HJBR Nov/Dec 2024

HEALTHCARE JOURNAL OF BATON ROUGE I  NOV / DEC 2024 31 THE ANTIPHONY nuanced dispassionate discussion because it would certainly inform howwe approach these things differently. Hospital workers, in general, are required to get vaccines. That is established and hap- pens in every hospital in the country, and the reason why that happens is if you’re caring for immunocompromised patients, you have to do everything you can to ensure you’re not going to make them sicker — you’re not going to infect them. That’s where that came from, but I think it’s a good dis- cussion to have. It’s just very challenging to have that discussion now because it gets quite sensationalized. To the underlying point that a lot of folks tried to make, the vaccines were not unstud- ied. There were very large trials that proved safety and efficacy of the COVID vaccines. These trials happened quickly, and Emer- gency UseAuthorization was given quickly, but Emergency Use Authorization is not “experimental use.”It’s just “emergency use.” These vaccines went through robust trials. They just happened very quickly. To say it’s unproven or unstudied is a lie. I think the question, in hindsight, of whether the man- dates were effective or not, or counterpro- ductive, is a good discussion to have. There are many times in history where personal freedom gets balanced against collective need, and those are challeng- ing times of history. You can think about a military draft during World War II or Viet- nam. You can talk about mandatory evacu- ations for a hurricane, knowing that people remaining in place would tax an emergency response system that might not be pre- pared to serve them. There are all types of examples in American history and current day where personal freedom gets weighed against collective need. The collective need at the time of COVIDwas ensuring hospitals remain open and able to care for patients of any type, with any condition, as we have come to expect in this country. The ques- tion of where the mandates fall on that spec- trum, whether they were worthy or right or valiant, I think that’s a good question to have. It’s just hard to do that when it’s so sensationalized and politicized. Editor What are those worthy and val- iant discussions that we should be hav- ing about our response to the COVID pandemic in the state? What, from your perspective, should we have done differently? Physician I think what cuts to the core of it is what elements of our society are important to us collectively to warrant impositions on personal freedom. I think that’s the essence of it. Is it keeping mortality down in gen- eral? Is it ensuring hospitals stay open? Is it ensuring that schools can stay open? So, other things need to occur to ensure that that happens. These are really important conversations to have, and I don’t think everyone went into COVID with the same understanding of those or would agree with those. In Louisiana, we, thankfully, never had to resort to crisis standards of care in hospitals. Other states did. Those states that … Editor Crisis standard of care? What is the term? Physician Crisis standard of care means that you’ve got 12 patients that need a ventilator, but you only have 10 ventilators. Someone in the hospital — doctors, administrators, ethicists, lawyers — has to choose who gets it and who doesn’t. We had plans for that that were written up long before COVID. It was something that medical ethicists dis- cussed. Any pandemic response plan that predated COVID had some mention of crisis standards of care. Other states had to resort to those type of measures; we never did in Louisiana. We came close, but the actions that were taken to curb spread at the peak of transmission — the various peaks we had — and to bring in additional help from the outside allowed hospitals to reach up to that breaking point but never surpass it. These are important conversations for us to have, but they have to be done honestly and without politicizing it, and that’s very challenging. Editor Do you think that these conversa- tions are being had? Physician I don’t see them happening at the state government level. I think they’re being had in certain circles, within safe spaces ... Some academics are having them, some hospitals are having them. They’re certainly not being had at state government level, and that hearing is the exact opposite of these types of conversations. Editor There was a vaccine attorney that gave a presentation; we’re running part of his transcript, too. He ends it with, “Basic patients’ rights have been violated and suspended, including informed con- sent because of a 1986 law, the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act, saying you cannot sue a vaccine manufacture, even if you can prove it killed you or killed your baby or caused you to go blind.” Why do you think that law was put in place? Physician He’s confusing two important topics — liability for a product, which is an important topic to talk about, with informed consent. That’s not a direct correlation. Informed consent means that if you’re my patient, it’s your choice. I tell you what the treatment options are. I tell you what the pros and cons are. I can give you my opin- ion, but at the end of the day, I inform, and it’s your choice of what you do. It doesn’t mean that there might not be ramifications. It doesn’t mean that someone out there might have some consequences, but at the end of the day, the doctor informs and the patient chooses. That’s informed consent. That’s not the same as liability. Who is liable for a product if there happens to be inju- ries? He confuses those two. I don’t exactly