"Members of the government's science council should have a clear message (for the public) and their opinions can be harmful," Health Minister, Vili Beros, said on Thursday in response to comments made by a prominent scientist and vaccine skeptic, Gordan Lauc.

Lauc, who works as a professor of biochemistry at the University of Zagreb, has become a household name in recent months due to his frequent appearances in the local media in which he commonly slams restrictions and statements imposed by the government’s coronavirus task force – even though he sits on the government’s science council, an advisory body formed to help combat the Covid-19 pandemic.

On Wednesday, Lauc published a Facebook post in which he said that “the consensus of the Scientific Council is that vaccines are poor protection against infection,” a statement carried by most local media outlets, which is in direct opposition to government’s efforts to promote vaccination.

Commenting on the post, Beros said that although everyone has the right to their own opinion, dissonance in public is harmful.

“It is bad when everyone has the same opinion… But I am critical of what is made public. I hereby appeal… to everyone who sits on the council to be aware that by presenting their opinion on social networks they could be doing harm,” Beros told reporters after a cabinet meeting.

He added that he had “personally appealed to members of the council to send out clear messages and not confuse citizens.”

Beros also commented on the outlines of health reform which is being worked on at his ministry. He announced that the first step would involve centralizing procurement at health care institutions such as hospitals. Traditionally, every health care institution runs its own procurement, and although they are all publicly-owned, they are controlled by various levels of government, all the way from towns and counties up to the the central government.

“But the precondition for centralized public procurement is the ownership structure (of hospitals) because the health ministry and the government are unable to impose any rules for county hospitals get on board with centralized procurement. Combined procurement is the first step we will deal with, and certain steps have already been taken in that regard,” he said, without clarifying.

“Whether it will be necessary to centralize (control of) county-level institutions or not is still up for debate,” he said.