Viral false COVID vaccine claim lands in Wisconsin governor's race after Tim Michels tweet

MADISON - The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention isn't requiring COVID-19 vaccines for school children but a viral false claim warning otherwise landed in the Wisconsin governor's race this week after Republican candidate Tim Michels suggested he wouldn't sign legislation adding a COVID vaccine to the state's slate of immunizations required for children to attend school despite no effort being afoot.

Michels' tweet came after a false claim was made by a Fox News contributor on Tuesday and repeated by Fox News host Tucker Carlson, who tweeted on Oct. 18 to his 5.2 million followers 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."

"I'm hearing concerns from parents regarding the CDC's advice on vaccines," Michels tweeted two days later. "The COVID vaccine is new and should not be treated like more established vaccines. When I'm governor, parents, not the State, will decide what's best. We won't mandate it for school attendance. Would Evers?"

The original claim repeated by Carlson distorts the impact of a Thursday vote by a CDC advisory committee in favor of adding a COVID-19 vaccine to the recommended immunization schedule for children and adults, which acts as guidance for doctors. It is not a mandate and local and state officials are not required to adopt the recommendations.

State lawmakers and Democratic Gov. Tony Evers have not proposed to add COVID-19 vaccines to the state's immunization requirements for schools. The last time lawmakers added vaccines to the school requirements was 14 years ago, when vaccines that aim to prevent tetanus, diphtheria and pertussis were added. Wisconsin law also allows students to opt-out of all vaccine requirements for any reason.

Evers has said he supports local vaccine mandates for teachers, and required COVID testing for unvaccinated state employees, but has not called for requiring COVID-19 vaccines in the state since the immunizations became available in late 2020.

"There is no mandate. There's not going to be a mandate. And, you know, if he wants to lie about that, that's his problem. I'm sorry that he feels the need to lie but that's the way politics work these days, I guess," Evers said Friday.

"Do I think this vaccine is safe and secure and it's going to do its job? Absolutely. But requiring it isn't going to happen. And, frankly, all the other vaccinations that are recommended, parents can opt-out on their own. So it is what it is and it's going to continue that way. It's never gonna happen."

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Anna Kelly, a spokeswoman for Michels, said the tweet "speaks for itself."

"Instead of mandating that all kids take a new shot, Tim thinks parents should decide," she said.

Patrick Remington, a former epidemiologist for the CDC and director of the Preventive Medicine Residency Program at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said COVID-19 vaccines have turned out to not be as effective as initially hoped but "the one aspect that every scientist agrees is that this is one of the safest vaccines ever produced, if not the safest vaccine."

Remington said there is a legitimate debate to be had about whether students should be mandated to be vaccinated against COVID-19 but it's concerning to see politicians embrace false claims that sow doubt over an agency that exists to provide Americans with safe medical information.

"I think it's very worrisome that any politician would view information that is not scientifically sound or that maybe comes from a conspiracy theory," he said. "I would be very concerned if that information resonates with their base, because then we'll have policy that is being determined not by science and evidence but by superstition and by conspiracy, and that should be concerning for everybody."

Former Republican Gov. Tommy Thompson, who served as U.S. Health and Human Services secretary and has endorsed Michels, promoted COVID-19 vaccines to college students while he was president of the University of Wisconsin System during the coronavirus pandemic but did not mandate them.

Thompson said Friday he hadn't seen Michels' comments on the CDC and COVID-19 vaccines because he has been traveling out of state. He said spreading rumors about COVID-19 vaccine mandates is a bad idea.

"This rumor now about CDC requiring children being vaccinated should not be spread," Thompson said.

Corri Hess of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel contributed to this report.

Molly Beck can be reached at molly.beck@jrn.com.

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This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Tim Michels tweet amplifies false claim on COVID vaccines for children