Washington D.C. – Amid the worst measles outbreak in the U.S. in 34 years impacting mostly unvaccinated children, the Chairman of the Trump administration’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP), Kirk Milhoan, made a series of truly disturbing and reckless comments on the “Why Should I Trust You?” podcast this week, including questioning the need for the polio and measles vaccines and suggesting that more unvaccinated American children put at risk of measles is a worthy experiment. As reported by STAT:
Asked about his thoughts on polio and measles vaccines, Milhoan seemed to question whether both are still necessary. There has been an international effort for nearly the past 40 years to eradicate the crippling polio virus, which still spreads in Pakistan and Afghanistan, and which occasionally makes its way out of that region. Measles, however, is running rampant in parts of the United States, with transmission occurring at rates that haven’t been seen since the early 1990s.
“I think also, as you look at polio, we need to not be afraid to consider that we are in a different time now than we were then. […]
Milhoan also seemed to suggest that the ongoing outbreaks will generate modern estimates of the risks measles poses.
“What we’re going to have is a real-world experience of when unvaccinated people get measles,” he said. “What is the new incidence of hospitalization? What’s the incidence of death?”
Milhoan’s alarming statements come on the heels of a failed, ethically-devoid Trump-RFK Jr. CDC effort to ‘test’ the hepatitis B vaccine on babies in the West African nation of Guinea-Bissau, and amid reports that major vaccine manufacturer Moderna is now “ending new late-stage vaccine trials because of growing opposition to immunizations from US officials.”
“There’s clearly no bottom to the Trump administration’s dangerous and unfounded anti-vax agenda with their sights now set on the polio vaccine that kept generations of children from suffering paralysis,” said Kayla Hancock, Director of Public Health Watch, a project of Protect Our Care. “Perhaps more disturbing is that top Trump vaccine advisors seemingly endorse the idea of using unvaccinated American children as guinea pigs in an experiment hoping to justify the anti-vaccine cause. Decades of data and science prove both polio and measles vaccines are safe and effective and have kept millions of children out of harm’s way, but the Trump administration prefers the dark ages when these diseases ran rampant. The question is when can American parents expect any sort of check and balance from Senate HELP Chairman and vaccine advocate Bill Cassidy in response to these acts of self-sabotage against our public health from the Trump administration?””
Milhoan was handpicked by fellow polio and measles vaccine skeptic, HHS Secretary RFK Jr., and recently led the ACIP’s effort to withdraw the hepatitis B shot from the CDC child vaccine schedule despite its proven safety and effectiveness, which the Trump-RFK Jr. CDC quickly agreed to, putting the lives of many American kids needlessly at risk. Milhoan’s latest rhetoric was likely music to the ears of RFK Jr. who has spread egregious evidence-free lies about the polio vaccine, including conspiracy theories that the polio vaccine “cause[d] more death than it avert[ed]” and that polio’s eradication was not due to the vaccine.
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