“These were otherwise healthy school-age children who didn’t have to die.” We speak to the world-renowned pediatrician, virologist and vaccine expert, Dr. Peter Hotez, about the dangerous anti-vaccine agenda of Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Amid a growing number of measles cases in the United States, RFK Jr. has promoted skepticism of the efficacy of the MMR vaccine, which protects against measles, mumps and rubella. At least two unvaccinated children have died from measles, a highly contagious disease that had been effectively eliminated in the U.S. in the past few decades. Hotez, the father of a child on the autism spectrum, also debunks RFK Jr.’s claims that vaccines are linked to autism, and criticizes his “deeply offensive” statements about people living with autism. Evoking eugenic beliefs, the HHS secretary, who now holds the power to determine healthcare policy in the United States, “shows this consistent lack of intellectual curiosity, this kind of simplistic way of thinking and talking about autism,” says Hotez.

This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.

Image by Filip Bunkens.

I’ve never really understood the psychology of nationalism. Even when I was in elementary school and we were supposed to pledge our allegiance to “the flag and the country (USA) for which it stands” I was skeptical. What exactly did this pledge entail, I wondered as my classmates and I stood with our hands over our hearts, repeating words most of my classmates gave little thought to. As the years rolled on and the US war on Vietnam and elsewhere took over more of my consciousness, my questions became outright rejection; I couldn’t go along with the idea that people should go kill and die for the USA. If there was no nationalism, then friends just a couple years older than I would not be going off to boot camp, many of them willingly and with the complete support of their families and community. But what about the Vietnamese nationalists? Weren’t they the same as “American” patriots? When my father asked me this question during one of our innumerable debates, I was stumped. As I considered an answer—which took a few weeks of reading to come up with—other questions arose. What was the relationship between nationalism and empire? How was a struggle for national liberation different from nationalism? The Black Panthers talked about revolutionary nationalism versus cultural nationalism and considered the former a legitimate form of revolutionary struggle. The other, which was often described as “pork-chop nationalism,” was seen as diversionary and catering to the ruling class. In 1975, a friend who worked with the Revolutionary Union suggested that one could support national liberation groups in their struggle against the colonizer/imperialist power as part of the necessary struggle against imperialism. Such support did not require agreeing with all of the actions of the national liberation forces after their victory, should that occur. The thinking was that with each defeat of imperialism, the end of nationalism would get closer. We have yet to verify the truth of this concept.

Last autumn, historian Eric Storm’s comprehensive history of nationalism was published. Titled Nationalism: A World History, the text examines the phenomenon of nationalism, tracing its origins back to feudal times and following its journey to the present when, in spite of predictions announcing its end, nationalism seems more of a force than ever. In making that statement, this reviewer doesn’t necessarily think that this is a good thing. The book is a worthwhile undertaking, discussing nationalism in a variety of contexts, including its ethnic and political roots. The role of religion in certain nationalisms is considered, as is the role of empire. The fact that the division of the world into the system of nations we consider as permanent coincided with the development of capitalism in both national and global terms is mentioned, but Storm does not delve too deep into the nature of that relationship. In fact, he does not delve deeply into the possible causes of nationalism’s ultimate victory in deciding how the world is perceived by its human inhabitants. Instead, he finds plenty to write about its manifestations and structure. That turns out to be interesting enough. To be fair, Storm writes that the institution of nationalism has a “deep but variegated bond with nationalism” and that it has mostly benefited the bourgeois classes over the course of modern history.

In writing about nationalism’s manifestations, Storm establishes three categories he recognizes as primary elements of nationalism that are present in each phase of history he describes in the book. Those three categories center on the nature of citizenship, the nationalization of culture and the nationalization of physical space. The first element citizenship is pretty straightforward: who is a citizen and who is not according to the state. Those who are not considered citizens risk the bureaucratic cancellation of their rights as long as they live in a nation they are not considered part of. Stateless persons—the Jews under Nazism and many if not most Palestinians today arre good examples—find themselves completely subject to the whims of power. Likewise, the nature of one’s citizenship can determine one’s fate; for example, the idea of a “birthright” citizen in the United States is currently under attack, as are naturalized citizens. The category of culture considers the historical and cultural mythologies that the nationalists have determined will tell the story of the nation being built. These include folk tales and music along with more formal representations of the identity the nations considers its own. As for the nationalization of physical space, its manifestations can be national parks and certain government and private buildings (the US Capitol, Versailles, Yellowstone. They also include monuments and statues, the latter often being representations of historical figures whose lives have been mythologized. George Washington and Ho Chi Minh are ideal examples of this in their roles as the so-called fathers of their countries.

Mostly an objective read, the text tends to give the United States something of a pass when discussing its colonialist adventures. Characterizing the recent secessionist attempts in eastern Ukraine as “fake” and Russia’s invasion imperialist immediately after writing about the US invasion of Iraq as perhaps imperialist in nature illustrates this point quite glaringly. Meanwhile, Storm is very straightforward when criticizing Russia and China, This results in the overall attempt at objectivity to fall short.

The philosopher Erich Fromm once wrote that “Nationalism is our form of incest, is our idolatry, is our insanity. ‘Patriotism’ is its cult…Just as love for one individual which excludes the love for others is not love, love for one’s country which is not part of one’s love for humanity is not love, but idolatrous worship.” The truth of this statement is present across the globe. From Tel Aviv to Washington, DC, Moscow to Kyiv, the idolatrous worship of this thing called a country continues to stain and define human relations in a manner one would think humanity would have shed. Eric Storm’s exhaustive history explains—intentionally or not—why humanity has done no such thing.

(The title of this peace is taken from a quote attributed to Albert Einstein: “Nationalism is an infantile disease. It is the measles of mankind.”)

The post Nationalism: The Measles of Mankind appeared first on CounterPunch.org.

This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Ron Jacobs.

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In the past six months, two babies in Louisiana have died of pertussis, the disease commonly known as whooping cough.

Washington state recently announced its first confirmed death from pertussis in more than a decade.

Idaho and South Dakota each reported a death this year, and Oregon last year reported two as well as its highest number of cases since 1950.

While much of the country is focused on the spiraling measles outbreak concentrated in the small, dusty towns of West Texas, cases of pertussis have skyrocketed by more than 1,500% nationwide since hitting a recent low in 2021 amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Deaths tied to the disease are also up, hitting 10 last year, compared with about two to four in previous years. Cases are on track to exceed that total this year.

Cases had been decreasing in the years before the COVID-19 outbreak and dropped further when schools were closed in response to the pandemic.

Doctors, researchers and public health experts warn that the measles outbreak, which has grown to more than 600 cases, may just be the beginning. They say outbreaks of preventable diseases could get much worse with falling vaccination rates and the Trump administration slashing spending on the country’s public health infrastructure.

National rates for four major vaccines, which had held relatively steady in the years before the COVID-19 pandemic, have fallen significantly since, according to a ProPublica analysis of the most recent federal kindergarten vaccination data. Not only have vaccination rates for measles, mumps and rubella fallen, but federal data shows that so have those for pertussis, diphtheria, tetanus, hepatitis B and polio.

In addition, public health experts say that growing pockets of unvaccinated populations across the country place babies and young children in danger should there be a resurgence of these diseases.

Many medical authorities view measles, which is especially contagious, as the canary in the coal mine, but pertussis cases may also be a warning, albeit one that has attracted far less attention.

“This is not just measles,” said Dr. Adam Ratner, a pediatric infectious diseases doctor in New York City and author of the book “Booster Shots: The Urgent Lessons of Measles and the Uncertain Future of Children’s Health.” “It’s a bright-red warning light.”

At least 36 states have witnessed a drop in rates for at least one key vaccine from the 2013-14 to the 2023-24 school years. And half of states have seen an across-the-board decline in all four vaccination rates. Wisconsin, Utah and Alaska have experienced some of the most precipitous drops during that time, with declines of more than 10 percentage points in some cases.

