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vaccines
Trump Order Rooted in Debunked Vaccine-Autism Link 'Will Get Kids Killed,' Warns Critic
Protect Our Care called the president's decree on the measles, mumps, and rubella vaccine "a wildly dangerous escalation of the administration’s deadly anti-vax agenda."
Aug 10, 2026
US President Donald Trump on Monday signed an executive order overhauling federal childhood vaccine recommendations, reviving a discredited theory that vaccines may contribute to autism and prompting condemnation from public health advocates and even rebuke from a Republican senator.
Trump's order, “Delivering Gold Standard Childhood Vaccine Recommendations for Americans,” calls for separating the combined measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccination into three individual shots "once such products are domestically available." The directive also recommends administering childhood immunizations during separate medical visits, "to the maximum extent feasible."
At a press conference, Trump explained that the recommendations in his order concern "many subjects, but including autism in particular."
"Decades ago, children received only a small fraction of the vaccines required today," the president said. "In those times, people were much healthier and, of course, the high rates of autism now observed did not exist. So, there's a reason for such epidemic rates of autism. And we're going to bring it back to much closer to where it was."
"While we do not know exactly what the cause is with respect to autism, it is essential to our research efforts that we have the very best vaccine recommendations in the entire world," he added. "So we're reducing them, we're changing it to visits over the period of a year, a year and a half, so they get 20% of what they would have gotten in one big shot."
Decades of rigorous research have failed to produce any credible scientific link between vaccines and autism. That has not stopped influential figures, including Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., from claiming such a link. Trump and Kennedy also alarmed experts by claiming last year that acetaminophen, commonly known by the brand name Tylenol, is linked to autism spectrum disorders in developing fetuses when taken during pregnancy.
While anti-vaccine and vaccine skeptic voices applauded Trump’s order, public health experts said the directive will prove deadly.
Trump also claimed that inoculating children with all three components of the MMR vaccine could possibly be "quite lethal," but when asked by a reporter for evidence supporting that claim, the president could offer none.
I put together these two parts of Trump’s event on vaccines.
Trump claims there is a possibility that the MMR vaccine could be “quite lethal.” But later, when asked if he has any evidence to back up his claims, he says no pic.twitter.com/AwuW9IiYNl
— Acyn (@Acyn) August 10, 2026
The Affordable Care Act advocacy group Protect Our Care warned that Trump's executive order on the "nonexistent autism-vaccine link will get kids killed" and "is a wildly dangerous escalation of the administration’s deadly anti-vax agenda."
“Pushing parents to spread out these lifesaving vaccines over time is guaranteed to increase kids’ exposure to these very harmful diseases, including the simple reality that follow-up appointments will be missed," Protect Our Care senior adviserc Anne Shoup said in a statement. "If Trump’s baseless, science-free decree is followed, the end result will not be fewer children with autism, but far more in the ER or even the morgue."
"Whether or not state health departments follow Trump’s ignorant guidance, this official proclamation from the highest level of power will have a further chilling effect on vaccination rates across the board," Shoup added. "All Trump is doing is fanning more unfounded fear, pressuring a further drop in vaccination rates, and welcoming a resurgence of preventable diseases once thought eradicated. For the anti-vaxxer-in-chief, the current record-breaking measles crisis is apparently not on a grand enough scale.”
Anthony Wright, executive director at the health advocacy group Families USA, said in a statement that “today, the president announced yet another change in vaccine policy that is not based on science or medical evidence."
"The science has not changed. Vaccines that prevent common illnesses like rotavirus, hepatitis B, and the flu are just as safe and effective today as they were yesterday," he continued. "The new policy will simply create chaos and confusion for patients and providers, and increase costs for families when getting their kids vaccinated."
"This executive order seeks to sidestep the established panel of experts entirely, replacing decades of bipartisan, public, evidence-based review with the whims of a rogue White House and HHS secretary," Wright said. "This new directive sabotages a science-based process that has successfully prevented widespread outbreaks among American children for generations."
“Downgrading the universal recommendation for common, lifesaving vaccines will cause confusion for parents and providers alike, and confusion costs lives," he added. "Removing the presumption that every child should receive them isn't just dangerous; it risks undermining the guarantee that recommended vaccines are covered without cost-sharing, forcing families to choose between protecting their kids and paying for an expensive doctor's visit."
Dr. Robert Steinbrook, health research group director at the consumer advocacy group Public Citizen, said that "the Trump administration is continuing a mindless anti-scientific assault on the childhood vaccine schedule and falsely tying vaccines to autism."
"There is no medical reason for the MMR vaccine to be split into three separate single-disease shots that would be administered at separate office visits, changes that would only decrease vaccine coverage and increase healthcare costs," he continued. "Under the draft executive order, mandatory vaccine requirements for children to attend school would be also put at further risk. These and other directives are the exact opposite of ‘Gold Standard Childhood Vaccine Recommendations’ during the worst year for measles cases in decades."
The resurgence in measles is directly linked to vaccine refusal and hesitancy stoked by influential figures and fora like Kennedy and the Children's Health Defense nonprofit group he formerly chaired.
Trump will sign an executive order proposing reducing childhood vaccines, and separating the MMR vaccine into 3 individual shots.This reckless move will decrease vaccine uptake further at a time where measles cases are at a 35-year high, and the US is set to lose its measles elimination status.
— Dr. Lucky Tran (@luckytran.com) August 10, 2026 at 12:24 PM
“Senate confirmation of Dr. Erica Schwartz as director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) should have restored sanity to the federal government’s vaccine policies," Steinbrook added. "Regrettably, within days of Schwartz’s confirmation, the Trump administration has offered only more irrational nonsense.”
Trump and Kennedy have pursued a broad rollback of federal vaccine policy, including by purging the CDC's entire vaccine advisory committee and replacing its members with controversial figures; reducing or eliminating universal recommendations for several vaccines, including Covid-19, flu, hepatitis B, and some childhood vaccines; canceling hundreds of millions of dollars in mRNA-vaccine development funding; and pushing individual decision-making.
Physicians serving in Congress from both parties also decried Trump's order.
“Donald Trump and RFK Jr. have gambled with American lives and seem determined to turn the clock back on decades of medical and scientific progress," said Congresswoman Kelly Morrison (D-Minn.), an OB-GYN. "Communities across the country continue to face outbreaks of preventable diseases, and Trump and RFK Jr. are doubling down on their dangerous disinformation."
"Meanwhile, working families continue to see their healthcare and prescription drug costs skyrocket—all so Trump can pay for tax handouts for billionaires," she added, referring to the so-called One Big Beautiful Bill signed by the president in July 2025. "Families shouldn’t have to worry that Trump and RFK Jr. will stand in the way of protecting themselves and their loved ones from serious illnesses.”
Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.), a gastroenterologist who voted to confirm Kennedy, wrote on X: "I’m a doctor. This executive order is wrong. The president does not have the expertise to make these changes."
"Vaccines are overwhelmingly safe. Vaccines are effective. Vaccines DO NOT cause autism," he continued. "Breaking up vaccines will mean children have to get more shots to get the same protection, not fewer shots. It will increase hesitancy and make children less safe."
"Parents should listen to their child’s pediatrician about vaccines rather than listening to an inaccurate executive order," Cassidy added. "This is so wrong."
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‘The Reality Is Ugly’: Trump Reportedly Pushing RFK Jr. to Ramp Up Assault on Vaccines
"If Trump gets his way and waters down the child vaccine schedule over the debunked autism myth, more American kids will suffer and die of preventable disease."
Jul 28, 2026
With the US already experiencing public health crises involving measles and explosive diarrhea, President Donald Trump reportedly believes it's time to further undermine Americans' faith in the safety of vaccines.
The Wall Street Journal reported on Monday that Trump in May asked US Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. why he wasn't doing more to research disproven claims linking childhood vaccination with increased incidence of autism.
Trump specifically said he'd like to see Kennedy cut the number of shots the CDC recommends for children on the idea that doing so would make "autism rates drop, even if any such effect could take years."
Kennedy, despite being best known as an anti-vaccine conspiracy theorist before being appointed as the nation's top health official, was reportedly "taken aback" by Trump's demands, as White House political advisers had asked him to tone down his rhetoric about vaccinations.
During a White House meeting roughly a month later, the Journal reported, Trump complained that Kennedy "wasn't doing enough" to reduce the number of childhood vaccinations.
Multiple high-quality medical studies have found no link between vaccines and autism.
Brad Woodhouse, president of Protect Our Care, expressed horror at the president leading the charge against childhood vaccinations, which are estimated by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to prevent 4 million deaths per year worldwide.
"The reality is ugly," said Woodhouse. "If Trump gets his way and waters down the child vaccine schedule over the debunked autism myth, more American kids will suffer and die of preventable disease. We’re already in the middle of a record-breaking measles crisis thanks to vaccine lies amplified loudly by this administration, yet Trump is determined to do more damage."
Gavin Yamey, director of the Center for Policy Impact in Global Health at Duke University, declared himself "livid" at Trump's latest efforts to undermine confidence in vaccines.
"Ahead of the midterms, RFK Jr. and Trump... are ALL IN on their dangerous anti-vaxx activism and conspiracy theories," Yamey wrote in a social media post. "There is a wealth of high quality evidence that vaccines do not cause autism."
Claremont McKenna College political scientist Jack Pitney noted that Trump's false belief in a link between vaccines and autism stretches back years.
"For decades, Trump has pushed the lie that vaccines cause autism," Pitney wrote. "Now he reportedly wants RFK Jr. to push it even harder. The result? More US measles cases in the past 18 months than in the previous 20 years combined."
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Cuba Works Health Miracles While Under US Blockade
Cuba’s approach to providing healthcare is indicative of the nature of the revolution: to serve Cubans and the oppressed across the world.
Jun 04, 2026
Last week, the Cuban Center for Molecular Immunology, or CIM, announced a major health breakthrough with VAXIRA, a vaccine treatment for lung cancer. This is a remarkable achievement, made only more impressive by the fact that this is Cuba’s second lung cancer vaccine.
The vaccine stops the progression of cancer by developing the patient’s immune system to fight off cancer cells. This has proven to significantly prolong people’s survival. Since 2013, the vaccine has been monitored, trialed, and tested on more than 1,300 patients. Over a 10-year period, patients survived a median of 76.6 months, with 20% of all patients who were given VAXIRA experiencing unexpected long-term survival. Last year, VAXIRA was awarded the Technological Innovation Prize in Cuba for its contribution to healthcare in Cuba. This is an incredible feat for humanity and the battle against cancer—and it is being done by a country facing the longest and most severe blockade in history.
In 2011, Cuba developed CIMAvax, which remains the world’s only approved lung cancer vaccine. This vaccine works to induce the immune system to stop the growth of cancer cells and slow the progression of tumors. This vaccine has already treated more than 5,000 people across the world and many more thousands in Cuba itself. Given the immense significance of the vaccine, the United States agreed to a special arrangement to trial the vaccine in the US. The Roswell Park Cancer Institute in New York has been running clinical trials with CIM since 2018. They have run the first clinical trials of CIMAvax in the United States. The very same nation that is imposing a genocidal blockade on Cuba is also benefiting from the historic breakthroughs in healthcare.
These major developments in medicine to treat cancer are not Cuba’s only awe-inspiring health achievements.
The truth is that even with this genocidal blockade, Cuba maintains the principles of its revolution and the motivation to better the world.
During the Covid-19 pandemic, Cuba produced five vaccines: Ablada, Soberana 01, Soberana 02, Soberana Plus, and Mambisa. Cuba had one of the lowest Covid-19 deaths in the Western Hemisphere—and by 2021, Cuba’s fatality rate was just 0.59% compared with the 2.2% worldwide average. The vaccines were produced without the need for specialist refrigeration, which meant they could be easily transported and also distributed across the world to places where accessing such infrastructure would be impossible. Quickly, Venezuela, Iran, Vietnam, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, and Mexico all picked up the vaccine to protect their population.
By 2023, Cuba had the third-highest rate of vaccinations per 100,000 people. Despite the fact that the US banned the country from importing the syringes necessary to immunize its own population. In this context, Cuba was the first country in the world to vaccinate toddlers and children, as part of their push to reopen schools safely.
Cuba, like the United States, offered its Covid-19 vaccines to the world. While Cuba donated vaccines to St. Vincent and the Grenadines and sold them as cheaply as they could, the US bullied countries into putting up their assets, like embassy buildings and military bases, in order to access vaccines. This was to “protect” against future legal challenges that vaccine recipients might file against the manufacturer of the vaccine. This profit motive was a major cause for the vaccine apartheid in the distribution of Covid-19 protection across the world. As of August 2024, in high-income countries, more than 222 doses had been distributed per 100 people. While in low-income countries, this was less than 46. In 2021, US pharmaceutical companies that produced Covid-19 vaccines (Moderna, Pfizer, Johnson & Johnson) collected an eye-watering revenue of $31 billion. The concept that companies and shareholders should make money from a pandemic should be utterly outrageous.
