How Louisiana’s New Surgeon General Wants To Transform Public Health

Evelyn Griffin had led a life out of the spotlight until she testified at the Louisiana Statehouse five years ago and experienced what she called her “great awakening.” The state health department wanted to add covid vaccines to the school immunization schedule, a move no state has ever implemented. Robert F. Kennedy Jr., then known as a leading vaccine skeptic, had already claimed the covid shot was “the deadliest vaccine ever made” during a poster board presentation at the legislative hearing. Griffin, a longtime OB-GYN, relied on nearly identical images during her own blistering testimony against the proposal. After the hearing, she expected splashy headlines about Kennedy’s assertions, shifting the public debate over covid policies and vaccines. But that did not happen; one news outlet dismissed him as a promulgator of propaganda. Griffin was shocked. That is “when I saw how the world worked,” she recalled in a podcast interview. Griffin said she and her husband, a vascular surgeon, decided to take action and “shine light on things.” Now, Kennedy is the nation’s health secretary, and Griffin holds prominent roles that position her to help carry out his vision. Last September, K...