“There is a direct correlation between vaccination rates and vaccine-preventable disease outbreak rates,” said a spokesperson for the Utah Department of Health and Human Services. “Decreases in vaccination rates will likely lead to more outbreaks of vaccine-preventable diseases in Utah.”

But statewide figures alone don’t provide a full picture. Tucked inside each state are counties and communities with far lower vaccination rates that drive outbreaks.

For example, the whooping cough vaccination rate for kindergartners in Washington state in 2023-24 was 90.2%, slightly below the U.S. rate of 92.3%, federal data shows. But the statewide rate for children 19 to 35 months last year was 65.4%, according to state data. In four counties, that rate was in the 30% range. In one county, it was below 12%.

“My concern is that there is going to be a large outbreak of not just measles, but other vaccine-preventable diseases as well, that’s going to end up causing a lot of harm, and possibly deaths in children and young adults,” said Dr. Anna Durbin, a professor in the Department of International Health at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health who has spent her career studying vaccines. “And it’s completely preventable.”

The dramatic cuts to public health funding and staffing could heighten the risk. And the elevation of Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a longtime vaccine critic, to the secretary of the federal Department of Health and Human Services, several experts said, has only compounded matters.

The Trump administration has eliminated 20,000 jobs at agencies within HHS, which includes the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the nation’s public health agency. And late last month, the administration also cut $11 billion from state and local public health agencies on the front lines of protecting Americans from outbreaks; the administration said the money was no longer necessary after the end of the pandemic.

Several city and county public health officials had to move quickly to lay off nurses, epidemiologists and disease inspectors. Some ceased vaccination clinics, halted wastewater surveillance programs and even terminated a contract with the courier service that transports specimens to state labs to test for infectious diseases. One Minnesota public health agency, which had provided 1,400 shots for children at clinics last year, immediately stopped those clinics when the directive arrived, court records show.

A federal judge temporarily barred HHS from enacting the cuts, but the ruling, which came more than a week after the grants were terminated, was too late for programs that had already been canceled and employees who had already been laid off. Lawyers for HHS have asked the judge to reconsider her decision in light of a recent Supreme Court ruling that allowed the Department of Education to terminate grants for teacher training while that case is being argued in lower courts. The judge in the HHS case has not yet ruled on the motion.

But in tiny storefronts and cozy homes, at school fairs and gas stations, many residents in West Texas, near where the measles outbreak has taken hold, appear unfazed.

“I don’t need a vaccine,” one man sitting on his porch said recently. “I don’t get sick.”

“It’s measles. It’s been around forever,” said a woman making her way to her car. “I don’t think it’s a big deal.”

When asked why they weren’t planning on vaccinating their baby, a husband walking alongside his wife who was 27 weeks pregnant simply said, “It’s God’s will.”

In word and deed, Kennedy has sown doubt about immunizations.

In response to the measles outbreak, Kennedy initially said in a column he wrote for Fox News that the decision to vaccinate is a “personal one.” HHS sent doses of vitamin A alongside vaccines to Texas, and Kennedy praised the use of cod liver oil. Only the vaccine prevents measles.

About a week later, in an interview on Fox News, while Kennedy encouraged vaccines, he said he was a “freedom of choice person.” At the same time, he emphasized the risks of the vaccine.

Only after the second measles death in Texas did Kennedy post on X, formerly known as Twitter, that the “most effective way to prevent the spread of measles is the MMR vaccine.”

But even that is not the unequivocal message that the head of HHS should be sending, said Ratner, the infectious diseases doctor in New York. It is, he said, a tepid recommendation at best.

“It gives the impression that these things are equivalent, that you can choose one or the other, and that is disingenuous,” he said. “We don’t have a treatment for measles. We have vitamin A, which we can give to kids with measles, that decreases but doesn’t eliminate the risk of severe outcomes. It doesn’t do anything for prevention of measles.”

In the past, Kennedy has been a fierce critic of the vaccine. In a foreword to a 2021 book on measles released by the nonprofit that he founded, Kennedy wrote, “Measles outbreaks have been fabricated to create fear that in turn forces government officials to ‘do something.’ They then inflict unnecessary and risky vaccines on millions of children for the sole purpose of fattening industry profits.”

A spokesperson for HHS said, “Secretary Kennedy is not anti-vaccine — he is pro-safety, pro-transparency and pro-accountability.” Kennedy, the spokesperson said, responded to the measles outbreak with “clear guidance that vaccines are the most effective way to prevent measles” and under his leadership, the CDC updated its pediatric patient management protocol for measles to include physician-administered vitamin A.

Kennedy, the spokesperson added, “is uniquely qualified to lead HHS at this pivotal moment.”

Late last month, leaders at the CDC ordered staff to bury a risk assessment that emphasized the need for vaccines in response to the measles outbreak — in spite of the fact the CDC has long promoted vaccinations as a cornerstone of public health. While a CDC spokesperson acknowledged that vaccines offer the best protection from measles, she also repeated a line Kennedy had used: “The decision to vaccinate is a personal one.”

Among the approximately 2,400 jobs eliminated at the CDC was a team in the Immunization Services Division that partnered with organizations to promote access to and confidence in vaccines in communities where coverage lagged.

The National Institutes of Health, which is also under HHS, recently ended funding for studies that examine vaccine hesitancy. In early April, researchers, the American Public Health Association and one of the largest unions in the country sued the NIH and its director, Jay Bhattacharya, along with HHS and Kennedy, alleging they terminated grants “without scientifically-valid explanation or cause.” The government hasn’t filed a response in the case.

The NIH cancellation notices stated that the agency’s policy was not to prioritize research that focuses on “gaining scientific knowledge on why individuals are hesitant to be vaccinated and/or explore ways to improve vaccine interest and commitment.”

“These grants are being canceled in the midst of an outbreak, a vaccine-preventable outbreak,” said Rupali Limaye, an associate professor at George Mason University who has spent the past decade studying vaccine hesitancy. “We need to better understand why people are not accepting vaccines now more than ever. This outbreak is still spreading.”

That vaccines prevent diseases is settled science. For decades, there was a societal understanding that getting vaccinated benefited not only the person who got the shot, but also the broader community, especially babies or people with weakened immune systems, like those in chemotherapy.

An investment in public health and a sustained, large-scale approach to vaccines is what helped the country declare the elimination of the measles in 2000, said Lori Tremmel Freeman, the CEO of the National Association of County and City Health Officials.

But she has watched both deteriorate over the last few months. Nearly every morning since notices of the federal funding cuts began going out to local public health agencies, she has woken up to texts from panicked public health workers. She has led daily calls with local health departments and sat in on multiple emergency board meetings.

Freeman has compiled a list of more than 100 direct consequences of the cuts, including one rural health department in the Midwest that can no longer carry out immunization services. That’s vital because there are no hospitals in the county and all public health duties fall to the health department.

“It’s relentless,” she said. “It feels like a barrage and assault on public health.”

More than 1,600 miles away from Washington, D.C., in Lubbock, Texas, the director of the city’s health department, Katherine Wells, sighed last week when she saw the most recent measles numbers. She would have to alert her staff to work late again.

“There’s a lot of cases,” she said, “and we continue to see more and more cases.”

She didn’t know it at the time, but that night would mark the state’s second measles death this year. An earlier death in February was the country’s first in a decade. Both children were not vaccinated.

Kennedy said he traveled to Gaines County to comfort the family who lost their 8-year-old daughter and while there met with the family of the 6-year-old girl who died in February.

He also visited with two local doctors he described as “extraordinary healers,” he said in his post on X. The men, he claimed, have “treated and healed some 300 measles-stricken Mennonite children” using aerosolized budesonide — typically used to prevent symptoms of asthma — and clarithromycin — an antibiotic. Medical experts said neither is an effective measles treatment.

State health officials have traced about two-thirds of the measles cases in Texas to Gaines County, which sits on the western edge of the state.

Seminole, one of the county’s only two incorporated towns, has emerged as the epicenter of the outbreak, with Tina Siemens acting as a community ambassador of sorts.

