Dr. Evelyn Griffin had led a life out of the highlight till she testified on the Louisiana statehouse 5 years in the past and skilled what she referred to as her “nice awakening.”
The state well being division wished so as to add Covid vaccines to the college immunization schedule, a transfer no state has ever carried out. Robert F. Kennedy Jr., then often called a number one vaccine skeptic, had already claimed the Covid shot was “the deadliest vaccine ever made” throughout a poster board presentation on the legislative listening to.
Dr. Griffin, a longtime obstetrician, relied on practically similar pictures throughout her personal blistering testimony in opposition to the proposal. After the listening to, she anticipated splashy headlines about Mr. Kennedy’s assertions, shifting the general public debate over Covid insurance policies and vaccines. However that didn’t occur; one information outlet dismissed him as a promulgator of propaganda. Dr. Griffin was shocked.
That’s “once I noticed how the world labored,” she recalled in a podcast interview. Dr. Griffin mentioned she and her husband, a vascular surgeon, determined to take motion and “shine mild on issues.”
Now, Mr. Kennedy is the nation’s well being secretary, and Dr. Griffin holds outstanding roles that place her to assist perform his imaginative and prescient.
Final September, Mr. Kennedy appointed her to the advisory panel for federal immunization coverage, the place she voted to advocate limiting entry to Covid vaccines and ending common new child immunizations for hepatitis B, steps {that a} federal decide has blocked. In December, Gov. Jeff Landry of Louisiana, a conservative Republican and ally of President Trump, named Dr. Griffin because the state’s surgeon basic.
That makes her the highest public well being doctor in Louisiana, which has the worst well being outcomes within the nation.
She is an unconventional alternative. Dr. Griffin has no background or specialty coaching in infectious illness or public well being. She is aligned with various well being actions — together with Make American Wholesome Once more, or MAHA — and has hosted some audio system selling fringe medical views.
Dr. Griffin declined interview requests for this text. “My imaginative and prescient as Louisiana’s surgeon basic is to assist shift our well being care system towards stopping illness, not simply managing or treating it,” she mentioned in an announcement.
Eight months into her tenure, she has but to make main adjustments on the well being division. She has confronted hurdles in her efforts to tighten entry to vaccines and restrict public well being powers, testifying on a number of payments that legislators rejected.
Nonetheless, Dr. Griffin’s political rise displays the beneficial properties of Mr. Kennedy’s vaccine agenda on the state degree, a significant testing floor for legal guidelines geared toward eroding authorities mandates. State officers have huge energy to set well being coverage and beat again infectious illness outbreaks. Whereas Dr. Griffin’s put up is essentially a bully pulpit, she might spur actual change by advising the governor, state well being secretary and lawmakers.
Some public well being and infectious illness consultants warned that if Dr. Griffin ultimately succeeded in curbing the state’s authority, diseases and deaths might escalate and Louisiana may very well be hamstrung in a future pandemic. At one vaccine panel assembly final 12 months, she mentioned it was “unclear” whether or not vaccines have been linked to autism, as Mr. Kennedy has urged. When requested by The New York Occasions, she declined to say whether or not she believed any vaccines must be mandated for schoolchildren.
“Somebody who has expressed the views she has, who’s now in a public coverage place, could be very harmful,” mentioned Dr. Georges C. Benjamin, the chief government of the American Public Well being Affiliation.
However Dr. Kirk Milhoan, a pastor and pediatric heart specialist who serves as chairman of the federal vaccine panel, defended Dr. Griffin as an “wonderful alternative” for surgeon basic. “Nobody must be afraid of Dr. Evelyn Griffin having the center’s want to care for the inhabitants of Louisiana,” he mentioned in an interview.
Whereas Dr. Griffin is on a studying curve as a political novice, she has signaled huge ambitions.
She referred to as for “dramatic transformational change” throughout a public assembly in January, promising to give attention to girls’s well being, rural well being and the foundation causes of illness. An accompanying slide presentation mentioned Louisiana would lead by way of “household, religion, and fearlessness.”
Dr. Griffin, 49, typically cites her household background in explaining her trajectory.
She was born Ewelina Bulczynski beneath Communist rule in Poland in 1976. When she was 5 years outdated, her household defected to a refugee camp in Austria earlier than immigrating to Canada. She and her two brothers later got here to the USA to observe as physicians. She has credited this historical past with giving her a “completely different perspective” as a physician and influencing her skepticism of presidency mandates.
“My dad and mom escaped Communist Poland in order that we might come right here for the freedoms, comparable to medical freedom, that this nation has,” she advised Louisiana lawmakers in 2022.
She met her husband, Joseph Griffin, whereas they attended Ross College College of Drugs in Dominica. After residency applications in New Orleans, they settled in Baton Rouge and raised two kids.
Individuals who have recognized Dr. Griffin throughout her 20-year profession delivering infants and treating girls described her as a form, caring and sensible doctor. “Sufferers beloved her,” mentioned Dr. Francis Dauterive, who labored together with her.
