RFK Jr.’s ignorant war on vaccines will make America sick again
By Alex Samuels, Daily Kos Staff
While the HHS secretary didn’t terminate the COVID project
outright, he announced a 90-day stop-work order on it, alleging that former
President Joe Biden’s “failed oversight” during his presidency necessitated a
review of ongoing vaccine production agreements.
It’s unclear what might happen during that time to make
Kennedy want to resume the program, but it seems that the HHS secretary
is trying to impose his harmful anti-vaccine agenda on Americans, even if it’s to our detriment.
Meanwhile, when it comes to the panel of scientific experts
who advise the Food and Drug Administration on vaccine policy, it seems as
though Kennedy is using his newfound power in President Donald Trump’s Cabinet
to also bend federal health agencies to his will. As The New York Times reported,
Kennedy has long been critical of the FDA, but, perhaps more worrisome, of any
efforts to develop new, useful vaccines.
This way of thinking is not only misguided, it’s dangerous.
Richard Hughes, a lawyer for some vaccine makers, told the Times that this
year’s flu season has been especially bad.
“The stakes are incredibly high,” he said.
But that hasn’t stopped Kennedy. Indeed, his war on vaccines
and fighting preventable illnesses couldn’t come at a worse time for our
nation. Wednesday’s back-to-back announcements came on the heels of a surging measles outbreak in
Texas, which saw its first fatality this
week in an unvaccinated child.
Kennedy has been vocal and chronically uninformed in
his war on vaccines, and
his comments about the measles fatality on Wednesday were no different. True to
form, he continued to spread lies and misinformation regarding both the disease
and the death of a school-aged child. For instance, he claimed there had
been two deaths linked
to the recent measles cases, even though public health agencies have confirmed
only one.
“There’ve been four measles outbreaks this year. In this
country last year, there were 16,” Kennedy stated without providing any
evidence. “So it’s not unusual. We have measles outbreaks every
year.”
Of course, in his statement, Kennedy sidestepped the crucial
detail that the death in Texas marks the first reported measles death in the
nation since 2015.
What’s worse is that this child’s death might have been
preventable. According to the Texas Department of Health and
Human Services, almost all known measles cases involve unvaccinated
individuals or those whose vaccination status is uncertain. The agency noted
that 124 cases have been identified in Texas since late January, which
underscores the alarming impact of the rising vaccine skepticism movement.
By comparison, there were 285 confirmed cases nationwide in 2024, according to
the CDC.
Texas initially reported an outbreak of measles cases in the
state’s South Plains region earlier this month.
According to the latest update from the state health agency, 18 people have
been hospitalized in connection with the outbreak.
The outbreak in the Lone Star State appears to have originated in
Gaines County, a more rural area of Texas. According to the Texas Tribune, the
state’s vaccination rates have declined since the COVID-19 pandemic: in the
2019-20 school year, the vaccination rate was 97%; it fell to 94.3% for
2023-24. To achieve herd immunity, the
vaccination rate needs to be at 95%. Around the same time, the outlet noted
that requests for vaccine exemptions in the state have nearly doubled.
Those are the real numbers from trusted sources. It’s
unclear where Kennedy is getting his data from—or if he’s just pulling it out
of thin air. Whatever the case is, his crusade against one of the greatest accomplishments
in modern medicine is a dangerous one. After all, vaccines are so effective at
preventing illness that they have done away with some of the worst diseases known
to mankind—from polio to malaria to yellow fever. But if Kennedy can’t see or
willfully chooses to misunderstand that, we might all be doomed.