Biotechnology
Cuba leads the world in its vaccine breakthroughs. But, how is this all possible? It is not by accident that Cuba is able to develop world-leading health breakthroughs in medicine. Cuba has developed a world-class biotechnological sector that is state-owned and operates in the interests of the people, not profit. There are no profit motives to producing vaccines; research and development are for the collective benefit, and resources are shared to better the process of scientific development. This is quite the opposite situation in capitalist countries, where biotechnology is a major competition dominated by pharmaceutical companies motivated entirely by profits, which often means that when there are major developments in health, they are not accessible to people.
In 1981, Cuba opened the Biological Research Center, despite the blockade stopping the entry of equipment, materials, access to research journals, and medicines. In the first 9 years, the center produced three products. Between 1990 and 2000, it produced 18, and between 2001 and 2010, it produced more than 40. Today, that figure continues to grow. The center flourished into a world-class biotechnological sector that has made major health breakthroughs. Cuba produced the world’s first human vaccine to contain a synthetic antigen for Haemophilus influenzae type B.
In 1989, Cuba produced the world’s first Meningitis B vaccine during a severe outbreak of the disease in the country. This was the first ever vaccine produced to protect against Meningitis B and was exported to protect people in countries across Latin America. The US approved its first vaccine for Meningitis B in 2014.
Cuba once had among the lowest rates of infant mortality in the world. But since 2019, with the increase of more than 250 additional sanctions on Cuba, the rates of infant mortality have risen by 148%.
The following year, Cuba produced a vaccine for Hepatitis B. They joined just five other countries as a manufacturer of Hep B vaccines: France, South Korea, the United States, Indonesia, and Britain. As the US blockade made it virtually impossible and far too expensive to import the vaccine, Cuba produced their own and eliminated Hepatitis B in under 15 years.
In 2006, Cuba developed Heberprot-P, the only medicine in the world to reduce the amputation rate of patients with diabetic foot ulcers by 75%. Within 10 years, it was used in 23 countries. It has treated more than 400,000 people with foot ulcers. In 2024, the United States even broke its own blockade and approved it for trials and use. The very thought that Americans who suffer from diabetes might be treated by Cuban medicine while being fed propaganda against Cuba and funding a war against the very Cuban researchers and scientists helping them reveals how inhumane this blockade is.
By 2015, Cuba became the first country in the world to eliminate mother-to-child transmission of HIV and syphilis. Cuba managed this because of its socialist model, which is the same reason why it is not celebrated in mainstream media and looked to as a center for health advances in the US. This world historical achievement came as a result of Cuba’s universal health system that integrated maternal and child health programs with HIV and STI treatment. Cuba has one of the lowest rates of AIDS in the world and the lowest in the Americas, thanks to the free provision of antiretroviral treatment it has been distributing since 2001. Its vaccination programs have eradicated diseases that continue to cause death and suffering around the world, including diphtheria in 1979, measles in 1993, whooping cough in 1994, and rubella in 1995. Cuba has also developed the highest control of blood pressure in the world.
The same principles that led Cuba to produce world-leading medical breakthroughs are similar to its success in eliminating diseases. Cuba’s vaccination model is motivated by protecting its people. The National Immunization Program, which began in 1962, has saved the lives of at least 560,000 children who would have otherwise contracted diseases if it weren’t for the program. This is motivated by four directives: equity of vaccine distribution; integration of vaccination in primary healthcare; the inclusion of active community participation; and providing vaccines free of charge. These guiding principles indicate how central the health of all society is, not corporate interests or greed.
Cuba’s approach to providing healthcare is indicative of the nature of the revolution: to serve Cubans and the oppressed across the world. Before the revolution in 1959, 300 children were paralyzed by polio each year. One of the first measures by the revolutionary government was immunization for Cuban society. In 1962, the polio campaign launched through mobilizing 100,000 members of newly founded revolutionary committees to conduct a population census and vaccinate all children. Within months, polio was eradicated in Cuba, making it one of the first countries in the world to do so. Polio is still a leading cause of paralysis and death across the world.
These health achievements have massively benefited people across the world through access to new treatments and cures, affordable and accessible vaccines and medicines, and models for healthcare. But another awe-inspiring element of Cuba’s healthcare is its international solidarity.
Cuba has restored the eyesight for more than 4 million people with its joint program with Venezuela, Operation Miracle. They have sent more than 600,000 health workers on medical missions to 160 countries in response to pandemics, epidemics, natural disasters, and other crises where no other country would act. They have and continue to train doctors from the Global South for free so they go back to their home countries to practice medicine.
Cuba makes these miraculous achievements for humanity while facing a blockade that causes shortages of medicines in pharmacies across Cuba; blocks researchers from accessing health journals; and prevents the entry of equipment, spare parts, and laboratory materials that could make it easier and faster to conduct research. The US blockade should be seen as an attack on humanity itself. This is a genocidal act of war against a population that exports doctors across the world by an empire that exports bombs, fighter jets, and invading soldiers.
Cuba once had among the lowest rates of infant mortality in the world. But since 2019, with the increase of more than 250 additional sanctions on Cuba, the rates of infant mortality have risen by 148%. It is estimated that this has cost 1,800 lives of infants. This is the material result of a blockade that intends to kill, punish, and destroy a country for asserting its own sovereignty. Yet, even still, Cuba’s infant mortality rate is lower than that in the United States. The US enforces its blockade on Cuba so that it can try to claim Cuba is a “failed state,” which also means its universal, free healthcare system “fails”; all so it can maintain its abysmal healthcare system that operates purely for profit, despite the level of death, bankruptcy, and suffering it causes to poor Americans.
The truth is that even with this genocidal blockade, Cuba maintains the principles of its revolution and the motivation to better the world.
Like Fidel Castro said in 2003: “Our country does not drop bombs on other peoples, nor does it send thousands of planes to bomb cities; our country does not possess nuclear weapons, chemical weapons, or biological weapons. Our country’s tens of thousands of scientists and doctors have been educated in the idea of saving lives. It would absolutely contradict this concept to put a scientist or a doctor to work to produce substances, bacteria, or viruses to kill other human beings.”
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Judge Blocks RFK Jr. From Implementing 'Arbitrary and Capricious' Vaccine Overhaul
One physician and public health expert called the ruling "a much-needed victory for a sane approach to federal vaccine policy that relies on science, not misinformation and conspiracy theories."
Mar 16, 2026
In what advocates called a major victory for public health, a federal judge on Monday temporarily blocked US Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. from implementing a series of moves that critics have warned would weaken childhood immunization efforts and increase the likelihood of serious disease outbreaks.