Within the years earlier than the pandemic, Dr. Griffin had seen an increase in continual well being issues amongst her sufferers. She started finding out how vitamin and way of life decisions might deal with and forestall sickness, and pursued on-line coaching in purposeful medication. She began an Instagram account crammed with pictures of jackfruit sloppy joes and vegan jambalaya, her canine lounging on a yoga mat, and her yard strawberry vegetation.
She additionally realized of Barbara O’Neill, a Christian wellness determine common on social media. Ms. O’Neill was barred in 2019 from giving medical recommendation in Australia after claiming that most cancers was attributable to a fungus and may very well be handled with baking soda, and that vaccines induced “an epidemic of ADHD, autism, epilepsy and cot demise.” In a 2025 podcast, Dr. Griffin referred to as Ms. O’Neill a “sage” instructor who was ostracized for specializing in way of life options to medical points. She mentioned she saved Ms. O’Neill’s recommendation for a wholesome life — together with train, sunshine and belief in God — posted on her fridge.
But it surely was the pandemic that remodeled her profession. In a number of speeches and interviews, she mentioned she started to query public well being steering and that of her former employer, Ochsner Well being, Louisiana’s largest well being system, on masking, vaccines and mandates.
Dr. Griffin wished to share analysis with colleagues that wasn’t “mainstream” science, as she put it, research she mentioned have been from contacts in Europe on early Covid remedies. Dr. Griffin was repeatedly rebuffed, she mentioned.
Finally, she resigned. “I’m going to stay to my ideas,” she later recalled considering. She now works on the Baton Rouge Basic well being system. Ochsner officers declined to remark.
Louisiana had been hit exhausting by the pandemic. By December 2021, greater than 14,000 folks had died from Covid. Earlier that summer season, the Delta surge killed six pregnant girls there in two months, and maternal well being organizations have been urging vaccination.
However in her testimony to lawmakers in December, Dr. Griffin had questioned the vaccine’s security after well being officers had reported uncommon hostile reactions. She invoked a public well being disaster: The drug thalidomide, prescribed throughout being pregnant in Europe (and examined in the USA) within the Nineteen Fifties, had left hundreds of infants with lacking or malformed limbs. She additionally reminded lawmakers of the Nuremberg trials, the place Nazi collaborators had been sentenced to demise for medical experimentation.
“So everybody must be on discover when making a lot of these choices,” Dr. Griffin mentioned, wanting on the politicians. The state later dropped plans to require Covid vaccines for college kids.
Dr. Griffin and her husband have since embedded themselves in Louisiana’s right-leaning various well being communities. They’ve espoused views that, amid the swirl of social-media-fueled wellness traits, pandemic backlash and widespread dismay over Individuals’ poor well being, have turn out to be ascendant within the second Trump presidency.
Dr. Griffin returned to the State Capitol over the subsequent three years to testify for favored causes, together with payments supported by Well being Freedom Louisiana, a gaggle aligned with Mr. Kennedy. One would have expanded entry to ivermectin, an antiparasitic drug common amongst vaccine skeptics, although quite a few research have proven it’s ineffective in treating Covid, and one other would have banned future authorities well being mandates, which Dr. Griffin has referred to as “a slippery slope.” Neither bought out of committee. She additionally testified in help of a ban on gender-transition remedies for minors, which turned legislation.
After the U.S. Supreme Court docket overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022 and Louisiana’s near-total abortion ban took impact, Dr. Griffin turned an ally of Louisiana Proper to Life, the state’s main anti-abortion group. She recorded movies arguing the legislation didn’t impede being pregnant care. The ban was later discovered to delay miscarriage remedy and result in pointless C-sections, in response to medical doctors and reproductive rights teams.
Dr. Griffin and her husband struck up a friendship with Tony Spell, the pastor of Life Tabernacle Church in Baton Rouge, generally becoming a member of him for Bible research. Pastor Spell refused to close his evangelical church through the pandemic, resulting in prison fees that have been overturned by the Louisiana Supreme Court docket. Dr. Griffin referred to as him “an absolute hero.”
She has spoken at annual well being freedom gatherings on the church’s sprawling grounds, and launched her personal wellness occasions there two years in the past. Visitors have talked about yard gardening, naturopathic medication, the advantages of doulas and uncooked milk — a ardour of Mr. Kennedy’s — which just lately sickened practically a dozen Louisiana residents.
One speaker, an OB-GYN, mentioned contraception inspired abortion. One other, an ophthalmologist, questioned the protection of wi-fi know-how, as has Dr. Griffin. Quoting Ms. O’Neill, the Australian wellness determine, Dr. Griffin warned the gang to “keep away from sunscreen,” including there have been “tons and plenty of chemical substances” in it.
Spirituality is “the muse for well being,” she mentioned through the occasion in 2025, and a few of her audio system have introduced religion in Jesus as important to being wholesome. On the 2024 gathering, Dr. Sean Troxclair, an internist who’s now her deputy, mentioned that when he was “injured” by a vaccine, “I bought with Jesus.” He added, “in case you’re not with him, it doesn’t matter what you do, you’re not going to get higher.”
