Measles and RFK Jr's Lies

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.

Since  Trump took office in 2025, the U.S. has recorded more confirmed measles cases than in the previous 20 years combined.

Michelle R. Smith at The Guardian:

A senior Democratic senator is calling for a criminal investigation into the US health secretary, Robert F Kennedy Jr, following reporting by the Guardian that indicated he lied during Senate confirmation hearings last year.

Ron Wyden of Oregon said: “RFK’s platform is built on lies and grifts that leave a trail of dead children in their wake. There are consequences for lying to Congress.”

The Guardian’s reporting was based on letters that were obtained – by this news outlet and the Associated Press – following a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit.

Wyden said in a statement to the Guardian that he would be pressing Republican colleagues, who currently control the Senate, to issue a criminal referral of Kennedy to the Department of Justice for a criminal investigation. “And when Democrats retake the majority in the Senate, RFK will be at the top of the list of Trump officials the finance committee will hold accountable for endangering American families,” he said. Wyden currently serves as the top Democrat on the finance committee.

Also on Thursday, the government watchdog group American Oversight sent a letter to the justice department requesting that it immediately open an investigation into whether Kennedy violated the law by making false statements to Congress.

Michelle R. Smith at The Guardian:

Newly obtained documents indicate that the US health secretary, Robert F Kennedy Jr, lied during two congressional hearings last year, when he told lawmakers who held the key to his confirmation that a 2019 visit to Samoa had “nothing to do with vaccines”.

Letters obtained by the Guardian and the Associated Press contradict that testimony. In one he wrote to the Samoan prime minister before the trip, Kennedy explicitly said he wanted to study the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine in the Pacific island nation. In it, he used the words “vaccine” or “vaccination” eight times.

“I am writing this letter to you in the hope that we might be helpful to the people of your great nation,” he wrote, adding that he believed the deaths of two children there after an MMR vaccine could have resulted from manufacturing issues.

“I would propose my team conduct detailed health informatics assessment in Samoa of what happened with your MMR vaccines,” Kennedy wrote.

Kennedy’s Samoa visit – just months before a measles outbreak swept through the island, killing 83 people – has become one of the most controversial events in his career. At the time, he was leading a non-profit known for its anti-vaccine activism. The visit was seen by critics as having emboldened anti-vaccine activists in Samoa.

Beyond shedding light on the intent of Kennedy’s visit, the letter raises questions about the health secretary’s integrity and how truthful he was in testimony before Congress. During the confirmation process, Kennedy also pledged to maintain vaccine policies that, once in office, he moved to change.

RFK Jr. Lied About His Role in the Samoa Measles Outbreak

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.

 Michelle R. Smith at The Guardian:

Over two days of questioning during his Senate confirmation hearings last year, Robert F Kennedy Jr repeated the same answer.

He said the closely scrutinized trip he took to Samoa in 2019, which came ahead of a devastating measles outbreak, had “nothing to do with vaccines”.

Documents obtained by the Guardian and the Associated Press undermine that testimony. Emails sent by staff at the US embassy and the United Nations provide, for the first time, an inside look at how Kennedy’s trip came about and include contemporaneous accounts suggesting his concerns about vaccine safety motivated the visit.

The documents have prompted concerns from at least one US senator that the lawyer and activist now leading America’s health policy lied to Congress over the visit. Samoan officials later said Kennedy’s trip bolstered the credibility of anti-vaccine activists ahead of the measles outbreak that sickened thousands and killed 83 people, mostly children under age five.

...

The newly disclosed documents also reveal previously unknown details of the trip, including that a US embassy employee helped Kennedy’s team connect with Samoan officials. Kennedy, then running his anti-vaccine group Children’s Health Defense, did not publicly discuss the trip at the time, but has since said his “purpose” for going there was not related to vaccines and that “I ended up having conversations with people, some of whom I never intended to meet.”

In addition to meeting with anti-vaccine activists, Kennedy met with Samoan officials, including the health minister at the time, who told NBC News that Kennedy shared his view that vaccines were not safe. Kennedy has said he went there to introduce a medical data system. 

Elizabeth Warren Writes to RFK

 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 helped cause a deadly 2019 measles outbreak in Samoa.

He is now Trump's nominee to head HHS.

