In The Politics of Autism, I analyze the myth that vaccines cause autism. This bogus idea can hurt people by allowing diseases to spread. Examples include measles, COVID, flu, and polio.
A number of posts discussed Trump's support for the discredited notion.
Another leading anti-vaxxer is presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. He has repeatedly compared vaccine mandates to the Holocaust. Rolling Stone and Salon retracted an RFK article linking vaccines to autism. He is part of the "Disinformation Dozen."
He is now Trump's nominee to head HHS.
Kennedy’s influence in Samoa took hold a year before the epidemic. In July 2018 two babies died after receiving improperly prepared vaccines, the result of human error. These deaths were soon picked up by antivax groups, including Kennedy’s Children’s Health Defence organisation, and used to question the safety of the measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) jab.
This disinformation, coupled with the temporary suspension of the country’s immunisation programme, drove down coverage rates. In 2018 only 31 percent of children under five were vaccinated, a fall from 60-70 percent in previous years.The following summer Kennedy visited Samoa in a trip arranged by a local antivax activist and paid for by Children’s Health Defence. During the visit Kennedy challenged one health official on the safety of MMR vaccine and discussed vaccination “a limited amount” with the prime minister, according to The Guardian.
Dr Take Naseri, Samoa’s director-general of health, said: “He told me he thinks the data is not solid.”
During the epidemic, which killed 83 people and infected thousands, Kennedy and his acolytes spread false claims about its origins.
In a four-page letter to the prime minister he said the vaccine might be inadvertently spreading the virus in children and theorised about whether it had provoked “the evolution of more virulent measles strains”.The outbreak was catastrophic. So many young children died, most of them under five, that New Zealand sent dozens of infant-sized coffins to Samoa. Foreign doctors were flown in to support overwhelmed hospitals. A lockdown was briefly ordered as schools closed and unvaccinated families marked their houses with red flags.
To this day Jackson does not know why Kennedy was invited to Samoa. His trip was never really publicised, she said.
But in her view there is no doubt of the impact. Jackson saw it on a almost daily basis when she visited overrun hospitals and co-ordinated the island’s vaccination programme, which involved working out how to reach the most inaccessible and poorest villages.
“There was a scarcity of resources, so we had a lot of challenges,” she said. “You were running against time to save the next person.”
Kennedy insists he bears no responsibility for what happened. “I had nothing to do with people not vaccinating in Samoa. I never told anybody not to vaccinate,” he said last year.
Josh Green, who vaccinated hundreds of people during the outbreak, and now serves as the governor of Hawaii, sees it differently. “RFK was absolutely responsible for destroying trust in vaccines in Samoa,” he said.