Siemens, a tall woman with glasses and a short blonde bob, runs a museum that combines the area’s Native American history and Mennonite community with traditional skills like calligraphy and canning fruit.

On a recent Tuesday, atop the museum’s dark coffee table, notes scrawled onto white paper listed the latest shipments of vitamin C and Alaskan cod liver oil.

The supplies, Siemens said, were for one of the local doctors who met with Kennedy.

As measles tears through the community, Siemens said families have to decide whether to get vaccinated.

“In America, we have a choice,” she said, echoing Kennedy’s messaging. “The cod liver oil that was flown in, the vitamin C that was flown in, was a great help.”

Dr. Philip Huang, director and health authority for the Dallas County Health and Human Services Department, is working to keep the measles outbreak from reaching his community, just five hours east of Seminole. He wrote letters to the public school superintendents and leaders of private schools that had large numbers of unvaccinated or undervaccinated students offering to set up mobile vaccine clinics for them.

“Overall, the rates can look OK,” he said, “but when you’ve got these pockets of unvaccinated, that’s where the vulnerability lies.”

Huang has had to lay off 11 full-time employees, 10 temporary workers and cancel more than 50 vaccine clinics following the HHS cuts. The systemic dismantling of the CDC and other federal health agencies, he said, will have a grave and lasting impact.

“This is setting us back decades,” Huang said. “Everyone should be extremely concerned about what’s going on.”

Across the country, pediatricians are petrified, said Dr. Susan Kressly, who serves as president of the American Academy of Pediatrics, the largest professional organization of pediatricians in the country.

“Many of us are losing sleep,” Kressly said. “If we lose that progress, children will pay the price.”

She’s carefully watching the spread of several vaccine-preventable diseases, including an increase in whooping cases that far outpace the typical peaks seen every few years. Although the whooping cough vaccine isn’t as effective as the ones for measles and protection wanes over time, the CDC says it remains the best way to prevent the disease.

Babies under the age of 1 are among the most at risk of severe complications from whooping cough, including slowed or stopped breathing and pneumonia, according to the CDC. About one-third of infants who get whooping cough end up in the hospital. Newborns are especially vulnerable because the CDC doesn’t recommend the first shot until two months. That’s why experts recommend pregnant mothers and anyone who will be around the baby to get vaccinated.

The number of whooping cough cases dropped significantly during the pandemic, but it exploded in recent years. In 2021, the CDC reported 2,116 cases; last year, there were 35,435.

The numbers this year appear set to eclipse 2024. So far in 2025, 7,111 cases have been reported, which is more than double this time last year. Cases tend to spike in the summer and fall, which adds to experts’ concern about high numbers so early in the year.

States on the Pacific Coast and in the Midwest have reported the most cases this year, with Washington leading the country with 742 cases so far, more than five times as many as at this time last year.

The Washington child who died of whooping cough had no underlying medical conditions, according to a spokesperson for the Spokane Regional Health District. The death was announced in February but occurred in November.

While Washington’s overall vaccination rate for whooping cough has remained relatively steady over the last decade at around 90%, pockets of low vaccination rates have allowed the disease to take root and put the wider community at risk, said Dr. Tao Sheng Kwan-Gett, a pediatrician and chief health officer of the Washington State Department of Health.

This is the time to strengthen the public health system, he said, to build trust in those areas and make it easier for children to get their routine vaccines.

“But instead, we’re seeing the exact opposite happen,” he said. “We’re weakening our public health system, and that will put us on a path towards more illness and shorter lives.”

Washington was one of 23 states and the District of Columbia that sued HHS and Kennedy following the $11 billion cuts, which rescinded approximately $118 million from the state. Doing so, the state said in court records, would impact 150 full-time employees and cause an immediate reduction in the agency’s ability to respond to outbreaks.

Washington’s Care-A-Van, a mobile health clinic that travels across the state to provide vaccinations, conduct blood pressure screenings and distribute opioid overdose kits, was a key element in the department’s vaccination efforts.

But that, too, has been diminished.

An alert on the department’s website cataloged the impact.

“Attention,” it began.

As a result of the unexpected decision to terminate grant funding, “all Care-A-Van operations have been paused indefinitely, including the cancellation of more than 104 upcoming clinics across the state.”

The department had anticipated providing approximately 2,000 childhood vaccines as part of that effort.

The frustration came through in Kwan-Gett’s voice. Many people think that federal cuts to public health mean shrinking the federal workforce, he said, but those clawbacks also get passed down to states and cities and counties. The less federal support that trickles down to the local level, the less protected communities will be.

“It really breaks my heart,” he said, “when I see children suffering from preventable diseases like whooping cough and measles when we have the tools to prevent them.”

Agnel Philip contributed data analysis.

This content originally appeared on ProPublica and was authored by by Duaa Eldeib and Patricia Callahan, and photography by Sarahbeth Maney.

Janine Jackson interviewed the Vaccine Education Center’s Paul Offit about Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and measles for the April 4, 2025, episode of CounterSpin. This is a lightly edited transcript.

AP (2/26/25)

Janine Jackson: Trump-appointed Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy is colorful, which is a problem when someone is a public hazard. Because now that Kennedy is in a position of power, we need journalists to move past anecdote to ideas—ideas that are informing actions that shape not just his reputation, but all of our lives.

Our guest suggests we could begin with a core false notion that lies in back of much of Kennedy’s program.

Paul Offit is director of the Vaccine Education Center, and professor of pediatrics in the Division of Infectious Diseases at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. He joins us now by phone from Philly. Welcome to CounterSpin, Paul Offit.

Paul Offit: Thank you.

JJ: The context for our conversation is the first measles death in the US in a decade, in Texas, where we understand they have reported, and this news is fresh, some 400 cases of measles, just between January and March, while the national number for 2024 was 285. This is a tragedy, and a tragically predictable one, due to surges of misinformation around vaccines, around disease and, frankly, around science that have been at work for years, but are turning some kind of corner with the elevation of RFK Jr.

Beyond the Noise (2/11/25)

You identified a keystone belief in Kennedy’s book on Fauci that explains a lot. I would like to ask you to give us some history on that notion, where it falls in terms of the advance of science, and what the implications of such a belief can be.

PO: Sure. So in the mid-1800s, people weren’t really sure about what caused diseases. There were two camps. On the one hand, there were the miasma theory believers. So miasma is just a sort of general notion that there are environmental toxins, initially that were released from garbage rotting on the streets, that caused this bad air, or miasma— kind of a poison, toxin. And so therefore diseases weren’t contagious. You either were exposed to these toxins or you weren’t.

And then, on the other hand, people like Robert Koch and Louis Pasteur were the germ theory believers, that believed that specific germs—as we now know, viruses and bacteria—can cause specific diseases, and that the prevention or treatment of those germs would save your life.

Washington Post (4/7/25)

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. does not believe in the germ theory. I know this sounds fantastic, but if you read his book, The Real Anthony Fauci, on pages 285 to 288, you will see that he does not believe in the germ theory, and everything he says and does now, supports that. His modern-day miasmas are things like vaccines, glyphosate—pesticides—food additives, preservatives: Those are his modern-day miasmas.

So he is a virulent anti-vaccine activist. He thinks that vaccines are poisoning our children. He thinks no vaccine is beneficial. And so everything he says and does comports with that, even with this outbreak now in Texas, it’s spread to 20 states in jurisdictions, he doesn’t really promote the vaccine. Rather, he promotes vitamin A, because he believes that if you’re in a good nutritional state that you will not suffer serious disease. And he still says that, even though that first child death in 20 years, that occurred in West Texas, was in a perfectly healthy child.

JJ: And again, one element of the fallout of this is that he is not just saying, don’t get vaccinated, but saying cod liver oil and vitamin A. And so Texas Public Radio, for one, is reporting kids are now showing up to hospitals with toxic vitamin A levels. So his answer is instead of a vaccine… the response is sending kids to the hospital.