US District Judge Brian E. Murphy of Massachusetts, an appointee of former President Joe Biden, invalidated Kennedy's reorganized Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) panel, which was set to meet later this week.
Kennedy—who was confirmed by the Senate last year over the objections of tens of thousands experts and despite being a purveyor of vaccine misinformation—replaced ACIP members with several people with ties to the anti-vaccine movement.
Murphy also blocked the committee's unprecedented changes to US immunization recommendations, writing that the "arbitrary and capricious" move stands in stark contrast with the long established decision-making process he called "a method scientific in nature and codified into law through procedural requirements."
“Unfortunately, the government has disregarded those methods and thereby undermined the integrity of its actions," the judge said.
The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) under Kennedy revised the Center for Disease Control and Prevention's (CDC) childhood immunization schedule so that fewer vaccines are now universally recommended for all children. The agency also reclassified vaccines that were previously endorsed for all children into categories in which vaccination depends on designated risk groups and consultations with medical professionals, among other changes.
Twenty-nine states and the District of Columbia have announced that they would not follow the new CDC immunization recommendations.
Lookie Here! As of now, 29 states + DC, have announced that they are no longer going to follow CDC's recommendations for some or all childhood vaccines.Kennedy is not restoring public trust in science as he said he would. 🧪 www.kff.org/other-health...
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— Princess Vimentin PhD | Cancer Biologist (@princess-vimentin.bsky.social) March 12, 2026 at 11:47 AM
Plaintiffs' attorney Richard Huges IV said in a statement that "this ruling is a momentous step toward restoring science-based vaccine policymaking."
"The judge recognized that the actions of Secretary Kennedy and the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices are not grounded in science and that they are destructive," he added. "We are thrilled that the court has discarded the baseless vaccine schedule changes made by Secretary Kennedy and is blocking the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices from doing further damage to vaccine policy."
Dr. Robert Steinbrook, Health Research Group director at Public Citizen, said in response to the ruling that "Judge Murphy’s decision is a much-needed victory for a sane approach to federal vaccine policy that relies on science, not misinformation and conspiracy theories."
"Kennedy’s hand-picked ACIP has been a national embarrassment, thoroughly lacking in the ability to make careful fact-based decisions," he added. "The judge’s ruling offers a responsible path forward for public health and evidence-based federal vaccine policy.”
RFK Jr. fired all of the legitimate scientific experts on the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices and replaced them with unqualified political appointees.A judge just ruled that the new members were not appropriately appointed, so ACIP cannot meet this week to spread more misinformation.
— Elizabeth Jacobs, PhD (@elizabethjacobs.bsky.social) March 16, 2026 at 1:38 PM
Anthony Wright, executive director of the advocacy group Families USA, said in a statement: "When politics override science, our children pay the price. Today’s decision helps ensure that medical evidence—not ideology—guides how we protect kids from preventable diseases."
Wright continued:
Secretary Kennedy’s attempt to remove universal recommendations for routine vaccinations only increased confusion among medical providers and families. The routine vaccines being questioned by HHS are the product of centuries of rigorous science and medicine and are why children today don’t die from measles or suffer the lifelong consequences of diseases we long ago learned to prevent. For a country as large, diverse, and mobile as ours, universal vaccine recommendations are the safest and most effective way to stop outbreaks before they start.
Amid several recent outbreaks, public health officials warned late last year that the United States is close to following Canada in losing its measles elimination status, a deadly and preventable setback many experts attribute to HHS' vaccine-averse policies and practices under Kennedy.
"We commend the court for this ruling, but families should not have to depend on litigation to ensure their child can receive a routine vaccine," Wright said. "Evidence-based medicine keeps children alive and in school. Preventing disease should be the foundation of any healthcare system serious about confronting the next disease outbreak or finding the next cure."
The group Protect Our Care called the decision "a major step in the right direction for children’s health after many setbacks under this administration."
“Most Americans, most states, and now a federal court have rejected the [President Donald] Trump-RFK Jr. scheme to make preventable disease great again among American children while exploding health costs across the country," Protect Our Care president Brad Woodhouse said. "While this ruling is a reprieve from harmful anti-vaccine policy based on nothing but junk science and discredited conspiracies, it’s clear the Trump administration is determined to resuscitate their agenda in a higher court because they care more about their anti-science agenda than keeping kids healthy.”
Indeed, HHS spokesperson Andrew Nixon said the agency "looks forward to this judge’s decision being overturned just like his other attempts to keep the Trump administration from governing.”
Public health advocates noted the limitations of judicial rulings.
"The courts can only do so much without Congress, which must fulfill its oversight responsibility and rein in an executive branch that is taking an axe to core public health protections," Wright said. "Transparency and scientific integrity are not optional, especially when children’s lives are at stake. Families deserve vaccine policy grounded in evidence and expert guidance—not ideology or personal bias—with the goal of making sure every child in America can grow up healthy.”
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'One Year of Failure': The Lancet Warns RFK Jr.'s Assault on Science May 'Take Generations to Repair'
Kennedy has "made a habit of throwing good money after bad" by promoting "junk science and fringe beliefs."
Feb 27, 2026
A scathing editorial published Friday in one of the world's most prestigious medical journals took US Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to task for what it described as "one year of failure."
In its editorial, the Lancet began by listing off several of the broken promises Kennedy made during his first speech after being confirmed to lead the US Health and Human Services Department (HHS), such as his vow to have "open and honest engagement with everyone willing to work towards making the USA healthy again" and usher in "a new era of unbiased science without hidden conflicts of interest, secrecy, or profiteering."
In fact, the Lancet found that it took Kennedy less than two weeks to break a key promise.
"Ten days after his speech about trust and openness," the journal noted, "HHS rescinded a 54-year-old policy of soliciting public comments for new rules and regulations, silencing the voices of many of the stakeholders he pledged to serve."
Things have only gotten worse since then, the editorial continued, as Kennedy has shelved research into mRNA vaccines and "made a habit of throwing good money after bad" by promoting "junk science and fringe beliefs."
The editorial concluded by warning "the destruction that Kennedy has wrought in one year might take generations to repair, and there is little hope for US health and science while he remains at the helm." The journal urged the US Congress to "hold Kennedy accountable for his record, or else accept responsibility for endorsing President Trump's decision to let him 'run wild on health.'"
The Lancet editorial drew a range of reactions from medical experts and academics.
Scott Forbes, an ecologist at the University of Winnipeg, explained the significance of a journal such as the Lancet publishing such an overtly political editorial.
"For context, the Lancet is one of the two most important medical journals on the planet," he wrote in a social media post. "When they put this on their front cover, it is only because there is something seriously wrong. That something is RFK Jr. He is a notorious crank and charlatan. But that's par for the course in the Trump regime."
