Washington D.C. – In what could be the most depressing news of the week, the New York Times reports: “Doctors around the country say they are seeing more cases of serious, sometimes life-threatening illnesses that vaccines have long kept at bay, including whooping cough and bacterial infections that can cause pneumonia or meningitis.”
Adds the Times: “The concern among doctors comes on the heels of a resurgence of measles nationwide, fueled by distrust in vaccines that grew during the Covid-19 pandemic, and that Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and President Trump have amplified. Public health experts have long seen measles as a harbinger: Because it is so exceptionally contagious, it can be the first disease to spike as vaccination rates broadly decline, and a sign of more to come.”
“The explosion of preventable diseases that were once exceedingly rare is the direct result of Donald Trump and RFK Jr. abusing their power and influence to spread unfounded anti-vax propaganda that effectively throttled vaccination rates,” said Kayla Hancock, Director of Protect Our Care’s Public Health Project. “It’s not complicated, it’s not hyperbole, and it’s no conspiracy theory: their science-denying rhetoric and policies are making our kids seriously sick or worse. Just ask a pediatrician anywhere in the country.”
Just last week, Donald Trump himself threw more gas on the anti-vax fear-mongering fire with an executive order directing ‘all executive departments and agencies’ to ‘align their policies’ with a January ‘study’ from RFK Jr.’s HHS that was widely-panned by public health experts for baselessly calling for a major downgrade of the CDC’s child vaccine schedule.
Meanwhile, prolific anti-vax Trump Health Secretary Kennedy also continues to find new ways to use his platform to baselessly sow doubt about safety and efficacy of vaccines — no matter how much credible peer-reviewed science contradicts him — including:
- Appealing a federal court’s decision that halted the centerpiece of the Trump administration’s anti-vax agenda, the dangerous downgrade of the CDC child vaccine schedule.
- Stonewalling publication of a CDC report showing the covid-19 vaccine cut the likelihood of emergency department visits and hospitalizations for healthy adults last winter by about half”.
- Deliberately holding up $600 million in Congressionally approved and appropriated funds for international humanitarian group, Gavi that “provides vaccines for 20 diseases, including measles, malaria and polio, to more than 50 low-income countries across the globe” – obstruction that is projected to leave “tens of thousands” of people dead. It’s a move that even Secretary of State Rubio is now running away from.
- Orchestrating an “intense push, across health agencies under his purview, for government scientists and federal data contractors to examine his long-held theory that vaccines are helping to fuel an epidemic of chronic disease.” The effort costing a cool $40-$50 million at the CDC alone amounts to a fishing expedition for any excuse to challenge the overwhelming peer-reviewed scientific consensus that vaccines are safe and effective, all while propping up lucrative lawsuits that enrich friends and family.
- Taking no known steps to squash a major new effort by his “longtime allies” to “repeal [state] laws that for decades have required children to be vaccinated against measles, polio and other diseases before they enter day care or kindergarten.”
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