Kansas Health Department stopped airing PSA’s encouraging COVID-19 vaccines in February
.jpg "A nurse fills a syringe with COVID-19 vaccine at a mass vaccination site in Kansas City, Mo., Friday, March 19, 2021.")
The Kansas Department of Health and Environment stopped airing most of its public service announcements encouraging COVID-19 vaccines last month, after pressure from vaccine-skeptical lawmakers.
Kansas still lags behind the rest of the country on COVID-19 vaccines. According to the CDC 65% of Americans are fully vaccinated, while KDHE data shows 53.6% of Kansans have had their shots.
The disclosure came Wednesday during the confirmation hearing of Acting KDHE Secretary Janet Stanek. Sen. Mark Steffen, a Hutchinson Republican, asked Stanek how KDHE had responded to concerns he voiced in January about messaging that depicted the COVID-19 vaccine as safe and effective.
According to the Centers for Disease Control the COVID-19 vaccines have proven to be safe and effective at preventing serious illness. Severe side effects have been rare.
“What have we done since we saw you last about correcting that lack of a balanced approach to true and informed consent?” Steffen asked.
“One thing we’ve done is revisited the ads which were brought up by many of you and we have removed the TV ads and we are making sure that in reviewing all of our ads that if we do have advertisement or something that might mention getting a vaccine that there is a link and we are encouraging people to follow up with their doctor,” she added.
Matt Lara, a spokesperson for KDHE, said in a text that the agency chose to stop running television and digital advertisements for vaccines on Feb. 1 — after Republican lawmakers grilled Stanek on the issue during the Senate Public Health and Welfare committee. The only remaining messaging on the issue, he said, is a handful of billboards.
“This wasn’t made in response to pressure from the Legislature,” Lara said. “as the case numbers began to decrease following the surge in January, we felt it was time to look at our COVID communications and reevaluate what those messages were.”
Kansas and other states are beginning to approach the virus as endemic, meaning it remains a steady presence but is no longer spreading uncontrollably or overwhelming healthcare systems. In January, KDHE ended its contact tracing operations. Last week the Centers for Disease Control loosened its guidance on mask use.
Kansas started using television public service announcements encouraging vaccinations in June as COVID-19 cases surged with the Delta variant.
Gov. Laura Kelly appointed Stanek, a former hospital executive, to the position after former secretary Lee Norman resigned in November following disputes with the administration over COVID-19 messaging.
She has adopted a less public profile than her predecessor in her first months on the job. She is still awaiting confirmation to the position from the Republican-controlled Senate.
This story was originally published March 2, 2022 at 12:28 PM.