Forbes' point was echoed by Krutika Kuppalli, associate professor at UT Southwestern Medical Center's Department of Internal Medicine.
"When a leading medical journal uses language like this, it’s not rhetoric," she wrote. "It’s a warning the world should take seriously."
Pediatrician Vincent Iannelli took the Lancet to task for publishing a since-retracted study in 1998 that falsely linked vaccination with the development of autism, which subsequently helped the anti-vaccination movement gain currency.
"Let's not forget that Wakefield's fraudulent paper that was published in the Lancet helped get us on this road," Iannelli said. "RFK Jr. was influenced by mothers who blamed vaccines for their child's autism."
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Trump's Surgeon General Nominee Dodges Senators' Questions on Vaccines, Conflicts of Interest
"Means is another example of President Trump nominating someone with financial conflicts instead of qualifications," said one consumer advocate.
Feb 25, 2026
The US Senate's confirmation hearing for Casey Means, President Donald Trump's nominee to be the next US surgeon general, showcased "just how profoundly unqualified" the wellness influencer is to serve as the nation's top doctor, said one consumer advocate after Means dodged questions about her potential conflicts of interest, refused to affirm that anti-vaccine conspiracy theories have been debunked, and spread misinformation about contraception.
Means was nominated to the role on Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s recommendation, and her lack of a current medical license would make her an outlier among past surgeons general. Her license lapsed in 2024, and she did not finish her medical residency at Oregon Health and Science University, leaving in 2018 just months before she was set to complete it because, as PBS NewsHour reported last year, "she came to view the healthcare system as exploitative."
Means then became a self-described "metabolic health evangelist" and a social media wellness influencer, sharing a newsletter with her hundreds of thousands of followers to whom she marketed health products and supplements and earning tens of thousands of dollars in income doing so.
She is also the co-founder of a company called Levels, which offers a subscription for wearable glucose monitors—and which could benefit from Kennedy's endorsement of wearable medical devices.
Means signed a government ethics agreement last September stating she would resign from her advisory position at Levels and stop promoting wellness products for income, but Democrats on the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee, including Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), had questions about Means' recent potential conflicts of interest.
Murphy noted that Means failed to disclose her financial interests numerous times when promoting her lab testing platform, Function Health; Genova Diagnostics, another testing company that she sponsored; and Zenbasil seeds, a supplement that she recommended in her newsletter and whose maker she had a financial partnership with.
"This seems systemic," said Murphy. "It seems that in a majority of instances in which you were, as a medical professional, recommending a product, you were hiding the fact that you had a financial partnership."
Means responded by accusing Murphy's staff of "intentionally" mischaracterizing the data about her disclosures.
damn, Trump's surgeon general nominee Casey Means is a transparent bullshitter even by the standards of the regime. Watch how she's tries to blame Chris Murphy's staffers for the fact he has her dead to rights on being dishonest and corrupt.
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— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) February 25, 2026 at 11:28 AM
"Means is another example of President Trump nominating someone with financial conflicts instead of qualifications—elevated precisely because of her opposition to the best science and fundamental public health principles," said Robert Weissman, co-president of government watchdog Public Citizen. "We need a surgeon general who understands that public health is, fundamentally, about taking care of each other, not leaving each of us to go it alone."
Considering Means' background, he added, "it is clear that Means will not push back on Trump and RFK Jr. as they put profits ahead of patients and anti-science views ahead of sound public health information. The already broken US healthcare system has been made much worse by Trump and his allies, who have gutted important health agencies and made dangerous cuts to health programs to fund tax cuts for billionaires."
“Casey Means has no place as US surgeon general, and every senator should reject her absurd nomination," said Weissman.
As in Kennedy's confirmation hearing last year, a number of questions from senators were related to Means' views on vaccination. Like the HHS secretary, during her career Means has expressed skepticism about immunization despite scientific studies and decades of evidence that have shown vaccines against diseases like polio and measles have prevented millions of deaths and amounted to some of the most successful public health interventions in history.
On Joe Rogan's podcast in 2024, Means allowed that "one vaccine probably isn’t causing autism" but asked, "What about the 20 that they’re getting before 18 months?”
There is no evidence that the childhood vaccine schedule in the US leads to autism. The increased number of vaccinations children receive today compared to the 1980s and '90s is frequently cited as a concern among vaccine skeptics, but the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia's Vaccine Education Center notes that the "immunological components in vaccines has dramatically decreased" due to "scientific advances in protein chemistry and protein purification that have allowed for purer, safer vaccines."
Means said Wednesday that "anti-vaccine rhetoric has never been a part of my message," but refused to answer several direct questions about immunization.
Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.), a physician, asked Means whether she would encourage Americans to be vaccinated against the flu.
Means replied that patients should "have informed consent with their doctor before getting any medication" and said that "vaccines save lives," but did not confirm whether she would endorse the flu vaccine.
CASSIDY: Would you encourage Americans to take the flu vaccine?
CASEY MEANS: I do think it's important as a physician and to rebuild trust in public health to make sure patients are encouraged to have informed consent with their doctors before getting any medication pic.twitter.com/b5JhGUMs5R
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) February 25, 2026
She also would not say whether she would recommend the measles vaccine as surgeon general. Nearly 1,000 children have been sickened with the highly contagious, preventable illness in South Carolina, and two children died of measles in West Texas last year, with the outbreaks spreading among the unvaccinated population in the affected areas.
"Would you encourage mothers to vaccinate their children with the measles-mumps-rubella vaccine, seeing how we've had children die?" asked Cassidy.
Means again said only that she is "supportive" of the vaccine but continued to focus her reply on the idea that parents should have "a conversation" with their doctor about immunization against deadly diseases.
Dr. Casey Means, Trump's nominee for surgeon general, won't unambiguously say that mothers should have their kids vaccinated against measles: "I do believe that each mother needs to have a conversation with their pediatrician about any medication they're putting in their… pic.twitter.com/tiqYv7eeAD
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) February 25, 2026
Angela Rasmussen, a virologist and Defend Public Health member, said Means' "only apparent qualification for the job of surgeon general is her willingness to promote RFK Jr.’s disinformation and quackery.”
Epidemiologist Elizabeth Jacobs, a member of the group's coordinating committee, added that "the leading US government voice on public health issues... must be someone Americans can trust to give credible advice based on solid science and real data, not a charlatan who specializes in selling expensive, unproven tests and treatments."
"It's time for the Senate to grow a backbone and say, 'Enough!'" said Jacobs, "starting with Casey Means."
