from the just-eat-more dept
Let’s stipulate something before we dive into this post so that there is no misunderstanding: the rise of the anti-vax movement did not begin with Donald Trump’s foray into American politics. It’s been around since well before 2016, slowly but surely gaining momentum among a strange combination of West Coast liberal elites and a certain portion of conservatives. It gave rise to once-eradicated diseases for some time and was then supercharged by the bevy of misinformation and speculation around the COVID vaccines.
But Trump hasn’t helped. The eradication of truth as replaced by speculation, the “I’m just asking questions” routine, and a willingness to say anything that comes to mind with no thought to the consequences have all combined to propel the anti-vax crowd further than it has ever gotten. That is especially obvious with Trump putting the living avatar for the anti-vax movement, RFK Jr., in charge of the health of our nation.
Is RFK Jr. anti-vax? It depends on which day you ask him and where you are doing that questioning, it appears.
Kennedy said in his NPR interview that vaccines were “not going to be taken away from anybody”. He says he wants to improve the science on vaccine safety which he believes has “huge deficits” and that he wants good information so people “can make informed choices“.
While Kennedy has denied on several occasions that he is anti-vaccination and said he and his children are vaccinated, he has repeatedly stated widely debunked claims about vaccine harm.
One of his main false claims – repeated in a 2023 interview with Fox News, was that “autism comes from vaccines”.
His answers are so all over the map that anything can be true, which means nothing is. And that sort of thing isn’t relegated only to whatever his actual stance on vaccines is. You get the same thing when it comes to the recent outbreak of measles in the American south. Should people get vaccinated in that area, where under-vaccination is a problem? RFK Jr. said yes and with an impressive amount of force in a March 3rd post on the HHS.gov site.
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.
The current Texas outbreak has predominantly affected children, with 116 of the 146 cases occurring in individuals under 18 years of age. The DSHS reports that 79 of the confirmed cases involved individuals who had not received the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine, while 62 cases had unknown vaccine status. At least five had received an MMR vaccine.
Great, except we have a couple of problems here. The measles outbreak began in January. RFK Jr. was confirmed as the HHS Secretary on February 13th. Why did it take until March 3rd to recommend vaccination?
And why is RFK Jr. now saying some incredibly stupid things about measles and disease in general that seem to point to other strategies besides vaccination?
While vaccines are widely regarded as the first line of defense, some experts have suggested that nutrition plays a role in reducing the severity of the disease.
HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. discussed the topic during a recent exclusive interview with Dr. Marc Siegel, clinical professor of medicine at NYU Langone Health and Fox News’ senior medical analyst.
“We need to understand the relationship between good health and chronic disease,” RFK Jr. told Siegel. “If you are healthy, it’s almost impossible for you to be killed by an infectious disease, in modern times — because we have nutrition … and access to medicines. What we need is good science on all of these things so that people can make rational choices.”
Read that again. “If you are healthy, it’s almost impossible for you to be killed by an infectious disease.” I will assume that this inartfully worded statement is saying that if you’re otherwise healthy then it’s nearly impossible to die from an infectious disease. I also have zero idea as to what evidence RFK Jr. is basing that on. And the “rational choices” line is obviously a subtle nod to the anti-vax crowd, though it’s carefully worded so that Kennedy can deny that.
But come on: there are a ton of infectious diseases that can kill you quite easily, even if you’re eating habits are tip top. AIDS comes to mind. Ebola, Smallpox, and all kinds of bacterial infections as well. This isn’t secret information and the HHS Secretary saying otherwise is bonkers.
Folks, this is dangerous. A lack of clarity on the best plan to re-eradicate a disease we declared gone decades ago is going to prolong this outbreak and spur on others. The main victims of this disease are fucking children. The first death of this outbreak was a school-aged child. Measles should be a mere nightmare in 2025. Instead, the nightmare has become real through misinformation, doublespeak, and the distrust in science that has been in a supercharged state ever since the current President presided over the worst health crisis in a century during his first term. Largely because that same President decided he’d rather deny simple facts and/or find something/someone to blame than deal with reality and provide actual leadership.
Now, it’s not as though the concept that people who have access to quality nutrition will respond to measles better is wrong in and of itself, to be clear. That’s almost certainly true. The problem is several fold: the administration RFK Jr. works for is cutting nutrition programs from the government, vaccines work even for those suffering from malnutrition, and, because of the quality of our healthcare, malnutrition plays much less of a role in the United States than other countries.
Dr. Jacob Glanville, CEO of Centivax, a San Francisco biotechnology company, agreed that measles is more likely to severely affect children in developing countries who are extremely malnourished.
“Historically, less than 1% of American children die from measles, while the Pan American Health Organization reports that as [many] as 10% of children die from measles in some developing countries, and it has been reported as high as 25% to 50% in a study of malnourished African infants,” he told Fox News Digital.
The lack of quality medical care in many areas of the developing world also contributes to disease severity, Glanville noted.
“While better nutrition is important for American children, it’s unlikely to make a difference when it comes to measles infection or severity — 90% of well-fed but unvaccinated American children exposed to measles will become infected, around 20% of those children will be hospitalized, and 0.1-1% of those children will die.”
But when it comes to RFK Jr., the man simply cannot be clear. Because, I suspect, he is an anti-vaxxer at his core. He has to pretend otherwise now, first to be confirmed as HHS Secretary and now so a larger uproar over his post there won’t begin. But responses like those below simply don’t help.
RFK also recognized the importance of vaccines, noting that the HHS is “making sure that anybody who wants the vaccine can get that vaccine.”
“The measles vaccine protects the community,” he told Dr. Siegel. “We are recommending that people in this country get vaccines … [and] we are also respectful of their personal choices.”
There was no need for the last part of that statement. It’s what the vaccine skeptics will glom onto, refusing to vaccinate their children, harming herd immunity for these solvable diseases, and endangering us all.
Filed Under: disinformation, health, health misinformation, measles, misinformation, nutrition, rfk jr., vaccines
