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 top antivaxxer is HHS Secretary RFK Jr. He is part of the "Disinformation Dozen." He helped cause a deadly 2019 measles outbreak in Samoa. He has now hijacked the CDC website -- and the CDC itself.
Today the South Carolina Department of Health (DPH) said the state’s measles outbreak has grown to 789 cases, almost 30 more than the West Texas outbreak that took place from January to August last year and resulted in the death of two school-aged children.
The South Carolina outbreak, which grew by 89 cases in the past four days, is now the largest measles outbreak the United States has faced in nearly three decades.
The outbreak’s epicenter is Spartanburg County, where the virus spread in a series of elementary and middle schools in October of last year. Those schools, many of them private, Christian academies, have largely unvaccinated student bodies. Holiday gatherings and travel accelerated the outbreak.
Katherine J. Wu at The Atlantic:
[The] U.S. has been weathering a worsening measles situation for years now, as vaccination rates have ticked down and outbreaks have grown larger and more common. In the past year, the Trump administration has made it substantially more difficult for local public-health-response teams to address and contain outbreaks too. HHS reportedly delayed communications from the CDC to officials in West Texas and held back federal funds to fight the outbreak for two months. More recently, HHS pledged to send $1.4 million to address South Carolina’s outbreak, though it began months ago. (One recent analysis suggests that measles outbreaks of this scale can cost upwards of $10 million.) The administration has repeatedly downplayed the benefits of immunization, while exaggerating the importance of nutritional supplementation for combatting measles. Kennedy has also spent decades repeating disproved claims that vaccines such as the measles-mumps-rubella immunization can cause autism. (Hilliard wrote that Kennedy has consistently said that vaccination is the most effective way to prevent measles, but she also emphasized in her email that people should consult with health-care providers about whether vaccination is best for their family.)
Should immunity erode further—as experts watching the Trump administration’s actions expect it to—measles will find it even easier to move across the country, until epidemics bleed so thoroughly together that their links become irrefutable. Already, the nation’s leaders have made clear where the U.S. stands on measles: It is an acceptable norm.
