Photograph: Andrew Harnik/Getty Pictures
As measles instances proceed to unfold in West Texas, fitness officers within the state showed this weekend that an 8-year-old woman had died from the virus — the second one unvaccinated kid to die from measles headaches this yr. Well being secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. attended her funeral on Sunday, calling it “a heartbreaking day” in a submit on X. Kennedy has an extended historical past of spreading incorrect information in regards to the measles, mumps, and rubella vaccine and has spent a lot of the present outbreak making an attempt to downplay the seriousness of the placement and selling unhealthy and unproven choice remedies. However it appears, he discovered the weekend’s occasions sobering sufficient to proportion some evidence-based details about how you can keep away from preventable deaths of kids. “One of the best approach to save you the unfold of measles is the MMR vaccine,” he wrote on X.
This commonsense public-health recommendation didn’t move over neatly with RFK Jr.’s anti-vaxx fan base, who sounded off within the feedback, calling him a “sell-out” and “a in point of fact nice poster boy for Giant Pharma.” Others spoke back with permutations of “WTF” in addition to authentic confusion, noting accurately that Youngsters’s Well being Protection — the aggressively anti-vaxx nonprofit RFK Jr. based — “promotes the other.” “Can any person in finding @RobertKennedyJr and put him in as @HHSGov secretary please” wrote one person, whilst others speculated that their chief were “compromised” or used to be being “blackmailed.” Del Bigtree, the CEO of the anti-vaxx group Knowledgeable Consent Motion Community — and a former communications director for RFK Jr.’s presidential marketing campaign — expressed outrage that RFK Jr.’s submit failed to say the conspiracy that “the MMR could also be one of the vital efficient tactics to motive autism.” Different disappointed fans took it upon themselves to focus on RFK Jr.’s maximum galling cases of hypocrisy, resurfacing pictures of him recalling getting measles as a kid as “an ideal week” and suggesting with out proof that the MMR vaccine might kill extra kids than measles.
Regardless of the selection of anti-vaxxers lamenting RFK Jr.’s betrayal, this isn’t the primary time he’s stated some great benefits of the MMR vaccine. Following standard grievance of his lackluster measles reaction, he printed an op-ed with Fox Information Virtual, writing that “vaccines now not handiest give protection to particular person kids from measles, but additionally give a contribution to neighborhood immunity.” In neither case has he explicitly advised oldsters to vaccinate their kids — he known as vaccination a “private” determination within the Fox Information piece — however quite a few his fanatics nonetheless weren’t extremely joyful. (Some did admire that he gave airtime to diet A, which medical doctors have warned can also be unhealthy in massive doses along with being useless at fighting measles.)
However it’s more and more exhausting to disclaim that RFK Jr.’s public statements about vaccines were wildly inconsistent. After spending years profiting off lies about vaccines, he tried to reassure American citizens remaining fall that he wouldn’t “remove any individual’s vaccines” and many times claimed to be “pro-vaccine” throughout his affirmation hearings. But regardless of his claims to wish transparency and “just right science,” the FDA lately canceled a flu-vaccine making plans assembly of medical mavens with out giving any indication why. In the meantime, RFK Jr. has tapped David Geier — every other infamous anti-vaxxer — to steer a learn about reexamining the already completely debunked hyperlink between vaccines and autism, which even Republican senator Invoice Cassidy has advised is a waste of time and cash.
In line with the New York Instances, the FDA’s best vaccine reputable, Dr. Peter Marks, lately resigned after he used to be instructed he may both hand over or be fired. “This guy doesn’t care in regards to the reality,” Marks instructed the Instances about RFK Jr. “He cares about what’s making him fans.”
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