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.
Trump’s top pollster, Tony Fabrizio, cautioned in December that an embrace of Kennedy’s anti-vaccine policies could cost politicians their jobs this year.
Eight in 10 MAHA voters and 86% of all voters believe vaccines save lives, his poll of 1,000 voters in 35 competitive districts found.
“In the districts that will decide the control of the House of Representatives next year, Republican and Democratic candidates who support eliminating long standing vaccine requirements will pay a price in the election,” a memo on the poll stated.
The White House has since shaken up senior staffing at HHS, including removing Jim O’Neill from the deputy secretary role and his job as acting director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, in which he curtailed the agency’s childhood vaccination recommendations. Ralph Abraham, a vaccine skeptic who as Louisiana’s surgeon general suspended its vaccination promotion program last year, stepped down as the CDC’s principal deputy director in late February.
Jay Bhattacharya, a doctor who said in congressional testimony that he doesn’t believe vaccines cause autism, is now running the CDC in addition to directing the National Institutes of Health.
Though Trump himself has frequently espoused doubts and mistruths about vaccines, polling around anti-vaccine policy has undoubtedly shaken the White House’s confidence during a tough midterm election year, said former U.S. Rep. Larry Bucshon, an Indiana Republican and retired doctor who left Congress last year.
Bucshon said Republicans can’t risk alienating voters, especially parents of young children who might be moved by Democratic attack ads on the topic at a time when hundreds of measles cases are popping up across the U.S.
“That’s the reason you’re seeing the White House get nervous about it,” Bucshon said. “This is just the political reality of it.”