Ahead of RFK Jr.'s confirmation hearing, Senator Elizabeth Warren wrote him a letter:

Vaccines are among the most important public health innovations of the last century. They have saved 154 million lives, including 146 million children, 101 million of whom were infants, over the past 50 years.5 As a result, “equitable universal access to immunization remains crucial to sustain health gains and continue to save future lives from preventable infectious mortality.”6 But your blatant disavowal of vaccine safety would wipe away this progress and put American lives in danger if you are confirmed as HHS Secretary.

Your lengthy record of advocating against vaccinations and your willful disregard for the scientific process is alarming.7 Dubbed “the ringleader of the misinformation campaign” who “turbocharged” anti-vaccine rhetoric during the Covid-19 pandemic, you have spread false hysteria that vaccines cause autism.8 Following the release of the FDA-approved coronavirus vaccine—which saved more than 3 million American lives during the Covid-19 pandemic9—you and your organization, Children's Health Defense, falsely claimed that the Pfizer vaccine that was being administered to Americans was not actually the licensed version—a baseless conspiracy that provoked unnecessary fear and hysteria across the country.10 You also accused Dr. Fauci, the nation’s leading infectious disease doctor at the time, of orchestrating a “historic coup d’etat against Western democracy” for his work to combat coronavirus, including vaccination.11 In your book, you pushed unproven and unsafe treatments for the coronavirus.12 In your 2021 film, “Medical Racism: The New Apartheid,” you “used the real history of medical racism in the US to peddle conspiracy theories that coronavirus vaccines were an effort to harm Black communities.” 13 As Covid-19 ravaged the country and world, you attended rallies across Europe that decried Covid-19 restrictions and spread misinformation.14

Your dangerous views on vaccines have had tragic real-life impacts. In 2019, you traveled to Samoa, spouting dangerous anti-vaccination rhetoric.15 Your statements had a destructive impact on this Polynesian island: four months later, measles began to spread rapidly around the tiny country due to a low vaccination rate, partially thanks to your statements encouraging families and children not to get vaccinated only months earlier.16 More than 5,700 people were infected and 83 died because of your contributions to vaccine skepticism in Samoa.17 At the time, you shrugged off the epidemic as “mild”—this massive disregard for human lives is indicative of the irresponsible public health official that you would be, if confirmed as Secretary of HHS.18 Your past actions provide a very clear indication that you are not capable of upholding immunization programs or representing the United States on the global health stage. Indeed, Samoa’s public health minister, after the havoc you brought to that country, warned that, if confirmed, you “will be directly responsible for killing thousands of children around the world by allowing preventable infectious diseases to run rampant.”19

Your rhetoric indicates that, if confirmed as Secretary of HHS, you would abuse your power and use your role as a platform for spreading misinformation. Indeed, during your bid for president, you said you would use the power of the attorney general to threaten editors of medical journals and force them to publish studies that had been retracted due to their scientific unviability, such as the retracted study that says ivermectin, a parasite drug, is an effective treatment for coronavirus.20

Health officials and public health experts worry that, if confirmed as Secretary of HHS, you would sow doubt and confusion about vaccines that conservative states could weaponize to “dismantle and annihilate” public health guardrails for vaccines.21 For example, a regional health board in Idaho banned health department clinics that served six counties in the state from offering coronavirus because it heard testimony from physicians that spread misinformation about the vaccine safety.22 There are also concerns that you could slow vaccine production by delaying inspection of vaccine production facilities or requiring additional data and reviews on vaccine safety.23 Given that the FDA approves vaccines while the CDC provides recommendations on who receives them, I am deeply concerned that you could influence the vaccine approval and recommendation process by putting vaccine skeptics on advisory committees and make life-saving vaccines less accessible to American families.24

5 The Lancet, “Contribution of vaccination to improved survival and health: modelling 50 years of the Expanded Programme on Immunization,” Andrew Shattock, PhD, et. al, May 25, 2024, https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(24)00850-X/fulltext  

6 Id.

7 AP, “Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has a long record of promoting anti-vaccine views,” Michelle Smith, November 14, 2024, https://apnews.com/article/robert-f-kennedy-vaccines-trump-rfkjr-7f8dcb25de76a5a70710d22bbc63f6fa; BBC,“Fact-checking RFK Jr's views on health policy,” November 15, 2024, https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c0mzk2y41zvo.

