As measles outbreaks grow, no room for anti-vaccine views in public health policy | Editorial

Even some of his harshest critics were jolted by how quickly President Donald Trump has replaced qualified leaders of the nation’s armed forces, intelligence, crime-fighting, education, and other departments with lackeys who bow down to him on command. The president’s petulance in craving blind loyalty like that of Hitler’s generals jeopardizes this nation’s future on numerous fronts.

Consider his appointment of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to head the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Kennedy’s long history of denying the effectiveness of vaccines in limiting the spread of communicable diseases makes it highly questionable that he will make the right decisions to contain a spreading measles outbreak that has already killed one person — the first measles-related U.S. death in a decade.

As of Friday, Texas reported 124 cases of measles, 101 of them among children and teens, and said only five of the victims were known to be vaccinated. Most of the cases are within a close-knit Mennonite community in West Texas where childhood vaccinations are resisted. But isolated measles cases also have been reported in New Mexico, California, Georgia, New York, Rhode Island, and Alaska.

Instead of acknowledging the gravity of the situation, Kennedy downplayed it during a meeting Wednesday of Trump’s cabinet members. “We have measles outbreaks every year,” he said. Kennedy also said 20 Texas measles patients were hospitalized “mainly for quarantine reasons.” No, they were hospitalized because their conditions were serious.

On Thursday, New Jersey reported three confirmed cases of the highly contagious respiratory disease.

Texas, which has been an epicenter of the anti-vax movement for years, allows K-12 students to receive exemptions “for reasons of conscience,” including religious beliefs, which makes the state more vulnerable to a measles outbreak. Pennsylvania also allows exemptions over religious beliefs or a “strong moral or ethical conviction” against immunization. The commonwealth is also home to large Old Order Mennonite and Amish communities, which tend to be undervaccinated.

Measles may not be as common in the United States as it was in the 1950s, but parents are wrong to think they can skip having their children immunized to prevent it.

“If your child has measles, your child has a 20% likelihood of being hospitalized with it,” said Peter Hotez, codirector of the Texas Children’s Hospital Center for Vaccine Development. “Ten percent of kids who get measles have measles otitis, which can lead to permanent hearing loss. Five percent of kids who get measles get measles pneumonia, which is the leading cause of death from measles.”

It is hard to believe vaccine critic Kennedy, in his new role as our nation’s chief advocate of good health, will stress getting children immunized to prevent measles and other childhood diseases. The HHS secretary was coy when questioned about his views during Senate confirmation hearings. “News reports have claimed that I am anti-vaccine or anti-industry. I am neither. I am pro-safety,” said Kennedy without explaining what his search for safety would entail.

But that has become clearer now that he has been sworn in. Kennedy told a packed room of HHS workers he plans to “investigate” whether childhood vaccinations and antidepression medications have caused an increase in chronic diseases. “Nothing is going to be off limits,” Kennedy said.

So, instead of promoting the need for more children to be vaccinated, he intends to keep sowing doubt about immunization’s proven effectiveness.

Of course, HHS must continually investigate the effectiveness and potential danger of any drug or therapy. But the navigator of this nation’s public health course must not get so intent on trying to prove questionable theories that he fails to follow sounder methods to prevent people from dying unnecessarily.

We already know the measles vaccine works. In the decade before it was introduced in 1963, between three million to four million Americans were infected each year, 48,000 were hospitalized, and 400 to 500 people died. The vaccine is why the disease was declared eliminated in the United States 25 years ago.

Measles is back because too many people aren’t getting vaccinated. More than 100,000 people worldwide die annually from measles because many countries lack the ability to effectively immunize their populations. That’s not the case here.

Everyone, especially children, must be inoculated, and Kennedy should be leading the immunization effort.