PO: Right. And if you’re a parent, you can see what the seduction is, because here you’re given a choice. He presents it in many ways as a binary choice. You can get a vaccine, which means you’ll be injected, or you’ll inject your child, with three weakened live viruses, or you can take a vitamin. Not surprisingly, people take vitamins, and they take more vitamins and more vitamins, as he sends just shipments of cod liver oil into the area. And so now hospitals are seeing children who have blurred vision, dizziness and liver damage caused by too much vitamin A.

CBS (3/11/25)

JJ: And also, CBS News is having to get hospital officials to contradict just straight-up false comments. The fallout is everywhere. Kennedy is saying, “Oh, the majority of the hospitalized cases in Texas were for quarantine purposes.” And so this person has to say, “Actually, no, no, we’re not hospitalizing people for quarantine. It’s because they need treatment.”

PO: The last place we should quarantine someone, by the way, with measles, is in the hospital. You don’t want measles in the hospital. It’s a highly contagious disease, the most contagious infectious disease.

Also, just one other point is when we say, for example, that the CDC currently states that there are 483 cases in 20 states or jurisdictions, that’s confirmed cases, meaning confirmed by doing antibody testing, or confirmed by PCR analysis, that is the tip of a much bigger iceberg. People who are looking at this, and looking at the doubling time of this particular outbreak throughout the United States, estimate that it’s probably at least 2,000 cases, and maybe more. And the fear is that, given the current doubling times, given that we’re going to be dealing with this virus for at least six more weeks, the fear is that there’ll be another child death or more.

APA (7/1/24)

JJ: You cited a piece in the book where Kennedy says:

Fauci says that vaccines have already saved millions and millions of lives. Most Americans accept the claim as dogma. It will therefore come as a surprise to learn that it is simply untrue.

I think the idea of resisting “dogma” is very appealing to people, because we have seen propaganda efforts, we have seen lies that are en masse, in a way. But I also think that so many folks have, for so long, trafficked in the forms of rational argument without the content, without agreed upon standards of proof, that people are just less able to recognize fallacies, to see when something is anecdotal—not untrue, but anecdotal—and that this impedes our understanding of what public health even is. Misinformation is at the center of this in so many ways.

PO: That’s a really good point. I think we haven’t done a very good job of explaining how science works. I mean, you learn as you go. The Covid pandemic is a perfect example. We were building the plane while it was in the air. There were definitely things that we said and did that were not right over time, but you learn as you go.

And that’s the way science works. I mean, the beauty of science is it’s always self-correcting. It’s introspective, and you’re willing to throw a textbook over your shoulder without a backward glance as you learn new things.

I was a resident training in pediatrics in the late 1970s, the Children’s Hospital in Pittsburgh. I was taught things that were wrong. That’s OK. That didn’t mean the people, the senior pediatricians who taught me, were idiots. It just meant that we got more information over time.

And I think people, at some level, don’t accept that. When you say something that ends up being wrong, “See? You can’t trust them.” And so they throw the whole thing out, to their detriment.

New York Times (3/25/25)

JJ: I mean, yes, it points to a kind of preexisting, if not failure, weakness in media and public conversation about science that makes us poorly set up to engage this kind of thing. But I also think there’s something going on with, you know, Marion Nestle telling the New York Times that she was so excited when Trump used the words “industrial food complex.” She said, “RFK sounds just like me.”

RFK has benefited from a position of a little guy fighting Big Corporate Food, fighting Big Pharma. And I think a lot of folks identify with that. There are things, though, that you’ve talked about that complicate that depiction of him as a little guy going up against well-moneyed interests.

PO: Just the term “Big Pharma” is pejorative. Have pharmaceutical companies acted aggressively or illegally or unethically? Of course they have. I think the opioid epidemic is a perfect example of that. But that doesn’t mean that everything they do is wrong.

For example, I would argue that if pharmaceutical companies were interested in lying about a vaccine, and I’m on the FDA Vaccine Advisory Committee, if they submitted data for licensure or authorization of a vaccine where they lied or misrepresented data or omitted data, they’re going to be found out, because once vaccines are out there, there’s things like the Vaccine Safety Datalink, the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System. There is no hiding, because we give vaccines to healthy children, and so we hold them to a high standard of safety. So there is no hiding.

And I want RFK Jr. to point to one example where “Big Pharma” has lied to us about a vaccine that’s caused us to suffer harm. Where is that example? But it’s so easy to make that case.

JJ: When it’s presented in this binary way, as though you can be for corporate medicine or corporate food, or you can be against it, and it sort of absents the idea of, “Well, let’s parse what is being said. Let’s talk about these ideas. Let’s talk about standards of proof,” news media that are more interested to present things as “controversial” shut down that more nuanced conversation.

NBC (3/20/25)

PO: Right. I think probably the most depressing email that I got over the past few weeks was from a nurse in Canada, who said that she was seeing parents of a child who was one month old, and she was giving those parents anticipatory guidance about what vaccines that child would get now a month in, it was a two-month-old. And the father said, and I quote, “I’m not anti-vaccine, but I want to wait to see which vaccines RFK Jr. recommends before I get any of them.”

Which tells you how bad this has gotten. I mean that here they want to trust, basically, a personal injury lawyer to determine which vaccines we should get, as compared to the people who sit around the table at the advisory committees at the FDA or CDC.

JJ: NBC News’ Brandy Zadrozny did have a thoughtful piece about employment by anti-vaccine influencers of that horrific death of the 6-year-old in Texas, and how it’s being used to say, “No, we were actually right, because the other children didn’t die.” But there was an immunologist cited in the story who said, “It’s just harder to tell our story, because the story of ‘child does not get disease’ just doesn’t have the media pickup.”

And so it is difficult for journalists to tell a different story about public health when they are so focused on individual cases and that sort of thing. And so there is a problem there in trying to get reporters to tell public health from a different perspective, and make that as compelling as it should be.

Paul Offit: “We’ve eliminated the memory of measles. I think people don’t remember how sick that virus can make you.”

PO: No, you’re right. I think when vaccines work, what happens? Nothing.

But I’m a child of the 1950s. I had measles, and at the time I had measles, there were roughly 48,000 hospitalizations from measles, from severe pneumonia or dehydration or encephalitis, which is infection of the brain. And of those children who got encephalitis, about a quarter would end up blind or deaf, and there were about 500 deaths a year from measles, mostly in healthy children.

But again, not only have we largely eliminated measles from this country, which we did completely, really, by the year 2000, and it’s come back to some extent, because a critical percentage of parents are choosing not to vaccinate their children. But we’ve eliminated the memory of measles. I think people don’t remember how sick that virus can make you. Unfortunately, I think they’re learning now.

JJ: I’ll just ask you, finally, there’s a reason you call your Substack Beyond the Noise. What’s the noise, and what do you hope is beyond it?

PO: The noise is just this torrent of misinformation and disinformation on the internet. I mean, most people get their information from social media, and it’s just like trying to fight against the fire hose of information. And all you can do is the best you can do.

But I think in the end, I think the great educator, sadly, is going to be these viruses or these bacteria, which, if we continue along the path that we’re doing, which is not trusting public health and not trusting that vaccines are safe and effective, and believing a lot of the misinformation online, we’re just going to see more and more of these outbreaks, especially with Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as Secretary of HHS.

MedPage Today (3/14/25)

Look at what’s happened in West Texas. You had this massive outbreak in West Texas. So he then goes on national television and says things like: The measles vaccine kills people every year. The measles vaccine causes blindness and deafness. The measles vaccine causes the same symptoms as measles. Natural measles can protect you against cancer. All of that is wrong.

But the mother of this 6-year-old girl, that perfectly healthy 6-year-old girl who died, said one of the reasons that she didn’t vaccinate was that she thought that the natural infection would protect against cancer, which is something RFK Jr. said that was wrong. So basically, misinformation kills, and I think that until we understand where the best information is, we’re going to continue to suffer this.

JJ: We’ll end it there for now. We’ve been speaking with Paul Offit, who’s director of the Vaccine Education Center at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. His Substack is called Beyond the Noise. Thank you so much, Paul Offit, for joining us this week on CounterSpin.

