Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry has named Dr. Evelyn Griffin, a Baton Rouge OBGYN who has supported the state’s abortion ban and repeated debunked claims of the link between vaccines and autism, as the state’s new surgeon general.
“Her clinical experience, her leadership in advancing maternal health, and her dedication to strengthening the doctor-patient relationship make her the exact right choice for this role,” Landry said in a statement Monday (Dec. 8).
Griffin was recently hand-picked by Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a former anti-vaccine activist, for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s vaccine advisory panel.
Last week, she was among those who voted to end the decades-long policy of recommending the Hepatitis B vaccine for all infants at birth — a practice that is credited with dramatically lowering liver diseases caused by the virus. The move was condemned as “reckless” by the American Medical Association.
The state’s outgoing surgeon general, Dr. Ralph Abraham, a critic of the COVID vaccine who has banned the promotion of all vaccines and vaccine events by the Louisiana Department of Health, has been named principal deputy secretary at the CDC.
Earlier this year, Abraham and the health department waited three months after an outbreak of whooping cough killed two babies to issue an alert to physicians or a press release.
Griffin praised Abraham’s leadership as surgeon general in a statement announcing her new appointment.
“I am committed to upholding the high standards that he and Deputy Surgeon General Dr. Wyche Coleman have set, and pledge with humility to serve the great people of Louisiana,” Griffin said. “I am committed to safeguarding the integrity of the patient-doctor relationship by upholding informed consent and respecting individual rights.”
Griffin has spoken at a health freedom event and during recent meetings of the vaccine advisory panel, she said it was “unclear” whether autism is linked to vaccines. Numerous high-quality studies have debunked any link between autism and vaccines, but it has been a focus of the CDC’s under Kennedy — including a change to the CDC’s online guidance.
Griffin has also defended the state’s abortion ban in committee hearings and interviews with Louisiana Right to Life.
In 2022, in the wake of the state’s abortion ban, she said the state’s abortion ban doesn’t interfere with physicians' ability to treat pregnancy complications during an interview with Louisiana Right to Life titled “Addressing Post-Roe Misconceptions, Live with Dr. Evelyn Griffin OB/GYN!” A report by groups that support abortion rights found dramatic changes to pregnancy care in the wake of the ban.
During the interview, she also recommended women who find themselves pregnant under the state’s abortion ban seek the care of a crisis pregnancy center that calls contraception “harmful to women” and promotes the unproven and potentially dangerous practice of abortion reversal.