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Freedom, Responsibility, and the Lessons Polio Taught Our Generation
Those of us who lived through the polio era know something that is easy to forget today: Vaccines did not take freedom away, they restored it.
Feb 24, 2026
In recent conversations about vaccines, we often hear an argument framed around individual rights and personal choice. This perspective was echoed by Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices Chair Kirk Milhoan in his January 22 interview with STAT News, when he suggested that vaccine recommendations should place greater emphasis on individual autonomy and questioned whether longstanding vaccines, including polio, should continue to be viewed primarily through a public health lens.
As grandparents, we understand that instinct deeply. We raised children. We worried about their safety, questioned new information, and felt the weight of responsibility that comes with making decisions for someone you love more than yourself. Respect for individual liberty is not abstract to us, it is part of who we are as Americans.
But we also belong to a generation that remembers polio. And that memory changes how we see this debate.
Polio was not a distant or theoretical threat when we were children. It arrived quietly, spread easily, and struck without warning. One day a child was fine; the next, paralyzed. Parents kept their children out of swimming pools, movie theaters, and playgrounds. Summers were seasons of fear. Hospital wards filled with children in iron lungs, machines that breathed for bodies polio had left unable to do so.
Protecting public health does not mean erasing individual rights. It means recognizing that some choices carry consequences beyond ourselves.
Janice (Jan) Flood Nichols can attest to what life was like before vaccines. She and her twin brother Frankie were in first grade. It was fall, and they were excited to go trick-or-treating. A few days before Halloween, Frankie caught what seemed like a simple head cold, so their parents kept him home to rest. But the day before Halloween, he suddenly struggled to breathe. They rushed him to the communicable disease hospital in Syracuse.
Doctors performed a spinal tap and placed Frankie in an iron lung. By morning, the diagnosis was confirmed: polio. Jan was brought to the same hospital and given massive doses of gamma globulin, the only treatment doctors hoped might stop the disease.
Frankie’s condition worsened. Unable to control his breathing, doctors rushed him toward emergency surgery. He never made it. Frankie died on November 1, 1953, at 10:25 pm.
That same night, Jan developed symptoms of polio. Her condition deteriorated rapidly, and she was rushed back to the hospital where Frankie had died. Doctors told her parents they did not know if she would live or die. Jan did survive but spent months painfully rehabilitating and learning to walk again.
Jan’s story is why discussions about polio vaccination cannot be reduced to personal preference alone. Polio is not just a risk to one child or one family. It is a highly contagious virus that spreads silently, often through people who show no symptoms at all. That means individual decisions ripple outward, affecting newborns, pregnant women, immunocompromised individuals, and entire communities.
When we talk about rights, we must also talk about responsibility.
In America, freedom has never meant the absence of limits when others are placed in danger. We accept speed limits not because we distrust drivers, but because unchecked speed endangers everyone on the road. We require clean drinking water and food safety standards because one person’s contamination can harm thousands. Public health has always been a balance between individual liberty and collective protection.
Polio vaccination is no different.
Those of us who lived through the polio era know something that is easy to forget today: Vaccines did not take freedom away, they restored it. The widespread use of the polio vaccine didn’t just reduce disease; it gave families their lives back. Children returned to playgrounds and pools. Parents stopped holding their breath every summer. Communities could gather without fear that invisible danger lurked in everyday spaces.
It’s also important to say this clearly: Today’s parents are not reckless or uncaring. Vaccine hesitancy often grows from love, fear, and an overwhelming flood of conflicting information. Many parents have never seen the diseases vaccines prevent. That is a testament to how successful vaccination programs have been, but it also makes the risk feel abstract.
For grandparents, it is anything but abstract.
Many of us came together through Grandparents for Vaccines, a national grassroots organization formed to ensure that the hard-won lessons of the past are not forgotten. We speak not as politicians or policymakers, but as witnesses, people who saw firsthand what happens when diseases like polio are allowed to spread, and who now want to protect the children and grandchildren we love.
We remember classmates who never walked again. We remember neighbors who lived with lifelong disabilities. We remember funerals for children who should have grown old alongside us. These memories are not meant to frighten, they are meant to remind us what happens when a dangerous virus is allowed to spread unchecked.
Protecting public health does not mean erasing individual rights. It means recognizing that some choices carry consequences beyond ourselves. Infants cannot choose to be vaccinated yet. People undergoing cancer treatment cannot choose to have fully functioning immune systems. They rely on the rest of us to create a protective barrier around them.
That is not government overreach. It is community care.
As grandparents, our perspective is shaped by time. We have seen what happens before vaccines and after them. We have watched fear give way to relief, and tragedy replaced by prevention. When we advocate for polio vaccination, we are not dismissing freedom—we are defending a broader, deeper version of it.
The freedom for a child to grow up walking.
The freedom for families to trust public spaces.
The freedom for future generations to know polio only as a chapter in history books, not a living threat.
Our message is simple and heartfelt: We respect choice and we remember the cost of unchecked disease. Polio showed our generation that collective protection can increase freedom across an entire society. That lesson continues to matter for the health and well-being of our grandchildren.
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Polio Survivors Fear a Resurgence as Trump Adviser Suggests Scrapping Vaccine Requirement
"We don’t have a healthcare infrastructure to take care of a polio outbreak."
Feb 23, 2026
After the Trump administration official in charge of immunization policy suggested that childhood polio vaccines should be made optional, experts and survivors of the deadly disease are warning that it could make a furious comeback.
Dr. Kirk Milhoan, a pediatric cardiologist who is chair of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, suggested on a podcast last month ending public schools' vaccine requirements for dangerous diseases, including measles and polio, which would be one of the most dramatic shifts in federal health policy in more than half a century.
Where these diseases once infected millions of people each year, Milhoan noted their dramatic decline in recent years, suggesting they no longer pose the threat they once did and that vaccines were therefore less necessary. However, he ignored the fact that the near-total eradication of these illnesses was due to society-wide vaccination in the first place.
In the first half of the 20th century, tens of thousands of people (mostly children) suffered paralysis from polio. The first vaccine was introduced in the USA in 1955. Notice the trend afterwards.(by @ourworldindata)
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— Information is Beautiful (@infobeautiful.bsky.social) January 26, 2026 at 2:55 PM
The US is already at risk of losing its measles eradication status after drops in vaccination rates caused the highest number of cases and deaths in more than three decades last year.
Measles vaccination rates had already been dipping for years amid rising anti-vaccine sentiment. But it was shifted into overdrive after vaccination restrictions were narrowed by Trump's Secretary of Health and Human Services, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who publicly spread doubt about the Measles, Mumps, and Rubella (MMR) vaccine's well-documented safety and efficacy.