PO: Thank you.

This content originally appeared on FAIR and was authored by Janine Jackson.

Right-click here to download this episode (“Save link as…”).

New York Times (11/14/24)

This week on CounterSpin: If “some people believe it” were the criterion, our daily news would be full of respectful consideration of the Earth’s flatness, the relationship of intelligence to the bumps on your head, and how stepping on a crack might break your mother’s back. News media don’t, in fact, use “some people think it’s true” as the threshold for whether a notion gets talked about seriously, gets “balanced” alongside what “data suggest.” It’s about power.

Look no further than Robert Kennedy Jr. When he was just a famously named man about town, we heard about how he dumped a bear carcass in Central Park for fun, believes that children’s gender is shaped by chemicals in the water, and asserts that Covid-19 was “targeted to attack Caucasians and Black people,” while leaving “Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese” immune.

But once you become RFK Jr., secretary of health and human services in a White House whose anger must not be drawn, those previously unacceptable ideas become, as a recent New York Times piece has it, “unorthodox.”

Kennedy’s unorthodox ideas may get us all killed while media whistle. We hear from Dr. Paul Offit, director of the Vaccine Education Center at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, about that.

Free Press (3/18/25)

Also on the show: For many years, social justice advocates rather discounted the Federal Communications Commission. Unlike the Federal Trade Commission or the Food and Drug Administration, whose actions had visible impacts on your life, the FCC didn’t seem like a player.

That changed over recent years, as we’ve seen the role the federal government plays in regulating the power of media corporations to control the flow of information. As the late, great media scholar Bob McChesney explained, “When the government grants free monopoly rights to TV spectrum…it is not setting the terms of competition; it is picking the winner.”

We’ll talk about the FCC under Trump with Jessica González, co-CEO of the group McChesney co-founded, Free Press.

This content originally appeared on FAIR and was authored by Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting.

ProPublica is a nonprofit newsroom that investigates abuses of power. Sign up to receive our biggest stories as soon as they’re published.

Leaders at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention ordered staff this week not to release their experts’ assessment that found the risk of catching measles is high in areas near outbreaks where vaccination rates are lagging, according to internal records reviewed by ProPublica.

In an aborted plan to roll out the news, the agency would have emphasized the importance of vaccinating people against the highly contagious and potentially deadly disease that has spread to 19 states, the records show.

A CDC spokesperson told ProPublica in a written statement that the agency decided against releasing the assessment “because it does not say anything that the public doesn’t already know.” She added that the CDC continues to recommend vaccines as “the best way to protect against measles.”

But what the nation’s top public health agency said next shows a shift in its long-standing messaging about vaccines, a sign that it may be falling in line under Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a longtime critic of vaccines:

“The decision to vaccinate is a personal one,” the statement said, echoing a line from a column Kennedy wrote for the Fox News website. “People should consult with their healthcare provider to understand their options to get a vaccine and should be informed about the potential risks and benefits associated with vaccines.”

ProPublica shared the new CDC statement about personal choice and risk with Jennifer Nuzzo, director of the Pandemic Center at Brown University School of Public Health. To her, the shift in messaging, and the squelching of this routine announcement, is alarming.

“I’m a bit stunned by that language,” Nuzzo said. “No vaccine is without risk, but that makes it sound like it’s a very active coin toss of a decision. We’ve already had more cases of measles in 2025 than we had in 2024, and it’s spread to multiple states. It is not a coin toss at this point.”

For many years, the CDC hasn’t minced words on vaccines. It promoted them with confidence. One campaign was called “Get My Flu Shot.” The agency’s website told medical providers they play a critical role in helping parents choose vaccines for their children: “Instead of saying ‘What do you want to do about shots?,’ say ‘Your child needs three shots today.’”

Nuzzo wishes the CDC’s forecasters would put out more details of their data and evidence on the spread of measles, not less. “The growing scale and severity of this measles outbreak and the urgent need for more data to guide the response underscores why we need a fully staffed and functional CDC and more resources for state and local health departments,” she said.

Kennedy’s agency oversees the CDC and on Thursday announced it was poised to eliminate 2,400 jobs there.

When asked what role, if any, Kennedy played in the decision to not release the risk assessment, HHS’ communications director said the aborted announcement “was part of an ongoing process to improve communication processes — nothing more, nothing less.” The CDC, he reiterated, continues to recommend vaccination “as the best way to protect against measles.”

“Secretary Kennedy believes that the decision to vaccinate is a personal one and that people should consult with their healthcare provider to understand their options to get a vaccine,” Andrew G. Nixon said. “It is important that the American people have radical transparency and be informed to make personal healthcare decisions.”

Responding to questions about criticism of the decision among some CDC staff, Nixon wrote, “Some individuals at the CDC seem more interested in protecting their own status or agenda rather than aligning with this Administration and the true mission of public health.”

The CDC’s risk assessment was carried out by its Center for Forecasting and Outbreak Analytics, which relied, in part, on new disease data from the outbreak in Texas. The CDC created the center to address a major shortcoming laid bare during the COVID-19 pandemic. It functions like a National Weather Service for infectious diseases, harnessing data and expertise to predict the course of outbreaks like a meteorologist warns of storms.

Other risk assessments by the center have been posted by the CDC even though their conclusions might seem obvious.

In late February, for example, forecasters analyzing the spread of H5N1 bird flu said people who come “in contact with potentially infected animals or contaminated surfaces or fluids” faced a moderate to high risk of contracting the disease. The risk to the general U.S. population, they said, was low.

In the case of the measles assessment, modelers at the center determined the risk of the disease for the general public in the U.S. is low, but they found the risk is high in communities with low vaccination rates that are near outbreaks or share close social ties to those areas with outbreaks. The CDC had moderate confidence in the assessment, according to an internal Q&A that explained the findings. The agency, it said, lacks detailed data about the onset of the illness for all patients in West Texas and is still learning about the vaccination rates in affected communities as well as travel and social contact among those infected. (The H5N1 assessment was also made with moderate confidence.)

The internal plan to roll out the news of the forecast called for the expert physician who’s leading the CDC’s response to measles to be the chief spokesperson answering questions. “It is important to note that at local levels, vaccine coverage rates may vary considerably, and pockets of unvaccinated people can exist even in areas with high vaccination coverage overall,” the plan said. “The best way to protect against measles is to get the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine.”

This week, though, as the number of confirmed cases rose to 483, more than 30 agency staff were told in an email that after a discussion in the CDC director’s office, “leadership does not want to pursue putting this on the website.”

The cancellation was “not normal at all,” said a CDC staff member who spoke anonymously for fear of reprisal with layoffs looming. “I’ve never seen a rollout plan that was canceled at that far along in the process.”

Anxiety among CDC staff has been building over whether the agency will bend its public health messages to match those of Kennedy, a lawyer who founded an anti-vaccine group and referred clients to a law firm suing a vaccine manufacturer.

During Kennedy’s first week on the job, HHS halted the CDC campaign that encouraged people to get flu shots during a ferocious flu season. On the night that the Trump administration began firing probationary employees across the federal government, some key CDC flu webpages were taken down. Remnants of some of the campaign webpages were restored after NPR reported this.

But some at the agency felt like the new leadership had sent a message loud and clear: When next to nobody was paying attention, long-standing public health messages could be silenced.

On the day in February that the world learned that an unvaccinated child had died of measles in Texas, the first such death in the U.S. since 2015, the HHS secretary downplayed the seriousness of the outbreak. “We have measles outbreaks every year,” he said at a cabinet meeting with President Donald Trump.

In an interview on Fox News this month, Kennedy championed doctors in Texas who he said were treating measles with a steroid, an antibiotic and cod liver oil, a supplement that is high in vitamin A. “They’re seeing what they describe as almost miraculous and instantaneous recovery from that,” Kennedy said.