In written feedback to The Occasions, Dr. Griffin mentioned that religion was not a prerequisite for good well being, and that she “might not share each perspective introduced” by her audio system.
Dr. Griffin’s appointment is amongst Governor Landry’s wider efforts to maneuver Louisiana, already a deeply purple state, additional to the suitable. He’s supported a crackdown on medical doctors who mail abortion drugs to Louisiana sufferers and a lawsuit in opposition to the Meals and Drug Administration to cease the observe nationwide. The Supreme Court docket mentioned the drugs might nonetheless be despatched by mail whereas the F.D.A. case continues within the decrease courts.
The governor’s first appointee as surgeon basic, Dr. Ralph Abraham, one other supporter of Mr. Kennedy, blocked his employees from selling any vaccines amid an outbreak of whooping cough that killed two infants.
Dr. Griffin has begun her tenure extra quietly, looking for ties with the state’s medical neighborhood whereas looking for her place in a well being division hierarchy the place the secretary nonetheless wields a lot of the facility.
For her employees, she’s recruited figures from wellness and vaccine-skeptical circles, together with Dr. Troxclair and Dr. Kathleen Willis, an internist who has questioned the protection of the childhood vaccine schedule, as has Mr. Trump.
A shocking presence within the division is Dr. Griffin’s husband, whom she’s referred to as “like-minded.” Although he’s not employed by the company, he has joined her appointments with state and federal officers and took part in division conferences, generally offering suggestions or asking questions, in response to two folks current on the classes. Dr. Griffin has additionally positioned him on a Medicaid advisory committee. Dr. Griffin mentioned in an announcement that he was “not concerned in formal decision-making.”
Bruce D. Greenstein, the state well being secretary, launched the couple throughout a public assembly in January, saying, “We mainly get two medical doctors for the worth of 1.” In Might, Dr. Griffin’s husband joined the governor on a contentious journey to Greenland, which Mr. Trump has periodically threatened to regulate.
Dr. Griffin’s beliefs symbolize a shift away from public well being insurance policies that prioritize the safety of the broader neighborhood in favor of ones that prioritize particular person alternative. Like Mr. Kennedy, she has mentioned that is essential to revive religion in public well being methods battered by the anger over pandemic restrictions.
Such a reframing of the federal government’s position would upend longstanding public well being ideas and danger harming society’s most susceptible, mentioned Dr. Paul A. Offit, director of the Vaccine Schooling Heart at Kids’s Hospital of Philadelphia.
“Are we under no circumstances accountable for individuals who we’re going to sit subsequent to on a bus or get right into a crowded elevator?” he requested. “Do now we have no sense of duty to different members of society?”
Florida’s former well being secretary and surgeon basic Dr. Scott Rivkees, whose successor tried to roll again vaccine mandates, mentioned rising vaccine skepticism was already contributing to outbreaks of measles and whooping cough. “That is one thing that our nation will remorse as we begin seeing our sons, daughters, neighbors, buddies, cousins, pay the worth,” he mentioned in an interview.
Regardless that Dr. Griffin has allied herself with some lawmakers within the Republican-controlled Legislature, she testified on three payments this spring that didn’t proceed. One would have created new vaccine informed-consent necessities — together with banning moms from agreeing to vaccines for 12 hours after giving start, when Dr. Griffin mentioned hormones and different elements might impede their considering.
One other would have considerably restricted the federal government’s capacity to require vaccines, testing or masks in a future outbreak, mandates that Dr. Griffin testified infringed on particular person rights and have been discriminatory. A 3rd invoice, her personal proposal, would have given her workplace sweeping entry to all medical data within the state, which are actually protected by medical privateness legal guidelines.
Governor Landry didn’t publicly push for the measures, an indication that they is probably not priorities for his administration. A majority of Louisiana voters help faculty vaccine mandates, in response to polls by Louisiana Households for Vaccines and the Heart for Particular person Freedom. Most proposals to weaken vaccine legal guidelines additionally failed in different states this 12 months.
Since her appointment, Dr. Griffin has traveled the state to fulfill with residents. In June, she and her husband wandered by way of a wellness occasion, sponsored by the Northshore Different Well being Alliance, in Mandeville. She had been invited to present the keynote handle by Abigail Licatino, a member of Well being Freedom Louisiana who has mentioned that vaccines trigger “most” autism.
Cubicles featured native farmers, reiki practitioners, purposeful medication medical doctors, chiropractors, non secular healers and purveyors of peptides, dietary supplements and IV remedies. The occasion represented a number of the “holistic approaches” Dr. Griffin mentioned she deliberate to spotlight as surgeon basic.
In speeches earlier than her appointment, Dr. Griffin had supplied a far-reaching imaginative and prescient. Whereas standard medication would nonetheless play an indispensable position, she mentioned, the present well being system was failing Individuals and would “collapse.” The well being freedom and wellness actions would assist present “the trail ahead.”
Kitty Bennett, Sheelagh McNeill and Kirsten Noyes contributed analysis.