that are rooted in science and are in the best interest of health of infants, children and adolescents."
