A
private school founded by an anti-vaccination activist in South Florida has
warned teachers and staff against taking the COVID-19 vaccine, saying it will
not employ anyone who has received the shot.
The Centner Academy in Miami sent a notice to parents on Monday informing them
of a new policy for its two campuses for about 300 students from
pre-kindergarten through eighth grade. Teachers or staff who have already taken
the vaccine were told to continue reporting to school but to stay separated
from students.
Co-founder Leila Centner told employees in a letter last week that she made the
policy decision with a “very heavy heart." Centner asked those who have
not received a COVID-19 vaccine to wait until the end of the school year, and
even then recommended holding off.
Centner stood by the decision Tuesday in a statement sent to The Associated
Press, which featured the biologically impossible claim that unvaccinated women
have experienced miscarriages and other reproductive problems just by standing
in proximity to vaccinated people.
“These vaccines are not live COVID virus,” Dr. Andrea L. Cox, professor of
medicine at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, told The
Associated Press in a call. “They can’t infect the people who receive them and
they can’t be spread.”
Cox also added that vaccines have not caused miscarriages in the people who got
them during pregnancy.
The Florida Department of Education did not respond to a request for comment on
the school’s stance on the COVID-19 vaccine.
The Food and Drug Administration, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
and leading women’s health authorities have declared the COVID-19 vaccines
being used in the U.S. to be safe and effective, and they are undergoing
unprecedented scrutiny for safety. Around the country, teachers were
prioritized for early access to the vaccines to protect them from exposure to
the coronavirus as schools reopened.
Dr. Taraneh Shirazian, a gynecologist at New York University's Langone Health,
said misinformation circulating on social can erode trust as demand for the
vaccine sags.
“These myths are extremely damaging because they create doubt in the public at
a time when everyone eligible should be getting vaccinated," Shirazian
said.
Centner and her husband David Centner started the school in 2019 after moving
to Miami from New York. The school's website promotes “medical freedom"
from vaccines and offers to help parents opt out of vaccines that are otherwise
required for students in Florida.
Earlier this month, Centner criticized measures by the CDC to curb the spread
of the virus, and said her school went against the guidelines from the moment
it reopened in September.
“We did not follow any of the tyrannic measures that were in place. I did not
force our kids to wear a mask,” Centner said while attending a “Health and
Freedom” rally for a Republican candidate that featured supporters of former
President Donald Trump and critics of public health restrictions in Tulsa,
Oklahoma.