Sacramento Supervisor Frost casts doubt on COVID vaccine at demonstration near Kaiser hospital
Sacramento Bee editorial, 8/14/21
Supervisor Sue Frost appeared at an anti-vaccine rally at a Roseville hospital this week where she lobbed criticisms at the federal government and denounced the COVID vaccine as “experimental.”
Frost’s comments were in response to a FOX 40 reporter who covered the protest on Monday. A longer clip of her interview was later posted on Twitter, where the author of an anonymous account linked the extremist Proud Boys and a self-styled militia known as the Freedom Angels to the protest.
yep. This was posted by Tara Thornton from Freedom Angels and shows more of the interview than went into the news piece. The woman next to her in the red shirt is Margiesella Garza, one of the organizers pic.twitter.com/LMecOLhBD0
— Borwin (@Borwin10) August 10, 2021
In the interview, Frost said she had spoken with “whistleblowers” in the health care community and that she has “a lot of questions” about the virus and the federal response. She repeated a widely debunked theory that “forcing” people to get a vaccine violates the Nuremberg Code, a set of ethical principles created in the wake of Nazi medical experimentation on humans.
“This is an experimental vaccine, it’s only approved under an emergency (CDC order),” Frost said. “It’s against everything we believe in. It’s against the Nuremberg Code, Western bioethics to force someone into an experimental drug without their consent.”
In the interview, Frost also said the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had recently determined that the polymerase chain reaction COVID-19 test “doesn’t work and can only identify influenza and cold,” another debunked theory that has spread among anti-vaccine groups. When reached early Wednesday, Frost said she didn’t know much about either of the two extremist groups that observers said also attended the rally. “I strongly denounce any group that is involved with violence or illegal activity in any way,” she said.
Sacramento Supervisor Frost casts doubt on COVID vaccine at demonstration near Kaiser hospital
After a brief period of relief, a more dangerous variant of the infectious disease is advancing again in Sacramento County. The surging number of COVID-19 cases and renewed restrictions are reopening fault lines over the vaccine and masks, with Frost clearly taking the side of anti-vaccination skeptics.
“I believe in personal choice so that people who want the vaccine can get it, and those who do not want to get it do not have to,” Frost said in an email. “I am concerned that this personal choice is slowly being eroded and some people are being coerced to take it.”
The rally was held outside Kaiser Permanente’s Roseville Medical Center. The Oakland-based health care giant has mandated that its employees be vaccinated or wear masks and submit to regular COVID-19 testing by Sept. 30.
A former registered nurse, Frost told Fox40 that she was there in “solidarity” with the health care workers.
“I believe in freedom,” she said. “In America, we have the freedom to limit these kinds of decisions between our doctors and ourselves, and I support that.”
Her apparent views carried over to the Board of Supervisors meeting this week where she was the only county lawmaker present without a mask. A folded piece of plexiglass was placed around her section of the dais instead.
The meetings, held every other week, regularly attract outspoken critics. Since the dawn of the pandemic, its shifting demands have been a frequent topic for COVID-19 skeptics in attendance.
A group of the unmasked were allowed to remain outside the chambers Tuesday and in an overflow room where they delivered comments that echoed Frost’s concerns. Some said the vaccine was “experimental” and that the county should end the state of emergency. Others dismissed county officials as liars who are “coercing the public.”
Meanwhile, the average number of cases recorded weekly has jumped above 400 since late July and continues to rise, local data show. In most of May and June, county cases were below 100.
“All of that hollow hyperbole reflects the people’s right to espouse what they believe, but it certainly doesn’t make it true or right,” Supervisor Phil Serna later said in a Facebook post about the meeting.
“What is true and right is that the virus — especially the Delta variant — continues to kill and hospitalize more and more people.”
