EDITORIAL: Anti-vax, pro-measles

It is almost inconceivable that a politician whose agenda is as transparently built on false statements and exploitation of the vulnerable in pursuit of personal aggrandizement as that of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. could influence Americans to make risky decisions about their children’s health, but evidence shows that is happening.

Kennedy’s appointment as U.S. secretary of Health and Human Services has given him the authority to act on his discredited campaign to convince parents that vaccination endangers, rather than protects, their children’s health, and it’s having an obvious effect.

Childhood vaccination rates have fallen so far and so fast that measles, a dangerous disease that has been officially declared eliminated in the U.S. for decades, has now returned. The number of measles infections reported annually has risen to its highest level in at least 33 years.

Shockingly, Wisconsin, once considered an enlightened state by various measures, has one the lowest children’s vaccination rates in the country. Statewide, less than 70% of school children have been vaccinated. The vaccination rate in Ozaukee County is better at 79%, but is still far below the 95% that is considered the threshold for the overall protection that is known as herd immunity.

Wisconsin is one of only six states (the others are Idaho, Louisiana, Oregon, Tennessee and Utah) in which not a single county meets the herd immunity level.

Last week, in South Carolina, another low-vaccination state, more than 250 people were quarantined after exposure to the state’s largest measles outbreak in decades.

Prior to his bizarre appointment as head of the government agency in charge of the nation’s health, Kennedy made a business career out of his mission to discredit vaccines as being more dangerous than the diseases they were developed to prevent. He was paid by Children’s Health Defense, an anti-vaccination organization he founded, as well as through branding and licensing deals, legal work in lawsuits against vaccine makers, speaking fees and consulting services.

He spread fear of vaccines by saying they may cause autism, frightening parents and encouraging vaccination doubters, in spite of numerous scientific studies in the U.S. and abroad involving millions of children that found no link between any vaccine ingredients and autism spectrum disorder.

He called the Covid vaccine “the deadliest ever made,” and said it had “killed more people than Covid.” The vaccine, the product of President Donald Trump’s Warp Speed vaccine development effort, is credited with saving millions of lives.

In 2019, Kennedy went to Samoa and met with anti-vaccine activists and in public appearances and meetings with government leaders supported a movement that had reduced the measles vaccination rate to 31% and preached that measles was “usually a mild childhood disease.” Later in that same year, a measles outbreak infected nearly 6,000 Samoans and caused at least 83 deaths. Health authorities blamed the medical disaster on the sharply decreased vaccination coverage.

Kennedy’s appointment as health secretary was widely viewed as a political payback from Donald Trump for dropping out of the Republican presidential primary and endorsing Trump.

With his authority over the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Kennedy replaced all 17 members of the CDC’s committee on immunization practices. The panel that guides vaccination recommendations is now dominated by adherents to Kennedy’s contempt for vaccines. 

Kennedy reversed the CDC’s long-standing position that scientific evidence had proven that vaccines do not cause autism.

He directed the CDC to announce that Covid vaccination was no longer recommended for any healthy person younger than 65 and cancelled funding for research and development of mRNA vaccines such as the Covid vaccine.

Coming from the national authority on health, Kennedy’s moves against vaccines are stoking fear and vaccination resistance. Vaccination was declining before he took over HHS, due in part to ideological resistance to state vaccination regulations stemming from political controversy over Covid mandates, but now anti-vax sentiment is bolstered by the endorsement of the federal government. 

The erosion of confidence in vaccines threatens to take human progress on a sharp turn backward. The development of vaccines that prevent the spread of deadly diseases is considered by many to be the greatest achievement in medical history. Regulations once in effect in all 50 states that required vaccination of children before entering schools saved lives by preventing epidemics.

The conquering of measles was especially significant. One of the most contagious diseases in the world, it can morph from an unpleasant bed-ridden week with a severe rash into pneumonia, encephalitis, deafness, blindness, even death. It is estimated that 10% to 20% of measles cases require hospitalization.

For parents making decisions to guard the health of precious children, Kennedy has made it clear they can expect no help from their federal government. In Wisconsin, the same is true of the state government. Wisconsin is one of very few states that offer personal belief waivers, in addition to medical and religious exemptions, that allow parents to bypass vaccination requirements for their children, hence the dismal vaccination rate.

Despite the persistent undermining by vaccine critics, the case for vaccination is as strong as it has ever been. Opponents present theories, supposition and misinformation on an epic scale, all of which have been debunked by evidence-based scientific findings. But if the science isn’t convincing enough, fact and common sense make the case. Measles afflicted millions of children. Then a vaccine was developed and the disease was gone. Now use of the vaccine is diminishing, and measles is back.