On Sunday, within the wake of the rising measles outbreak in Texas, U.S. Well being and Human Companies Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. revealed an op-ed on Fox Information’ web site, urging People to … get vaccinated.
With the subhead “MMR vaccine is crucial to avoiding potentially deadly disease,” the notorious anti-vaxxer wrote, “Vaccines not only protect individual children from measles, but also contribute to community immunity, protecting those who are unable to be vaccinated due to medical reasons.”
Texas Well being and Human Companies first reported the outbreak in mid-January. The illness quickly unfold, reaching almost 150 confirmed instances. The bulk (if not virtually all) of these instances are amongst youngsters who haven’t acquired the MMR vaccine. Texas officers say the outbreak is the worst in virtually three many years.
Final week, throughout Donald Trump’s weird Cupboard assembly, Kennedy glibly dismissed a measles-related demise of a school-aged baby as “not unusual.” It was the primary measles fatality recorded within the U.S. in over a decade.
Kennedy has spent a lot of his profession selling anti-vaccine misinformation, notably amplifying debunked unhealthy science connecting the MMR vaccine to autism charges in youngsters. Kennedy, together with others within the anti-vaxx motion have contributed to declining vaccination charges, leading to outbreaks just like the one in Texas.
The Texas outbreak, which started in Gaines County and has now unfold to eight extra counties, had alarmingly low vaccination charges amongst its instances of school-aged youngsters. This isn’t simply by likelihood; It has been fomented by Mr. Measles and his anti-science allies for many years.
On the identical time, the Kids’s Well being Protection, the group Kennedy based and beforehand chaired, continues to promote false data concerning the Texas outbreak. On Feb. 20, its official social media account blamed the outbreak on the MMR vaccine itself. Their claims have the identical quantity of proof they’ve all the time had—zero.
Kennedy can write as many toothless op-eds as he likes, however as instances pile up Kennedy’s first order of enterprise on the HHS was to intestine the company tasked with educating the general public and stopping outbreaks like this one. Kennedy even abruptly canceled the FDA’s deliberate assembly for subsequent flu season and paused multimillion-dollar efforts to develop a brand new COVID-19 vaccine to take care of new strains.
With the Trump administration’s historical past of mismanaging public well being, and Elon Musk’s concentrate on destroying our authorities companies, the longer term is simply going to get extra harmful for People.
