Florida Health Official Put On Leave For Telling Staff To Get Vaccinated

A Florida health official was placed on a two-month leave after sending an email to staffers encouraging them to get vaccinated. That's the keyword - ENCOURAGED. Nowhere in the email did the official say that vaccines were required, and there were no threats to employees who didn't want to get vaccinated. But the Republican-controlled government still wanted to punish the official for going against the anti-science narratives that they've been pushing for two years. Ring of Fire's Farron Cousins discusses this.

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*This transcript was generated by a third-party transcription software company, so please excuse any typos.

Not that long ago, Dr. Raul Pino from the Florida department of health, he is a health official here in the state of Florida, sent out an email to his colleagues and staffers, encouraging them to take the COVID 19 vaccine. And that is the key word there folks, encouraging. Well, the higher ups at the department got wind of this email, where he said, hey, you know, we're health officials. We should probably be healthy. Getting the vaccine is the healthiest way. They got wind of the email and suspended him, put him on administrative leave for two months because he went against the official narratives of that absolute Republican authoritarian hell hole that we call the state of Florida. Now, Dr. Pino was actually recently brought back because his two months had passed, but for two months, this man was not allowed to go to work. He was not allowed to work at the Florida department of health because he thought people should get vaccinated. Now, as I said at the beginning, the key word is he encouraged them to get vaccinated. Nowhere in that email did he say you have to get vaccinated. Nowhere in the email did he threaten any consequences for any employee or staffer or colleague who didn't get vaccinated. He just said, hey, listen up folks. We're medical professionals, right? A lot of us have PhDs. We're working in the interest of the public's health. We should probably take care of ourselves too, you know, lead by example, that whole thing. Not gonna fly in the state of Florida.

So here's why. The official narrative in the state of Florida, thanks to our right wing authoritarian governor Ron DeSantis and his little lap dog surgeon general Joseph Ladapo, they do not want any kind of COVID protections whatsoever in this state. That has been their official, you know, stance on everything, no lockdowns, no mandates, no vaccines and now of course, recently they came out and said, hey, if you're a healthy kid, don't get the vaccine, which is ironic, of course, because here's what they've done. This doctor, Dr. Pino at the Florida department of health was suspended because they said he violated everybody's right to make their own medical decision by encouraging them to get the vaccine. So is that not what Ron DeSantis and Dr. Ladapo are doing when they're telling kids do not get the vaccine if you are healthy? I mean, you're impeding their right to choose to the same degree that Dr. Pino was by encouraging people to get it. You're encouraging people not to get it. It's the same, you know, different side of the same coin here. But the official narrative in the state of Florida is don't do a thing to protect anybody else. It's anti-science, it's anti-humanity, but that's what we have right now in the state of Florida. And if you dare go against that narrative that these morons have put in place, you will be punished for it as Dr. Pino unfortunately found out recently.