As parents near the outbreak in Texas stocked up on vitamin A supplements, doctors there raced to assure parents that only vaccination, not the vitamin, can prevent measles.

Still, the CDC added an entry on Vitamin A to its measles website for clinicians.

On Wednesday, CNN reported that several hospitalized children in Lubbock, Texas, had abnormal liver function, a likely sign of toxicity from too much vitamin A.

Texas health officials also said that the Trump administration’s decision to rescind $11 billion in pandemic-related grants across the country will hinder their ability to respond to the growing outbreak, according to The Texas Tribune.

Measles is among the most contagious diseases and can be dangerous. About 20% of unvaccinated people who get measles wind up in the hospital. And nearly 1 to 3 of every 1,000 children with measles will die from respiratory and neurologic complications. The virus can linger in the air for two hours after an infected person has left an area, and patients can spread measles before they even know they have it.

This week Amtrak said it was notifying customers that they may have been exposed to the disease this month when a passenger with measles rode one of its trains from New York City to Washington, D.C.

This content originally appeared on ProPublica and was authored by by Patricia Callahan.

Photograph Source: Gage Skidmore – CC BY-SA 2.0

Robert F. Kennedy Jr, who oversees the health of more than 340 million Americans, says vitamin A can prevent the worst effects of measles rather than urging more people to get vaccinated.

The post RFK Jr Says Vitamin A Protects You From Deadly Measles, But Here’s What the Study He Cites Actually Says appeared first on CounterPunch.org.

This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Evangeline Mantzioris.

Measles was declared eliminated from the United States in 2000 due to a lack of continuous disease spread for more than 12 months (CDC). This was considered an outstanding achievement, and the CDC credited a highly effective vaccination program, with improved measles control in the Americas region. The truth is that almost as soon as measles was “eliminated” from the USA, once again outbreaks began to occur.

Measles will most likely never be eradicated or eliminated in the USA or worldwide, even though it fits the criteria for a disease that theoretically could be eliminated. Scientists and public health agencies like to tout that the measles virus is relatively stable, animal reservoirs are not considered to exist (although debatable, as some primates have a significant minority of animals with antibodies against measles), and it is relatively easy to diagnose. Unfortunately, eliminating the measles virus globally is not as simple as it seems.

Measles is a highly infectious disease. Therefore, in order to achieve herd immunity by dosing with the currently available leaky vaccines, it is estimated that there would need to be 95% vaccine coverage worldwide; currently, low-income countries have about 68% of their population vaccinated.

The MMR vaccine is officially said to have a failure rate of around 5% among vaccinated individuals. While this may seem like a small percentage, it translates to roughly 3 million children aged 1-17 in the USA who are presumed to be protected but are probably not. Like many diseases, a mild case of measles after vaccination can be asymptomatic, which means individuals can spread the disease without knowing that they are infected (PubMed).

There is documented evidence that the MMR vaccine has a much higher failure rate than stated above, and that would mean many more children are not protected than previously thought.

Millions of people travel in and out of the U.S. yearly, so the USA will continue to experience more outbreaks, as the rate of measles infections in low-income countries is much higher. Due to regional variations in vaccine acceptance and the fact that there are concentrated locations where international travelers land, including due to the influx of economic migrants from regions where measles is endemic, these outbreaks will most likely be concentrated in specific areas. The chart below demonstrates that this has happened with the latest outbreak.

Families are capable of evaluating the risks and benefits of getting vaccinated.

Every medicine has risk. Beyond whether vaccines cause autism, serious adverse events from vaccination are not unheard of. Although current data are not definitive, largely due to underreporting, it is almost impossible to ascertain how many serious adverse events occur after measles-mumps-rubella vaccination. Parents have every right to be cautious about vaccinating their child, particularly after the jab disaster of the CovidCrisis.

A personal risk-benefit analysis regarding vaccination, informed by fully transparent access to relevant data, and the freedom to act on that analysis is something that every parent and patient should have the right to undertake.

This is what informed consent and freedom of choice are all about.

Secretary Kennedy is not the cause of this current outbreak.

One narrative currently being promoted in various left-wing legacy (dead) media that Secretary RFK Jr is somehow responsible for the current outbreak of measles is nothing more than political propaganda. There is no merit to this – it is intentional slander with no factual basis. But there are fact-based hypotheses that clarify the real factors that appear to be contributing to what is likely to be a self-limited outbreak based on similar recent measles group infection events.

One fascinating hypothesis that recently came my way is that herd immunity against measles in the U.S. is decreasing yearly. But not for the reasons mentioned above. Immunity in the USA against measles is declining because older citizens, who have lifelong immunity to measles, are aging out of society (Casaris, 2014). The USA now has a predominantly MMR-vaccinated population, which has less immunity than those who were exposed to the disease, typically in childhood. The implication is that vaccine-resistant cases of measles are and will become more commonplace.

Secondary vaccine failure occurs when an individual initially develops an adequate immune response to vaccination, but this protection wanes over time, leaving them susceptible to infection. This is referred to as a lack of vaccine “durability”.

Vaccine-induced immunity from the measles vaccine is less long-lasting than immunity from natural infection. One study found that 20% of measles vaccinated individuals lacked detectable anti-measles IgG compared to only 6% of those with a history of measles infection (Bianchi, 2020).

However, the continued headline hysterics over a few hundred cases yearly only leads to more fear and confusion.

The bottom line is that as international travel increases and the vaccine failure rate of the MMR vaccine increases over time, there will be more measles cases and outbreaks in the USA. This problem won’t be solved with more mandates for the vaccination of school-aged children.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Robert Malone.

An unvaccinated child has died of measles, Texas officials announced Wednesday, the first death from measles in the United States in a decade. The child’s death in a hospital in Lubbock, in West Texas, comes as the largest measles outbreak in the state in over 30 years is now spreading to New Mexico. Since last month, 124 people have contracted the disease, most of them unvaccinated children. “The minute you stop vaccinating and maintaining that vigilance of 90-95% vaccine coverage, measles comes roaring back, and that’s what’s happened here in West Texas,” world-renowned pediatrician, virologist and vaccine expert, Dr. Peter Hotez, tells Democracy Now!

This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.

An unvaccinated child has died of measles, Texas officials announced Wednesday, the first death from measles in the United States in a decade. The child’s death in a hospital in Lubbock, in West Texas, comes as the largest measles outbreak in the state in over 30 years is now spreading to New Mexico. Since last month, 124 people have contracted the disease, most of them unvaccinated children. “The minute you stop vaccinating and maintaining that vigilance of 90-95% vaccine coverage, measles comes roaring back, and that’s what’s happened here in West Texas,” world-renowned pediatrician, virologist and vaccine expert, Dr. Peter Hotez, tells Democracy Now!

This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.

The chair of a World Health Organisation (WHO) advisory group is urging world leaders to denounce misinformation around health.

Sir Collin Tukuitonga is reacting to comments made by US Senator Robert F Kennedy, who claimed that measles was not the cause of 83 deaths in Samoa during a measles outbreak there in 2019.

Samoa’s Head of Health Dr Alec Ekeroma rejected Kennedy’s claim, calling it a “complete lie”.

• READ MORE: Better immunisation coverage needed to prevent Pacific measles, says WHO
• The deadly consequences of disinformation in the Pacific
• Other Samoa measles reports

Speaking to RNZ Pacific Waves, Sir Collin said leaders had a duty to protect people from inaccurate public health statements.

He said he was “absolutely horrified” that the person who “is the most influential individual in the US health system” could “tell lies and keep a straight face”.

“But [I am] not surprised because Kennedy has a history of subscribing to fringe, incorrect knowledge, conspiracy theories, and odd things of that type.”

He said Dr Ekeroma was very clear and direct in his condemnation of the lies from Kennedy and the group.

‘Call it for what it is’
“I encourage all of our people who are in a position to call these people for what it is.”

Sir Collin is the chair of the WHO’s Strategic and Technical Advisory Group on the Prevention and Control of Noncommunicable Diseases.

