Taking shots at vaccines has deadly consequences

Public health authorities reported on Feb. 21 that an ongoing measles outbreak in Gaines County, Texas and Lea County, New Mexico was already the largest in decades. Of the 90 cases in Gaines County, 26 involved toddlers under four years of age; 51 children between five and 17 were afflicted, and 16 people had been hospitalized. All but five of the infected individuals had not been or were not known to have been vaccinated.

Last week, the number of cases grew to 124 and one child, who was unvaccinated, died — the first U.S. measles fatality in a decade.

Vaccination of children is required in all 50 states. In 2013, 7.5 percent of parents or guardians in Gaines County filed for an exemption, while a decade later, 17.5 percent did so — one of the highest exemption rates in the country.

Exemptions have increased dramatically nationwide. As of the 2023-24 school year, about 280,000 kindergartners had not taken shots for measles, mumps and rubella. Fourteen states report exemption rates exceeding 5 percent, enough to prevent the acquisition of “herd immunity.”

It should now be clear that the widespread dissemination of groundless conspiracy theories is undercutting confidence in the safety and efficacy of vaccinations and presenting a clear and present danger to the health of all Americans.

In the early 20th century, measles — one of the most contagious of all diseases — killed about 6,000 Americans each year. By mid-century, earlier identification and better treatment reduced annual fatalities to a still alarming 400 to 500; 48,000 people were hospitalized, about 1,000 of them with swelling of the brain.

Following the widespread distribution of an effective vaccine in 1968 and state requirements that all school children be vaccinated, measles cases declined precipitously. In 2000, the Center for Disease Control declared that measles had been eliminated in the U.S.

Measles vaccines are safe and effective. 10,000 unvaccinated children, according to the Yale School of Public Health, would suffer 2,000 hospitalizations; 10 to 30 deaths;10 cases of brain swelling; 1,000 ear infections, with the possibility of hearing loss; and 500 cases of pneumonia. By contrast, the adverse impact on 10,000 children who have taken the MMR vaccine will be three fever-related seizures, less than one case of abnormal blood-clotting and 0.035 allergic reactions.

People born between 1994 and 2013 who take all vaccines recommended by the CDC will suffer 322 million fewer illnesses, 21 million fewer hospitalizations and 732,000 fewer premature deaths. This saves $295 billion in direct medical costs and $1.38 trillion in other costs to society. The CDC report was issued before the COVID-19 pandemic, which would have made the case for vaccinations even stronger.

The Supreme Court has repeatedly affirmed that states can require vaccinations as an appropriate use of their responsibility to protect public health and safety. In Jacobson v. Massachusetts (1905), the high court declared that personal liberties can be restricted when “the common good” of the community is at risk. In Zucht v. King (1922), the court decreed that a refusal by public school authorities to admit an unvaccinated student does not violate the 14th Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause. In Prince v. Massachusetts (1944), the court asserted that freedom of religion “does not include liberty to expose the community or the child to communicable diseases or the latter to ill-health or death.”

In Phillips v. City of New York (2015), however, the court did allow students with “genuine and sincere” religious objections to vaccinations to attend school, but it authorized officials to send them home if and when a disease outbreak occurred. Most states have an opt-out for religious reasons, and about half of them now allow exemptions for personal or philosophical reasons.

Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. wields considerable power over the development and distribution of vaccines. During his Senate confirmation hearings, Kennedy promised, “I am not going to take away anybody’s vaccine.” That assurance belies his long, long history as an anti-vaccine conspiracy theorist.

Kennedy once claimed that “there’s no vaccine that is safe and effective.” In 2022, a lawyer who works with Children’s Health Defense, the anti-vaccine organization founded by Kennedy, petitioned the FDA to revoke its approval of polio vaccines. Kennedy himself asserted that the COVID vaccine had a “100 percent injury rate” in early trials. He continues to base his assertion that autism “does come from vaccines” on a 1998 study of 12 individuals that was retracted by the medical journal The Lancet following revelations that the author falsified information and had a financial conflict of interest. The doctor’s medical license was subsequently revoked. Kennedy also ignores a raft of large-scale studies confirming that MMR vaccines do not increase the risk of autism spectrum disorder.

Kennedy has misrepresented his role in supporting anti-vaxxers during a deadly measles outbreak in Samoa. And after he claimed that measles vaccines push the immune response of Black people “over the cliff,” precipitating an attack on their autoimmune systems, the author of the study Kennedy cited corrected him, stating that his data does not show “that one racial group experienced increased harm of autoimmunity compared to any other racial group.”

As Sen. Maggie Hassan (D-N.H.) has said, “relitigating and churning settled science” has “real-world consequences.” Those consequences include reducing public confidence in vaccines, cutting funds for research and development, staffing the FDA and CDC with vaccination “know nothings” and increasing disease, hospitalization and death.

The churning has already begun. On Feb. 14, Trump signed an executive order prohibiting federal funding for schools that mandate COVID vaccines.

A public outcry against this assault on one of most effective — and least expensive — advances in the history of medicine, however, might give the Trump administration and Kennedy a motive to slow down or stop.

Glenn C. Altschuler is the Thomas and Dorothy Litwin Emeritus Professor of American Studies at Cornell University.

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