Why You Shouldn't Listen to RFK, Jr Talk About Measles
even if he is HHS Secretary...
Anti-vaccine influencers have been pushing the idea that we shouldn’t trust government public health officials.
This is one time we should listen to them!
Why You Shouldn't Listen to RFK, Jr Talk About Measles
At least we should listen to them and shouldn’t trust Robert F. Kennedy, Jr, the new Secretary of HHS.
While you probably saw this coming, just consider what he has been saying about measles lately:
“Some years we have hundreds of measles outbreaks.” - if you look at the stats on how many people get measles each year lately, in more than half of those years, there are fewer than 100 cases. While it is no surprise that some people still get measles, the very large and record setting outbreaks that cost millions of dollars to contain are unusual when a safe and effective is available.
“We have measles outbreaks every year and part of that there are people who don’t vaccinate, but also the vaccine itself wanes. The vaccine wanes about 4.5% per year, so that means older people are essentially unvaccinated. Their immune system is not protected.” - now, while studies do show that antibody levels do go down over time, this is not a good measure of protection from measles! It doesn’t take into account the function of memory B cells and the anamnestic response, with which we know that most people are immune and protected after two doses of MMR, even if they have low antibody titers. NIH immunologists should be able to explain this one to Kennedy.
“One of the problems is it does not appear to provide maternal immunity. It used to be that… you don’t want a very young kid to get measles… they were protected by breastmilk, by maternal immunity. Women who get vaccinated do not provide that level of maternal immunity that a natural measles infection did.” - of course, a mother does pass the measles antibodies she produces from the MMR vaccines she receives to her baby - and no, it is not through breastmilk. While it is true that this vaccine induced, passive protection might not last quite as long, it is also very true that an awful lot of otherwise healthy infants and young children died in the pre-vaccine era!
“So you are now seeing measles hit very, very young kids and older people within whom the vaccine has waned.” - nope, we are mostly seeing measles in folks who are unvaccinated and unprotected. Epidemiologists from the CDC can help Kennedy with this one.
“People who tended to die were people who had co-morbidities and they were malnourished.” - being malnourished or having high risk conditions raises your risk of dying with measles, but most of the deaths we see in developed countries are in otherwise healthy children who are simply unvaccinated.
“The vaccine came around in 1963 and the WIC program which fed all of these hungry kids in our country came out in 1964.” - so why did so many people die during the measles epidemics in 1989-1991? And anyway, the first WIC site didn’t open until 1974! Kennedy was close on this one… If anyone is left at USDA in the WIC program, maybe they can explain this one to Kennedy.
“We should have transparency, we should have informed choice, but if people don’t want it, the government shouldn’t force them to do it, there are adverse events from the vaccine. It does cause deaths every year. It does cause… it causes all the illnesses that measles itself causes, encephalitis, blindness, etc. People ought to be able to make that choice for themselves. And what we need to do is give them the best information, encourage them to vaccinate.” - now you can’t make a truly informed choice if you are being hit with this kind of misinformation, especially when it is coming from the HHS Secretary! The MMR vaccine is safe, with very few serious reactions, and any that do occur would be at much lower levels than risks from a natural infection. The MMR vaccine has saved millions of lives! And of course, this is why we need more studies on vaccine hesitancy.
Make the choice to either ignore these kinds of anti-vaccine influencers, or learn to be more skeptical and spot their misinformation and propaganda for yourself.
Only then will you be able to make a truly informed choice about vaccines.
References
RFK Jr.: It Would Be Better if ‘Everybody Got Measles’ https://www.thedailybeast.com/rfk-jr-it-would-be-better-if-everybody-got-measles/
WIC Program Overview and History. https://www.nwica.org/overview-and-history
And may I draw everyone’s attention to that photograph taken from the televised interview please? Look carefully at where the interview is occurring and, even more importantly, at the choices by both Hannity and Kennedy - hardly “healthy” food or drink choices! And this is the man who wants to “Make America Healthy Again”? 🤦🏻♀️
Oh course we should almost ALL have the MMR vaccine unless you were born before about 1950. It’s been tested and tested and tested. A very very few have a medical condition that makes the vaccine unsuitable.
People born before 1950 have probably had measles. I did- I was very very sick. Affected my eyesight. Even though I was tiny I remember it clearly - being in a darkened room. No energy to play.