At its peak in 1952, nearly 58,000 people became infected with polio. Over a third of them became paralyzed, and more than 3,000 died. A vaccine was introduced for the illness in 1955. Within just two years, the number of cases had dropped by 90%, and the disease was declared eliminated in the US in 1979.
Childhood vaccination rates have dropped across the board over the past five years. Where about 95% of kindergarteners received the measles and polio vaccines in the 2019-20 school year, that number had plummeted to 92.5% in 2024-25.
But because polio is several times less infectious than measles, the current national average coverage still provides substantial protection, though localized outbreaks remain possible in undervaccinated communities.
If childhood vaccination is made optional, however, those who have treated and lived with polio fear it could also come back with a vengeance.
Survivors say US healthcare system not ready for new cases – ‘the only thing to fix polio is the polio vaccine’
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— Guardian US (@us.theguardian.com) February 23, 2026 at 2:13 PM
In an interview with the Guardian published Monday, Grace Rossow, an operating-room communications coordinator, whose leg remains paralyzed from a case of polio as an infant in India, said the vaccine had “absolutely been a victim of its own success."
“People aren’t scared of polio anymore,” she said. “People don’t really see the daily side of living with a vaccine-preventable disease. With polio, you’re never going to fix us, and that’s the problem. The only thing to fix polio is the polio vaccine.”
Polio's status as a thing of the past has not only diminished the public's understanding of why it's important to prevent, but also how to treat it. Rossow said, "We don’t have a healthcare infrastructure to take care of a polio outbreak."
Art Caplan, one of the last remaining survivors of the 1950s outbreak, who has struggled with lifelong weakness in his legs due to the disease, said he's watched as most of the medical professionals who understood how to treat it retired and died. "There’s nobody left. They don’t see it."
Gordon Allan, a surgeon who is the orthopedic residency director and the total joint reconstructive fellowship director at Southern Illinois University School of Medicine, said that in the event of a new polio outbreak, most people in his field would have little idea how to treat those suffering from the illness.
“Orthopedics has really changed a lot now from the people who trained me," he said, noting that even those doctors only had experience treating post-polio symptoms.
“No one practicing has first-hand experience," he said. "Orthopedics was quite different because of polio, and all that stuff just faded away."
The last polio case in the United States was detected in New York in 2022 in an unvaccinated adult who became paralyzed from the illness.
None have been diagnosed since. But as measles has shown, outbreaks can spread very quickly in communities with large unvaccinated populations, which are often insular and religious.
Caplan said he was "furious" at Milhoan's contention that childhood vaccine requirements should be reconsidered just because polio is no longer around.
"If you could gather up the kids I saw die or become really severely disabled from 50 years ago, they would want you arrested," he said. "It’s horrifying, and the height of irresponsibility to leave the door open even a crack."
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Stop Tyrant Trump's Lawless Attack on the Regulations Keeping Us Safe
Trump deserves Impeachment and Removal from Office. Congress should act now, before more Americans die, get sick, or are injured from the destruction of long-established, critical protections.
Feb 21, 2026
“Deregulation” is an antiseptic word loved by the giant corporations that rule the people. In reality, health and safety “deregulation” spells death, injury, and disease for the American people of all ages and backgrounds. This is especially so with the deranged dictates from the Tyrant Trump, who is happily beholden to his corporate paymasters, who are making him richer by the day.
President Donald Trump’s mindless deregulation mania got underway in January 2025 with his illegal shutting down of the US Agency for International Development (USAID), which has saved lives in poor countries—by providing food, water, medicine, etc.—for a pittance. USAID spends less in a year than the Pentagon spends in a week. International aid groups predict that the ongoing cuts could lead to 9.4 million preventable deaths occurring in poor countries by 2030 unless the vicious and cruel, unlawful Trumpian shutdown is reversed.
It turns out Trump was just warming up for his illegal violence against innocent American families in both blue and red states. He has abolished requirements for the auto industry to limit its emissions and maintain fuel efficiencies. The result: more disease-bearing gases and particulates into the lungs of Americans, including the most vulnerable—children and people suffering from respiratory diseases.
Trump wants to roll back the regulations that would require auto company fleets to average 50 miles per gallon by 2031. In 2024, the US Department of Transportation’s National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said its proposed vehicle fuel economy standards would save Americans more than $23 billion in fuel costs while reducing pollution.
Rather than faithfully execute federal laws, and ensure the well-being of the people, Dictator Donald is using his position and time in the White House to enrich himself and to get his name on anything he can get away with.
Month after month, Trump is illegally reducing or shutting down lifesaving programs without the required congressional approval. One of his major targets is the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). This month, his puppet EPA head, Lee Zeldin, celebrated the elimination of lethal greenhouse gases from the EPA’s regulatory controls. Zeldin and Trump are in effect telling Americans, “Let them breathe toxic air.” Plus, more climate catastrophes.
Smothering wind and solar projects while boosting the omnicidal polluting oil, gas, and coal production is another way Trump is exposing people to sickening gases and particulates. A corporate cynic once joked, “No problem, you can always refuse to inhale.”
Trump’s treachery toward coal miners, whom he praises, is shocking. He cut the funds for free testing of coal miners’ lungs, often afflicted with the deadly black lung diseases that have taken hundreds of thousands of coal miners’ lives over the past century and a half. We worked to pass the Federal Coal Mine Health and Safety Act of 1969, to control the levels of coal dust causing this disease, but Trump is unraveling it by cutting law enforcement. The Trump administration says it is “reconsidering” the long-awaited proposed silica control regulations. More unnecessary delay. In 2024, Politico reported that “Mine Safety and Health Administration projects that the final rule will avert up to 1,067 deaths and 3,746 silica-related illnesses.”
In his mass firings of federal civil servants, Trump has included the ranks of federal safety inspectors for meat and poultry plants (USDA), for occupational health and safety (OSHA), and specialized areas like you would never imagine—such as nuclear security. Tyrant Trump worsened the potential danger for workers and communities by firing most of the inspectors general—again illegally—who are the powerful watchdogs over federal departments and agencies. Many inspector general positions are still vacant.
In terms of short and long-run perils, Trump’s attacks on scientific research and discovery to reduce or prevent diseases would be enough to give him the grisly record for knowingly letting Americans die. The assault on vaccines, including for contagious diseases, is staggering, led by RFK, Jr., the secretary of Health and Human Services.
