Our new national secretary of Health and Human Services, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., has said in dozens of public appearances that the Measles, Mumps, and Rubella (MMR) vaccine can cause autism. We've heard from scientists for decades that the MMR vaccine does not cause autism. There have been many proofs, including a recent study of half a million children in Denmark. And yet, Donald Trump and Kennedy are making the CDC do yet another study on vaccines and autism. What a waste of taxpayer money!
There's a very slick anti-vaccine playbook in action and our new public health leaders love it.
Here's a ploy that most fourth graders can see past: If kids get vaccinated young and the first signs of autism emerge when kids are young, bingo, one caused the other. (Thanks, Donald Trump.)
A favorite strategy is to pretend we don't know what we do know, that in fact we need to get the data. Believe me, we have the data. Even most anti-vaccine propagandists know we have the data. They pretend we don't in order to sow doubt.
Another strategy is straight out misinformation, such as that the Covid-19 vaccine alters our DNA, implants microchips in us, or wrecks our immune systems.
Kennedy has said that vaccines have "poisoned an entire generation of children". He has claimed that HPV vaccines, which prevent cervical, vaginal, penile, anal, vulvar, and oropharyngeal (throat) cancer - with bonus points for preventing genital warts - have a higher risk of causing death than the cancers they very successfully prevent. It's a terrible and false message to give to parents deciding on their children's health care.
So what else is in Kennedy's bag of tricks?
He'll say something that hasn't been true in decades, such as that X ingredient is in our vaccines when in fact it was removed in the 1960s. He'll distract us by throwing in irrelevant information, such as the idea that the child who recently died of measles in Texas was malnourished - which she wasn't - to imply that she died because there was some sort of nutrition issue. Or he'll make up brand new fake ideas, including that the polio vaccine can cause cancer.
In addition to our government health leaders, others are actively engaged in promoting anti-vaccine thinking and behavior. Some of them make money by purveying false information or potentially dangerous products. This can mean selling quack remedies to the gullible. I follow the social media posts of a physician fired from his university for being a purveyor of health misinformation. He sells kits on the internet that may include antibiotics, antivirals, high-dosage vitamins, ivermectin (a dewormer that treats parasitic worms and river blindness), and hydroxychloroquine (a malaria treatment). When I visited it, his website required your credit card information before you get the (to my mind fake) online "consult" with someone who green lights you to order the drug kits. He wants you to buy stuff when you're not sick. You just keep it on hand and dose yourself when you decide to, with no medical supervision.
Medications can cause harm. Ivermectin can cause seizures, edema, nausea, low blood pressure, and more. Hydroxychloroquine can cause heart problems. Even the fat-soluble vitamin A, which can be delivered via cod liver oil, is being touted by Kennedy and others as an alternative to the measles vaccine. It can cause a form of toxicity (think double vision, bone pain, liver damage, headaches, vomiting, and more). Vitamin A can be helpful if one is deficient in it, but almost no one in the United States fits in that category.
Of course, there are supposedly scientific papers on the internet promoting some of these medications and supplements. I found one with a very small number of experimental subjects funded by a Bangladeshi pharmaceutical company. It's about how ivermectin might shorten Covid infection. There's much better quality research out there and it's not that hard to find. People who are shut out of publishing in respected science journals may be angry about it. One writer calls peer-reviewed scientific publications that shut out his papers the "Academic Publishing Cartel", accusing it of mail fraud, defamation, obstruction of justice, and antitrust violations. This complaint doesn't seem to be getting traction, but who knows what harm the Trump administration will do to public health research now that it is actively defunding federal scientists and their work.
We're in the middle of a measles outbreak that keeps spreading (and no wonder, as measles is aerosolized and can stay in the air for two hours after an infected person has left the room). Most of the sick -- who number in the hundreds now -- were unvaccinated. Most are children, and 17% have had to be hospitalized. Vaccines, while not perfect, are our best hope. It would be so helpful if our political leaders shared the science rather than their personal, misguided beliefs.
Comments