Mainstreaming Conspiracy: Small Town Board of Health Won't Recommend Vaccinations
Great Barrington Board of Health Chair Michael Lanoue’s anti-science pronouncements are at odds with the public good
A year and change after “The Great Barrington Declaration” was issued by a trio of libertarian cranks, the town it was named after is back in the news for its Board of Health’s adherence to anti-vax conspiracy theories in lieu of science when determining policy.
The board’s chair Michael Lanoue is a strong opponent of mandates. His increasingly vocal opposition to vaccines—he’s referred to them as “experimental” and emphasized their ill-defined “risks”—is controlling how the board is approaching public health and turning policy over to conspiratorial ideology.
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“A risk to the community”
The board declined to recommend the regional school district implement a Covid vaccine mandate during the January 11 meeting.
“I don't think the common ground between all three of us is comfortable with recommending vaccinations,” board member Peter Stanton said
During the final composition of a letter to the school and parents intended to explain the decision, the board ensured that there were no direct references to recommending parents vaccinate their children and instead, on Lanoue’s insistence, included language about the “risks and benefits” of vaccination—with “risks” first—as well as a rejection of “compulsion.”
Removing the recommendation to vaccinate upset resident Dena Fisher, who told the board that they were doing a disservice to the town and broader school community by removing the recommendation.
“You're a health department, and that is one of the reasons that children should be vaccinated, is because it's a risk to the child not to be vaccinated and a risk to the community,” Fisher said.
Overrun by conspiracy
Great Barrington has worked hard to overcome its association with the eponymous declaration, so named because it was composed at the behest of far-right libertarian think tank the American Institute for Economic Research which is headquartered in the town.
The Select Board issued a vocal denunciation of the principles of the declaration and urged taking pragmatic health measures rather than the Darwinian approach advocated by the paper’s authors; Great Barrington and the surrounding Berkshire County region have high vaccination rates. The town has a strict mask mandate and has, as a whole, been proactive in its efforts to keep the public safe, but vaccines have been a sticking point for the Board of Health.
Efforts to institute health measures and restrict the spread of the virus have repeatedly run up against officials whose actions reveal they are not fit to serve the public. The Great Barrington Board of Health is just the latest local governmental organization to be overrun by conspiracy.
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