Florida’s False Prophet

By Cliff Kincaid

December 17, 2022

The Just the News headline, “DeSantis’ power move on COVID vaccines targets drugmakers, possibly Trump legacy,” means that the Florida Governor wants to destroy Trump’s plan to run again in 2024. It will backfire on DeSantis because his attacks on Big Pharma and Trump for the “Warp Speed” vaccines will only result in more evidence that, in the long run, the vaccines saved lives.

The story about DeSantis “empaneling a state grand jury to investigate whether drugmakers and federal agencies hid potential risks or problems posed by the COVID-19 mRNA vaccines” indicates either that DeSantis is a total hypocrite or that he is getting bad political and medical advice.

First of all, the companies were ordered to develop the vaccines because of the dangers posed by a virus that has killed more than one million Americans. One study finds that the Covid vaccines have averted over 3 million deaths in the U.S.

Yes, the vaccines have side-effects, some of them deadly. All vaccines and drugs have side effects. That’s a given. I take lisinopril for high blood pressure and it probably has saved my life. The side effects of lisinopril include a dry, tickly cough that does not get better, feeling dizzy or lightheaded, headaches, being sick (vomiting), diarrhea, itching or a mild skin rash, and blurred vision.

My guess is that most people reading this column take drugs or medications of some kind, to alleviate one health problem or another.

Big Pharma is a convenient target. But America has the best biotech in the world. Trump didn’t have the luxury of waiting 5 or 10 years for the COVID vaccines to be tested in traditional ways. By then, 25 – 50 million Americans would have been dead.

The idea that DeSantis would target the companies, rather than the source of the virus, China, is madness.

A grand jury is a political stunt meant to target Trump. It is what we would expect from the Democrats.

The Just the News website said that the governor’s “power move” could “reshape the debate over whether federal science agencies and drugmakers can share legal blame for any harms the vaccines are believed to have caused.” The report added, “It also opens a political avenue to attack Donald Trump’s administration for its Warp Speed program to approve the vaccines on an accelerated timetable.”

That accelerated timetable was because the virus was spreading.

What’s more, DeSantis advised people in his own state to take the vaccines. So will the grand jury investigate him?

This is political suicide by DeSantis. He cannot survive this big-league mistake.

More than a year ago, according to one report, DeSantis stressed “the importance of Floridians getting a COVID-19 vaccine.” He said, “So here’s, I think, the most important thing with the data: if you are vaccinated—fully vaccinated—the chance of you getting seriously ill or dying from COVID is effectively zero,” DeSantis said. “If you look at the people who are being admitted to hospitals, over 95 percent of them are either not fully vaccinated or not vaccinated at all. These vaccines are saving lives. They are reducing mortality.”

Its easy enough to find these references to DeSantis advocating the vaccines. Now, for political reasons, he is turning into an opponent of the vaccines because he thinks he can take advantage of the fact that they were launched under his likely 2024 opponent, Donald J. Trump.

People will see through the DeSantis ploy. It is very stupid on the part of the Florida governor.

He promoted the vaccines because he had reason to believe they saved lives and prevented hospitalizations. But now he is seizing on the hospitalizations and deaths from those who have been vaccinated. What this shows, if you take the trouble to analyze the evidence, is that this is one mighty dangerous virus. And so the logical target is China, not Big Pharma, which was pushed into developing the vaccines on short notice. China is the source of the death, destruction, and suffering.

Before he held a coronavirus “vaccine accountability” roundtable, consider another story on the governor’s position: “DeSantis urges public to get vaccinated: These shots are ‘saving lives.’” This report stated that while DeSantis was opposed to enforcing mask mandates, he was for getting vaccinated, saying “…I think that the data has been really, really good in terms of preserving people …. saving people’s lives … reducing mortality dramatically.”

One reporter noted that “DeSantis even celebrated Florida vaccinating one million seniors by appearing live on Fox & Friends with a 100-year-old World War II veteran, [Henry Sayler] who received his COVID-19 shot as the governor stood nearby.”

A report about that television appearance noted that DeSantis said about his vaccination policy, “We said seniors first, OK? This is something we need to focus on, the 65 and up population.” He added, “There are young and healthy workers getting it in other states, God bless them. But I want to protect our vulnerable. So that’s what we are doing.”

That policy made sense, since older people were more vulnerable to the effects of the China virus.

DeSantis sent a Tweet, saying, “It was an honor to witness Henry Sayler receive his first dose of the vaccine today. Florida is rapidly approaching a monumental milestone of 1 million seniors vaccinated.”

Now, however, DeSantis wants a grand jury to investigate the shots he recommended. The use of a grand jury implies criminal negligence on the part of the companies.

In response, Trump says, “…I think the vaccines saved tens of millions of people throughout the world.”

His position is buttressed by a new analysis finding that in the two years since the first U.S. patient received a COVID-19 vaccine, “the country’s vaccination program has prevented more than 18 million hospitalizations and more than 3 million deaths.” What’s more, the Commonwealth Fund study says the U.S. COVID vaccination program “has saved the U.S. more than $1 trillion in medical costs and other benefits.

Would DeSantis now prefer the situation in China, where the Covid lockdowns are continuing because the communist authorities will not use American-made vaccines?

He can’t have it both ways, and yet he’s trying to play both sides.

The communists release a virus and their own people get killed. That’s not surprising. But the rest of the world was at risk as well. Trump did what he could at the time, in terms of the revolutionary Warp Speed vaccines, and the evidence shows they saved millions of lives.

It was comparable to General George Washington’s decision, during the Revolutionary War, to authorize an experimental smallpox inoculation program. It saved lives and turned the tide in the war against the British.

More than a year ago, in Communist Cuba, while the China virus was killing people in large numbers, the Wall Street Journal reported that “Thousands of Cubans took to the streets in a wave of demonstrations in Havana and at least 14 other cities throughout the Communist island, demanding an end to the 62-year dictatorship and protesting the lack of food and Covid-19 vaccines.”

National Public Radio said, “Although the protesters were asking for food, medicine and vaccines, the loudest cries were for an end to the communist regime.”

On the right, we all oppose communism. But the vaccines, as Trump recognized, were enabling us to survive the communist China virus. That’s why he personally took them.

What’s more, earlier this year DeSantis acknowledged that he took the vaccine but wouldn’t say if he took the booster. He calls it a private matter.

What a complete fraud. Once the truth emerges about this life and death matter, his national political aspirations will be toast. He can’t play games with peoples’ lives.

He should quickly reverse course and request a grand jury to investigate Red China, demanding compensation for the millions of deaths caused by the China virus. That’s what an anti-communist governor would do.

What’s more, since DeSantis is among the 80 percent of the population which has received at least one dose of the vaccine, let him be honest with the American people about whether he has been receiving the vaccine boosters or not. Otherwise, he will be exposed as just another politician trying to gain a political advantage by flip-flopping on a matter of life and death.

Rather than get him the 2024 presidential nomination, this crass maneuvering could spell the end of his political career.

E-Mail Cliff Kincaid: kincaid@comcast.net