Tucker Carlson Incorrectly Claims CDC Mandating Kids Get Covid-19 Vaccine For School

Before you make a claim about what the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is going to do, maybe, just maybe, you should look at what the CDC can and can’t actually do. On October 18, FOX News host Tucker Carlson claimed on a tweet that “The CDC is about to add the Covid vaccine to the childhood immunization schedule, which would make the vax mandatory for kids to attend school.” Yet, the CDC clearly states on its website that “State laws establish vaccination requirements for school children.” And the CDC, by the way, ain’t one of the 50 states in the U.S.

On the tweet, Carlson included a video of himself from his FOX News show named after himself “Tucker Carlson Tonight” essentially making the same claim:

As you can see in the video, Carlson began the segment with, “So here’s an amazing story that’s been effectively buried.” Whoa. Buried? By whom and for what reason? And buried in what? In cheese? Carlson did not really specify any of these but went on to say, “This week the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices is expected to add the Covid-19 vax to the list of required childhood vaccines. If this happens, your children will not be able to attend school without taking the Covid shot.” The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) is indeed meeting on October 18 and 19 in a virtual meeting that can be viewed on a webcast. The agenda does include a discussion about “Covid-19 vaccines in children.” The ACIP develops recommendations on the use vaccines that in turn are forwarded to CDC’s Director and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services for approval. Once approved, these recommendations will be published in the CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR). The ACIP consists of public health, medical, and scientific experts external to the CDC.

While Carlson may be a number of things, he is neither a medical, public health, or scientific expert nor a lawyer. A number of real medical doctors, scientists, and other relevant experts pointed out the clear problems with Carlson’s statement. For example, Peter Hotez, MD, PhD, Dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine, wrote, “Actually, the CDC clearly says that ‘state laws establish vaccination requirements’ and Fox News knows this. Guessing just another antivaccine dog whistle for their ratings,” in the following tweet:

In his tweet, Hotez thanked @doritmi, who is Dorit Reiss, LLB, PhD, a Professor of Law at the University Of California (UC) Hastings School of Law and expert in these law-ish kind of things, for alerting him to Carlson’s claim.

Later in his tweet thread, Hotez offered something that wasn’t in the Tucker tweet: verifiable official sources supporting what he was saying, in this case, links to CDC websites. Onc of these websites clearly indicates that, “State laws establish vaccination requirements for school children. These laws often apply not only to children attending public schools but also to those attending private schools and day care facilities.”

So does that make what Carlson tweeted a “swing and a mis,” as in misinformation? Well, Tara C. Smith, PhD, a Professor of Epidemiology at the Kent State University College of Public Health, used the word “misinformation” in the following tweet about Carlson’s tweet:

So with a number of real experts out there who have had many research publications on vaccines and infectious diseases, whom did Carlson bring on to his show segment as a guest? Well, he gave some air time to Martin Makary, M.D., M.P.H., a Professor of Surgery at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and whose stated areas of expertise on the Johns Hopkins website are things like abdominal surgery, advanced laparoscopy, bile duct surgery, pancreatic surgery, and various other pancreas and gall bladder related procedures. So not exactly respiratory viruses like the Covid-19 coronavirus because your pancreas is not connected directly to your nose. At least, it shouldn’t be.

So did this air time turn out to be hot air time? Well, in the video, Makary made some pretty strong statements without providing much evidence to support them. For example, he asserted that “the CDC’s committee that’s voting, I mean, that it is essentially a kangaroo court, you have to be an official ‘card-carrying vaccine fanatic’ to be on that committee. If you are not then they are basically not going to accept that some vaccines are important and others lack the evidence to support broad distribution.”

Wow. Presumably by “kangaroo court,” Makary didn’t mean a court of actual kangaroos, which would be weird and fascinating at the same time. Dictionary.com defines a “kangaroo court” as a “self-appointed or mob-operated tribunal that disregards or parodies existing principles of law or human rights, especially one in a frontier area or among criminals in prison.” Hmm, isn’t calling the ACIP a “kangaroo court” jumping like a kangaroo to conclusions about the ACIP without providing real supporting evidence? And who exactly is an official “card-carrying vaccine fanatic” and who is making such cards? Makary also mentioned a German study without clearly describing the study, pointing out its strengths and limitations, or providing enough information so that viewers could find the study themselves.

There certainly have been plenty of problems with the Covid-19 response from the CDC, the Biden Administration, and the Trump Administration. Throughout the pandemic, communications and policies have often been very inconsistent. For example, the CDC relaxed their face mask recommendations in the Spring of 2021 and then again in the Spring of 2022 despite scientific studies showing the value of face masks in preventing transmission of the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) and other countries like Japan maintaining greater face mask use. In the Summertime of both years, Covid-19 surges in the U.S. soon followed. Plus, in a number of situations, the Biden and Trump Administrations could have done more to push Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna to publicly release more of their Covid-19 vaccine data earlier.

But suggesting that the CDC will be somehow making the Covid-19 vaccine mandatory for all kids to attend school around the U.S. and calling the ACIP a “kangaroo court” would be leaping way too far in a way that may court even more problems for our society. It could leave the very wrong impression that the CDC is somehow a dictatorial organization when the opposite may have been the case during the pandemic. Public health experts and scientists have raised concerns that the CDC has continued to bend way too much to political pressure and prematurely relaxed Covid-19 precautions.

If Carlson is really interested in seeing real science drive pubic health decision making then why not have a panel of real relevant scientists on his show. Such a panel could have then provided real scientific facts that discounted what Carlson has asserted. They could have even said things like, “by the way, did you actually look at the CDC web site that says what the CDC can and can’t do. It’s on something called the Internet.”