Fired Vaccination Chief Sues Tennessee Health Officials for Defamation

A former top vaccination official for Tennessee filed a lawsuit Thursday against the state health department for defamation, saying she had to relocate to Virginia for employment following statements made against her.

Dr. Michelle Fiscus filed a complaint in the U.S. District Court for Middle Tennessee against Tennessee Health Commissioner Lisa Piercey and Chief Medical Officer Tim Jones. Fiscus has previously said she was fired in July following public pressure from Republican state lawmakers regarding her attempts to encourage teenagers to receive COVID-19 vaccines.

Fiscus made headlines this summer after she was terminated from her role as the director of the Vaccine-Preventable Diseases and Immunization Program for the state's health department. She said in the statement that she believed her firing came after she sent out information regarding Tennessee's "mature minor doctrine" that resulted from a state Supreme Court ruling in 1987.

Fiscus said someone who had seen the memo posted it on social media after becoming upset about a section that said minors ages 14 to 17 can receive emergency medical care in Tennessee without parental consent.

The health department was then called before the Legislature's Government Operations Committee. Fiscus wrote in her July statement that during the committee meeting, her department "was accused of 'targeting' youth through Facebook messaging and its actions were described as 'reprehensible' by one Committee member."

Fiscus was then let go from her position at the health department on July 12.

In the defamation lawsuit, Fiscus' attorneys detail a July 9 letter Jones sent to Piercey recommending that Fiscus be removed from her position. The legal complaint says Fiscus was not made aware of the letter from Jones when she was terminated and was not permitted to respond to allegations within it until after it was already made available to media outlets.

"The decision to send the July 9 letter, unsolicited, to members of the news media was, upon information and belief, part of an intentional effort by Defendants to stigmatize and defame Dr. Fiscus," the suit says.

The lawsuit also contends the memo was selectively shared with the media after Fiscus was fired, in an attempt to portray her in an unfair light. The suit states, "Dr. Fiscus's full personnel file, which included glowing performance reviews contradicting the memo's allegations, was not sent to the media."

The complaint adds that the letter from Jones "contains several false, stigmatizing, and defamatory statements concerning Dr. Fiscus and her character for honesty and morality," as well as "false and stigmatizing allegations include accusations of financial impropriety and self-dealing regarding Dr. Fiscus's role" with a nonprofit immunization group.

Elsewhere, the lawsuit says that Piercey previously defended Fiscus to critics before facing "intense political pressure." The complaint says Fiscus played no role in messages regarding parents and children on the issue of COVID-19 vaccinations. "Nor did she play any role in the creation of the mature minor doctrine or the Dept. of Health's historical reliance on that doctrine. In fact, the Dept. of Health continues to apply the doctrine as necessary for its activities," according to the lawsuit.

"The July 9 memo created the false impression that Dr. Fiscus was a rogue employee with her own political agenda—rather than an employee dutifully circulating language from a legal memorandum provided by a Dept. of Health lawyer, who had specifically advised her the memo was 'blessed by the Governor's office,'" the lawsuit says.

The suit also says that Fiscus previously requested that her name be cleared by the defendants but they did not comply. Instead, "false, stigmatizing, and defamatory statements made by Defendant Jones have seriously damaged Dr. Fiscus's standing and associations in the community and adversely impacted her ability to find subsequent employment in the State of Tennessee," the suit says.

The lawsuit mentions a dog muzzle Fiscus was said to have received to her office before she was fired. Later, a state investigation found the muzzle was purchased by an Amazon account under Fiscus' name, leading some outlets to allege she had purchased it and sent it to herself.

But Fiscus denied the accusation, saying someone registered a separate account unbeknownst to her in Washington state and ordered the muzzle. In the suit, she contends Amazon has no record of her purchasing it herself, and she has made a sworn statement under oath that she did not order it.

Fiscus responded to Newsweek's request for comment regarding the lawsuit.

"I think the declaration I have made under penalty of perjury and the lawsuit speak for themselves," she wrote in an email. "I look forward to my name being cleared despite the Tennessee Department of Health's denial of my right to do so."