He said Kennedy’s comments and attitude toward vaccination will feed the anti-vaxxers and and discourage parents who might be uncertain about vaccines.

“So, [it is] potentially going to have a negative impact on immunisation programmes the world over. The United States has a significant influence on global health policy.

“These kinds of proclamations and attitudes and ideologies will have disastrous consequences.”

He believes that the scientific community should speak up, adding that political and business leaders in the region should also condemn such behaviour.

Withdrawal of US from WHO
Sir Collin described President Donald Trump’s decision to pull the US out of the WHO as “dangerous”.

He said Washington is a major contributor to the money needed by WHO, which works to protect world health, especially vulnerable communities in developing countries.

“I understand they contribute about a fifth of the WHO budget,” he said.

“The United States is a world leader in the technical, scientific expertise in a number of areas, that may not be as available to the rest of the world.

“Research and development of new medicines and new treatments, a large chunk of which originates in the United States.

“The United States falling out of the chain of surveillance and reporting of global outbreaks, like Covid-19, puts the whole world at risk.”

He added there were ‘a good number of reasons” why the move by the US was “shameful and irresponsible”.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

The second day of confirmation hearings for Trump’s secretary of health and human services nominee Robert F. Kennedy Jr. again focused on his long record of vaccine skepticism, his shifting position on abortion and his professional inexperience in public health. Kennedy was questioned about his role in a deadly measles outbreak in Samoa in 2019. Dr. Alec Ekeroma, the director general of Samoa’s Health Ministry, says Kennedy promoted anti-vaccine misinformation in the country, leading to the deaths of 83 people, the majority of whom were young children. “He is the preeminent anti-vax campaigner in the world,” adds investigative journalist Brian Deer, who has been following the anti-vaccine movement for years. Kennedy has “no medical or scientific qualifications at all.”

This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.

Surveillance and better vaccine coverage is needed to prevent another measles outbreak in the Pacific, says the World Health Organisation’s (WHO) Western Pacific regional director.

Dr Saia Ma’u Piukala said many children missed out on routine vaccinations — including measles and rubella — during the covid-19 pandemic.

According to WHO, measles cases jumped by 225 percent — from just over 1400 cases in 2022 to more than 5000 last year — in the Western Pacific region.

“I think the health workforce were concentrating on covid-19 vaccinations and forgot about routine vaccinations, not only for measles, but other routine immunisation schedule,” Piukala told RNZ Pacific.

“People are going back to fill the gaps.”

From 2022 to 2023, 11 countries in the Western Pacific, including Fiji, Kiribati, Marshall Islands, the Federated States of Micronesia, Palau and Papua New Guinea, conducted nationwide measles and rubella vaccination campaigns.

Catch-up successful
Piukala said the catch-up campaigns had been successful.

“That will definitely reduce the risk,” he said.

“No child should get sick or die of measles.”

In 2019, Samoa had an outbreak that killed 83 people off the back of an outbreak in Auckland.

Piukala said the deaths made people understand the importance of measles and rubella vaccinations for their children.

Fiji, Guam, French Polynesia and New Caledonia are the only countries or territories that have local testing capacity for measles, with most nations sending samples to Melbourne for testing.

Piukala said WHO plans for Samoa, the Cook Islands, and the Solomon Islands to have testing capacity by 2025.

“The PCR machines that were made available in Pacific Island countries during the covid pandemic can also be used to detect other respiratory viruses, including the flu, LSV, and measles and rubella.”

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

Daycare centres have been shut down in American Samoa following confirmation of an eight-year-old girl with measles.

The territory’s Department of Health (DOH) said samples from the child, who was seen at a community centre with symptoms on March 27, were sent for testing in California and returned positive.

Day cares are now closed to protect babies from being exposed to the virus, as infants under six months are not eligible for the Measles, Mumps and Rubella (MMR) vaccine.

• READ MORE: Other measles reports

Kanana Fou Elementary School in Tafuna, where the girl attends, has also been closed.

The Health Department will monitor the situation as to whether more schools will be closed, said Director of Health Motusa Tuileama Nua.

“This is is highly contagious disease and can spread quickly and poses a serious threat to individuals who are not vaccinated or who have weakened immune systems,” Nua said.

“We are working closely with healthcare providers, local officials, and other stakeholders to coordinate our response efforts and provide necessary support to those affected,” he said.

“We will continue to monitor for any other cases and provide updates as necessary.”

The Department of Health has the names of children who have not received the first and second measles vaccinations and will be contacting their parents to get them immunised.

Parents have been urged to check on their children’s measles vaccination.

Symptoms of measles include a fever, a rash, runny nose, and reddening of the eyes.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

Extreme hunger fueled by the climate emergency, violence, and disease has nearly 130,000 people in the Horn of Africa—which has entered its sixth straight failed rainy season—facing starvation, while 48 million others suffer from crisis levels of food insecurity, a United Nations expert warned Friday.

Liesbeth Aelbrecht, a consultant on health and food insecurity for the World Health Organization (WHO) sounded the alarm on what she said was the worst situation she's ever seen in over two decades of work in a region that includes the nations of Djibouti, Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, and Uganda.

"These 48 million people do include as many as 129,000 who are facing catastrophe," Aelbrecht told reporters in Geneva, Switzerland. "That means they are facing starvation and literally looking death in the eyes."

None

— (@)

According to a report published earlier this year by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR):

The Horn of Africa region continues to experience the longest and most severe drought on record, threatening lives and livelihoods, including millions of refugees and internally displaced people. Relentless drought and high food prices have weakened many people's ability to grow crops, raise livestock, and buy food... Harvests have yielded little and water sources have dried up. Conflict and insecurity continue to intersect with the drought emergency. As conditions continue to worsen, hundreds of thousands of people have been forced to flee in search of safety and assistance.

UNHCR—which is appealing for $137 million "to respond to the immediate needs of affected populations" in the drought-stricken region—says 1,750,000 people have been internally displaced in Ethiopia and Somalia alone, while more than 180,000 refugees have crossed from Somalia and South Sudan into regions of Kenya and Ethiopia that are also suffering from drought.

None

— (@)

The region is also experiencing soaring disease rates.

"All seven countries are battling measles, a deadly disease, Aelbrecht said. "Four of the countries are fighting cholera, South Sudan being one of them; they just declared an outbreak," she added. "Malaria, which we know is endemic in this region and remains the biggest cause reason for [medical] consultation, is really on the rise."

Cases of hepatitis, meningitis, and dengue are also increasing, with Khartoum, the Sudanese capital, reporting its first-ever dengue outbreak this year.

"The frequency of these disease outbreaks is directly linked to these extreme weather events and to climate change," Aelbrecht said. "I've been working on and off in this region for almost 25 years now—and in terms of accumulated emergencies, this is bad as I've ever seen it."

"We need to do anything possible to control these disease outbreaks," she added. "We know how to control cholera, what we need is really the resources to scale this up."

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Brett Wilkins.

As many as 15 children under the age of five in Central Papua have reportedly died of measles.

Parish Priest of Christ the Redeemer Church in Timeepa, Yeskiel Belau, told Jubi News he estimated the number to be higher because there were areas that had not been checked.

The data obtained by the church stated as many as 83 children in his ministry area alone had had measles, he said.

“In the parish centre, there are five kombas (base communities). The 15 children who died were only from the five commanders. Excluding the Toubai, Degadai, Megai Dua, Abaugi, and Dioudimi Stations.

“If the number is added, it will surely explode,” he said.

Timeepa Health Center head Yoki Butu said his party was conducting post-handover services for the measles and rubella (MR) vaccine by the Acting Dogiyai Regent, Petrus Agapa, to prevent measles in Dogiyai District.

His party immediately administered drugs to the targeted babies, he said.

“Our immunisation coverage has been carried out, in my service area there are only four villages and we have done that,” Yoki said.

Regarding the death of the 15 toddlers, Jubi News reported Yoki said the measles case was not only in the Dogiyai area but was currently the concern of all parties because it had become an “extraordinary event” in Central Papua Province.