RFK, Jr. becomes more extreme by the day. His actions go way beyond any legitimate skepticism of the drug companies. He is going along with officials in states like Florida who are about to ban children’s vaccine mandates, even for polio, measles, and whooping cough. He has severely slashed, without congressional authority, budgets for basic and applied science programs underway at universities and other public institutions. His salvos are resulting in the reduction of families getting their children vaccinated, who, if contagious, could infect their classmates. The so-called powerful medical societies have not risen to their optimal level of resistance to what is fast coming, a green light for epidemics—starting with the resurgence of measles now underway in places like South Carolina.
The crazed Menace-in-Chief wanted to abolish the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and its rescue responses to hyper-hurricanes, floods, and giant wildfires. He recklessly says the states can handle the carnage from such disasters. The real reason is that he doesn’t want to be held responsible for failing to properly respond to such disasters. Remember the criticism of George W. Bush’s response to Katrina?
Again, with Trump, it is all about him, feeding his insatiable MONSTROUS EGO, rather than saving American lives. Recently, tragic events have forced him to reconsider. He is bringing back some of the experts and rescuers he fired from FEMA earlier last year.
Rather than faithfully execute federal laws, and ensure the well-being of the people, Dictator Donald is using his position and time in the White House to enrich himself and to get his name on anything he can get away with—the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, the US Institute of Peace, the US Treasury Department’s relief checks during Covid-19, the federal investment accounts, special visas, and a discount drug program. (See the February 16, 2026, article in the New York Times by Peter Baker titled, A Superman, Jedi and Pope).
Chronically lying; threatening violence against his opponents and people abroad; slandering anyone he feels like via the compliant mass media, including journalists and editors; and generally wrecking America as a serial law violator, Trump deserves to be told, “YOU’RE FIRED.” (This was his favorite TV show catchphrase). Trump deserves Impeachment and Removal from Office. Congress should act now, before more Americans die, get sick, or are injured from the destruction of long-established, critical protections under both Republican and Democratic administrations.
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Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Is Making America Sick Again
Three recent stories about measles have implications that are far more consequential for the fate of humanity than Trump’s racist memes or his destabilizing antics on the world stage.
Feb 19, 2026
Not until President Donald Trump is long gone will Americans feel the full impact of his most destructive policies and his administration’s incompetence. Today’s topic: Measles.
“For children, the risks of measles are especially grave. Complications, which occur in 1 in 5 people who have the disease, can include pneumonia, blindness, permanent neurologic injury, and death. These outcomes are well-documented, particularly among young children and those with delayed access to medical care.” (Theresa Cheng, MD, JD, assistant clinical professor in the Department of Emergency Medicine at UCSF-Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital and a lawyer.)
Measles is preventable, but community immunity requires a 92-94% vaccination rate. Since the introduction of the measles vaccine in 1963, the incidence of the disease has decreased by over 99%, thanks to the combination of immunity through prior exposure and vaccination rates above the required threshold.
Secretary of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is reversing that remarkable public health achievement.
Someone who does not get vaccinated puts others—mostly children who have no voice in the critical decision to protect or jeopardize their health—at serious risk of injury or death.
Three recent stories about measles have implications that are far more consequential for the fate of humanity than Trump’s racist memes or his destabilizing antics on the world stage.
Story No. 1: Measles Outbreak in South Carolina
Between 1991 and 2024, South Carolina had a total of only 8 measles cases—6 of which occurred within a single household in 2018.
In October 2025, the state reported the first three cases in the current outbreak.
As of February 17, South Carolina had 962 confirmed measles cases; 253 involve children under 5, 615 are ages 5 to 17, 85 are adults, and nine ages are unknown.
Since the outbreak, 20 individuals have been hospitalized with complications related to the disease.
Ninety-five percent of the infected individuals were not vaccinated.
The area of the state experiencing the greatest number of cases (95% of them) also led the state in the decline in vaccination rate: Spartanburg County’s rate dropped from 93.9% in 2021-2022 to 88.9% the current school year—well below the critical threshold required for community immunity.
Story No. 2: Anti-Vaxxers Determine America’s Public Health Policy
Kennedy has gutted the Department of Health and Human Services. He has replaced scientific and medical experts with hacks who adhere here to his willful ignorance.
One of those appointees is the leader of the federal panel that recommends vaccines for Americans, Dr. Kirk Milhorn, chair of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices. On January 22, Milhorn said that vaccines protecting children from polio and measles, and perhaps all diseases, should be optional.
“What we are doing is returning individual autonomy to the first order—not public health but individual autonomy to the first order.”
What he and his colleagues are actually doing is killing us. Kennedy has already dropped six vaccines from the childhood immunization schedule.
Story No. 3: States Are the Last Line of Defense
Only individual states, which have ultimate responsibility for vaccine schedules, have saved the country from the full destructive force of Kennedy’s anti-science, anti-vaxxer crusade. But his ascension as head of the nation’s federal public health policy has empowered his allies to target state childhood vaccination mandates.
The Medical Freedom Act Coalition includes the Children’s Health Defense—a nonprofit group that Kennedy co-founded. It is pushing legislation that would end state laws that codify vaccination schedules. Such legislation is pending in several states.
Asked about the effort, Kennedy said he was not involved, but added, “I believe in freedom of choice.”
As the impact of his attack on science intensifies, the overall public health costs will be staggering.
Earlier this month, Chris Anders, a Republican state lawmaker in West Virginia, introduced a bill that would eliminate his state’s school vaccination mandates, including the requirement that county health departments offer free shots to low-income children.
“If people decide not to be vaccinated, that is their choice,” he argued. “Just like if they decide not to wear a seatbelt or a motorcycle helmet or anything else. If they decide that, they suffer the consequences.”
Kennedy, Milhorn, Anders, and their like-minded anti-vaxxers march under the “freedom of choice” banner. It’s a red herring that omits a crucial element of the equation: Someone who does not get vaccinated puts others—mostly children who have no voice in the critical decision to protect or jeopardize their health—at serious risk of injury or death.
For a long time to come, everyone else’s kids will bear those consequences.
Epilogue: Ripple Effects
The measles vaccine is the small tip of an enormous public health iceberg. Kennedy and his anti-vaxxers in charge of public health have “sent a chill through the entire [vaccine] industry,” according to Dr. John Coller of Johns Hopkins University, a member of the executive committee of the Alliance for mRNA Medicines.
As Kennedy creates unwarranted fears about the safety and efficacy of lifesaving vaccines, some Americans will continue to believe him and vaccine sales will suffer. As he cuts research funding for new vaccine development, America will be unprepared for the next pandemic. As the impact of his attack on science intensifies, the overall public health costs will be staggering.
Future historians will scratch their heads in disbelief at what we are doing to ourselves and our children.
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