Franklin Co. wants public health district to end COVID vaccines, and may target more
Franklin County leaders want to pressure the Tri-Cities’ health district to stop offering COVID-19 vaccinations.
The move comes after Commission Chairman Clint Didier invited a group of vaccine skeptics to speak at two recent meetings. It’s the same group behind recent pushes in Idaho to stop offering the vaccine.
Didier also is one of the county’s representatives on the Benton Franklin Health District board.
A resolution passed unanimously Wednesday morning could potentially push the health department to stop providing, funding and promoting other vaccinations. That’s because the language of the resolution targets any mRNA and “gene therapy” vaccines, as well as more traditional virus based vaccines.
They also want these types of treatments removed from child vaccine recommendations.
Later, at the health district’s Wednesday afternoon board meeting, an epidemiologist said the resolution was based on “conspiracy” and “misinformation.”
Gene therapy is a technique that modifies a person’s genes to treat or cure disease, according to the Food and Drug Administration.
Because health experts have been clear that mRNA vaccines are not a form of gene therapy, it’s unclear which other vaccinations could be targeted.
A doctor whose medical license was restricted in Washington for COVID-19 misinformation described the bird flu as the next “scamdemic” during a presentation to the board Wednesday.
The state reports that six workers have been sickened with avian flu in the outbreak in Franklin County this year. That follows an October 2024 outbreak that led to the destruction of nearly a million chickens at a commercial egg farm.
Pressure from Franklin leaders
The discussion came Wednesday as Franklin County commissioners passed a resolution opposing COVID vaccinations.
The resolution requests the health district conduct a thorough review, presentation and discussion of the adverse effects of the COVID-19 “gene therapy” vaccines by subject matter experts at a public meeting and then stop providing, funding and promoting “gene therapy” vaccines for infectious diseases until specific new legislation is passed.
That legislation they’d like to see would:
- Create corporate liability for harm due to products that “use mRNA, DNA, or any genetic technology in any product, plant, or animal.”
- Provide appropriate compensation and treatment for Washington citizens harmed by gene therapy vaccines
- Require informed consent, transparency and labeling “of any product that uses genetic technology for any human, animal or agricultural use.”
- Prohibit mandates on local, state, national or global levels regarding medical procedures or interventions.
It would also ask the health department to remove “gene therapy” vaccines from child vaccine recommendations.
The resolution is largely similar to ones presented to Idaho counties by Laura Demaray, a nurse who works in Idaho and Oregon.
Demaray organized a December presentation from a group of vaccine skeptics with ties to Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s Children’s Health Defense. During Kennedy’s recent confirmation hearings, the nonprofit was the focus of intense questioning regarding misinformation.
Demaray previously said she had been part of the push to successfully convince an Idaho health district to stop offering the vaccine in October 2024.
Didier encouraged attendees to also go to a BFHD board meeting later in the afternoon to encourage the health district to consider its resolution.
During public comments at the Wednesday afternoon Benton Franklin Health District Board meeting, a health district epidemiologist said the Franklin County resolution was “based on conspiracy and misinformation against the COVID-19 vaccine.”
“When I read that resolution it is a kick in the teeth to all of the work that we do,” said Brandi Williams, an epidemiologist in the communicable disease program.
Some speakers mentioned the previous discussion at the Franklin County meeting, but Didier did not publicly make a request for the board to consider the resolution or its potential impact.
Benton County and the cities involved with BFHD have not met with the group promoting the resolution.
Questionable experts
Wednesday’s meeting featured Dr. Ryan Cole, who could not make it to the December meeting. Cole’s license is restricted in Washington due to COVID-19 misinformation. He is allowed to practice pathology, but cannot provide primary care or prescribe medication. His license in Idaho was also restricted, but later reinstated.
The Washington Medical Commission said in a January 2024 decision that “Cole misrepresented his education and training in public presentations and to the WMC, publicly implied that a physician’s death was due to the COVID-19 vaccine even though the physician died of a heart attack six months after getting vaccinated, and misrepresented facts to the WMC when stating that he had not advised patients or the general public to refrain from getting the COVID-19 vaccine.”
They also found he provided substandard care to four Washington patients by prescribing ivermectin via telemedicine without seeing or examining the patients, failed to address other medical issues and failed to document medical history, decision making and informed consent.
He was required to pay a $5,000 fine, complete an ethics course and write a paper addressing truthfulness, professionalism and honesty in the practice of medicine. Cole was also required to take continuing education courses on COVID-19, pulmonary and respiratory diseases, medical record keeping and telehealth.
The other speakers who attended the December meeting were similarly discredited. Most had their medical licenses restricted and their claims had been repeatedly fact checked and debunked by experts.
“The moment there is a consensus in science, it’s dead. Settled science is censorship,” Cole told commissioners when asked about the reliability of scientific consensus on the efficacy of COVID-19 treatments.
Cole, and the resolution, also referenced the debunked claim that COVID-19 is a form of “gene therapy.”
While information about the false “gene therapy” claims were recently removed from the Centers for Disease Control website, their new COVID-19 vaccine facts webpage still asserts that “COVID-19 vaccines do not change or interact with your DNA in any way.”
Cole’s presentation also seemingly made reference to documents being purged from the CDC and other federal websites, claiming studies were “withdrawn.”
His presentation also included a slide referring to the ongoing Avian Influenza outbreak as “the next scamdemic.”
Cole said he was there to “recommend that nobody ever takes another genetic shot.”
“I know people have COVID fatigue, at this point it’s not just about COVID, it’s about going forward as well,” he said.
Didier said that he hopes by passing this resolution Franklin County will inspire a movement of similar action.