“So let’s join hands to break the chain of transmission,” he said.

Measles is a serious viral infection, which can spread to others via coughing and sneezing.

Samoan baby admitted to hospital
In Samoa, an 11-month-old baby has been admitted to hospital suspected of measles.

Director-General of Health Aiono Dr Alec Ekeroma told TV1 Samoa the infant was showing symptoms of measles and had been isolated to await results of blood samples sent to New Zealand.

He confirmed two other patients were tested recently and returned negative results.

The Ministry of Health were continuing the mumps measles and rubella (MMR) vaccination push around the country, according to Aiono.

“We’ve approved the payment of staff overtime to allow for them to work Saturday,” he said.

It had been three weeks since the MMR immunisation campaign started and they had reached 85 percent of babies with the first dosage, Aiono said.

The second dosage was only at 45 percent coverage, and Aiono urged parents to push for their children to be fully vaccinated with both doses.

“We hope to reach 80 percent coverage with the second dose by June,” he said.

Meanwhile, the latest test results are expected next week.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

The World Health Organization and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warned Wednesday that tens of millions of children around the globe are "dangerously susceptible" to measles infection as vaccination against the deadly but preventable disease has steadily declined since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic.

"Behind every statistic in this report is a child at risk of a preventable disease."

In addition to coronavirus-related diversions of resources and disruptions to routine medical care, some public health experts are attributing the worsening measles threat to the intensified spread of anti-vaccine disinformation, led by right-wing science deniers from the United States.

A record high of almost 40 million children worldwide missed a measles vaccine dose in 2021, says a joint report from the WHO and the CDC. A whopping 25 million kids missed their first dose and another 14.7 million missed their second dose in what the agencies called "a significant setback in global progress towards achieving and maintaining measles elimination."

Globally, there were an estimated nine million cases and 128,000 deaths from measles in 2021, up from 7.5 million cases and 60,700 deaths in 2020. Nearly two dozen countries endured "large and disruptive outbreaks" last year, according to the WHO and the CDC.

"Declines in vaccine coverage, weakened measles surveillance, and continued interruptions and delays in immunization activities due to Covid-19, as well as persistent large outbreaks in 2022, mean that measles is an imminent threat in every region of the world," the agencies warned.

In the words of WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, "The paradox of the pandemic is that while vaccines against Covid-19 were developed in record time and deployed in the largest vaccination campaign in history, routine immunization programs were badly disrupted, and millions of kids missed out on lifesaving vaccinations against deadly diseases like measles."

As Tedros has long lamented, millions of children and adults in low-income nations have also been denied access to Covid-19 vaccines and treatments as a result of dose hoarding by rich countries and knowledge hoarding by Big Pharma—an ongoing injustice that has prolonged the pandemic and its damaging side effects.

"Getting immunization programs back on track is absolutely critical," said Tedros. "Behind every statistic in this report is a child at risk of a preventable disease."

The WHO and the CDC called the situation "grave." As the agencies explained:

Measles is one of the most contagious human viruses but is almost entirely preventable through vaccination. Coverage of 95% or greater of two doses of measles-containing vaccine is needed to create herd immunity in order to protect communities and achieve and maintain measles elimination. The world is well under that, with only 81% of children receiving their first measles-containing vaccine dose, and only 71% of children receiving their second measles-containing vaccine dose. These are the lowest global coverage rates of the first dose of measles vaccination since 2008, although coverage varies by country.

Stressing the need for "urgent global action," the report states: "Measles anywhere is a threat everywhere, as the virus can quickly spread to multiple communities and across international borders. No WHO region has achieved and sustained measles elimination. Since 2016, 10 countries that had previously eliminated measles experienced outbreaks and reestablished transmission."

It continues:

In 2021, nearly 61 million measles vaccine doses were postponed or missed due to Covid-19-related delays in immunization campaigns in 18 countries. Delays increase the risk of measles outbreaks, so the time for public health officials to accelerate vaccination efforts and strengthen surveillance is now. CDC and WHO urge coordinated and collaborative action from all partners at global, regional, national, and local levels to prioritize efforts to find and immunize all unprotected children, including those who were missed during the last two years.

"For three years, we have been sounding the alarm about the declining rates of vaccination and the increasing risk to children's health globally," said UNICEF immunization chief Ephrem Tekle Lemango. "Widening gaps in immunization coverage are letting measles—the most contagious yet vaccine-preventable killer disease—spread and cause illness and death."

"We have a short window of opportunity," Lemango added, "to urgently make up for lost ground in measles vaccination and protect every child."

CDC Director Rochelle Walensky, for her part, said that "the record number of children under-immunized and susceptible to measles shows the profound damage immunization systems have sustained during the Covid-19 pandemic."

"Measles outbreaks illustrate weaknesses in immunization programs," Walensky noted, "but public health officials can use outbreak response to identify communities at risk, understand causes of under-vaccination, and help deliver locally tailored solutions to ensure vaccinations are available to all."

When it comes to understanding the causes of declining measles vaccination rates, Peter Hotez, a professor of pediatrics at the Baylor College of Medicine and leader of the Texas Children's Hospital team applauded for developing a patent-free Covid-19 jab, argued that "rising anti-vaccine activism" must be considered a key factor alongside pandemic-driven social disruptions and reallocations of resources.

In a paper published earlier this year in the peer-reviewed journal Nature Reviews Immunology, Hotez wrote: "In the time of the Covid-19 pandemic, anti-vaccine activism in the USA accelerated, amplified, and formed an alliance with political groups and even extremists. An organized, well-funded, and empowered anti-science movement now threatens to spill over and threaten all childhood immunizations in the USA and globally."

According to Hotez:

A central concern is whether anti-vaccine activism from the USA will detrimentally effect the world's low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). For two decades, under the auspices of the 'Global Goals' (initially the 'Millennium Development Goals' followed by 'Sustainable Development Goals'), tremendous strides have been made in reducing deaths and morbidity from measles, polio, pertussis, and other dangerous illnesses that can be prevented by vaccination. The fear is that globalizing anti-vaccine activism might reverse these trends. A successful vaccine ecosystem led by Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, and its United Nations partners, the World Health Organization (WHO) and UNICEF, is under threat.

Even before the emergence of Covid-19, the WHO listed vaccine hesitancy as one of the top 10 global health threats, including in LMICs. Now, in this time of the pandemic, the WHO notes further significant 'backsliding' of routine childhood immunizations.

"Anti-vaccine activism now costs human lives on scales that exceed global terrorism or other established threats," Hotez concluded. "We must recognize the depth and breadth of anti-vaccine activism and its detriment to global security."

A pair of studies from 2019 revealed that getting infected with measles is even more dangerous than scientists previously believed, underscoring the importance of vaccination.

Summarizing the research when it was published, The Washington Post reported: "In addition to the illness caused by the virus, a measles infection also takes a wrecking ball to the immune system. It destroys up to half of the existing antibodies that protect against other viruses and bacteria... That means people, especially children, who get measles become much more vulnerable to other germs that cause diseases such as pneumonia and influenza that they had previously been protected against."

"Measles is not a harmless illness, as some anti-vaccine activists falsely claim, but one with deadly consequences," the newspaper noted. While many people in the U.S., including doctors, "have never seen the consequences of the disease because it became so rare thanks to vaccination," the country nearly lost its measles elimination status in 2019 when outbreaks among unvaccinated populations in New York City led to more than 1,200 infections—the most since 1992. More than 50 cases have been detected nationwide so far this year.

Measles remains a life-threatening scourge around the world, especially for unvaccinated young children in low-income countries.

"Plummeting measles vaccination rates should set off every alarm," Elizabeth Cousens, president of the United Nations Foundation, said Wednesday. "Tens of millions of children are at risk of this deadly yet entirely preventable disease until we get global vaccination efforts back on track."

"There is no time to waste," she added. "We must work urgently to ensure lifesaving vaccines reach every last child."

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams - Breaking News & Views for the Progressive Community and was authored by Kenny Stancil.