8 AP News, “How a Kennedy built an anti-vaccine juggernaut amid COVID-19,” Michelle Smith, December 15, 2021, https://apnews.com/article/how-rfk-jr-built-anti-vaccine-juggernaut-amid-covid-4997be1bcf591fe8b7f1f90d16c9321e; BBC, “Fact-checking RFK Jr's views on health policy,” November 15, 2024, https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c0mzk2y41zvo; Inside Higher Ed, “Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s Appointment Would ‘Put Americans at Risk,’” Ryan Quinn and Kathryn Palmer, November 15, 2024, https://www.insidehighered.com/news/government/science-research-policy/2024/11/15/what-robert-f-kennedy-jr-hassaid-about-nih.

9 The Commonwealth Fund, “Lessons from COVID-19 Can Help the U.S. Prepare for the Next Pandemic” Meagan C. Fitzpatrick, July 5, 2023, https://www.commonwealthfund.org/blog/2023/lessons-covid-19-can-help-us-prepare-nextpandemic.

10 Skeptical Raptor, “Vaccine licensing primer – correcting anti-vaccine misinformation,” Dorit Rubinstein Reiss, September 25, 2021, https://www.skepticalraptor.com/skepticalraptorblog.php/vaccine-licensing-primer-correctinganti-vaccine-misinformation/; AP News, “How a Kennedy built an anti-vaccine juggernaut amid COVID-19,” Michelle Smith, December 15, 2021, https://apnews.com/article/how-rfk-jr-built-anti-vaccine-juggernaut-amid-covid4997be1bcf591fe8b7f1f90d16c9321e.

11 Id.; Alabama Reflector, “Fauci defends his work on COVID-19, says he has an ‘open mind’ on its origins,” Jennifer Shutt, June 4, 2024, https://alabamareflector.com/2024/06/04/fauci-defends-his-work-on-covid-19-says-he-has-anopen-mind-on-its-origins/. 

12 AP, “How a Kennedy built an anti-vaccine juggernaut amid COVID-19,” Michelle Smith, December 15, 2021, https://apnews.com/article/how-rfk-jr-built-anti-vaccine-juggernaut-amid-covid-4997be1bcf591fe8b7f1f90d16c9321e.

13 NBC News, “RFK Jr. is courting Black voters, a group he once targeted with vaccine disinformation, ” Alex Tabet and Brandy Zadrozny, February 20, 2024, https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2024-election/rfk-jr-black-votersvaccine-disinformation-rcna139459.

14 AP News, “How a Kennedy built an anti-vaccine juggernaut amid COVID-19,” Michelle Smith, December 15, 2021, https://apnews.com/article/how-rfk-jr-built-anti-vaccine-juggernaut-amid-covid4997be1bcf591fe8b7f1f90d16c9321e.

15 The Washington Post, “Global health experts sound alarm over RFK Jr., citing Samoa outbreak,” Sammy Westfall and Lena H. Sun, November 15, 2024, https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2024/11/15/rfk-jr-global-healthsamoa-kennedy/.

16 Id.

17 Id.

18 Id.

19 Id.

20 NBC News, “RFK Jr. comes ‘home’ to his anti-vaccine group, commits to ‘a break’ for U.S. infectious disease research,” Brandy Zadrozny, November 3, 2023, https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/rfk-jr-comes-homeanti-vaccine-group-commits-break-us-infectious-disea-rcna123551. 

21 The Washington Post, “How much influence could RFK Jr. have over vaccines in Trump’s government?,” Dan Diamond, Lauren Weber, Lena H. Sun, and Rachel Roubein, November 8, 2024, https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2024/11/08/rfk-jr-vaccines-fda-trump-health-policy/.

22 Id.

23 Id. 

24 Id.

Ad Against RFK Jr.

  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 helped cause a deadly 2019 measles outbreak in Samoa.

He is now Trump's nominee to head HHS.

Dan Diamond at WP:

“It’s a real-life example of what this individual will [do] as the nation’s leading health-care official,” said Hawaii Gov. Josh Green (D), a physician who responded to Samoa’s outbreak five years ago and said he witnessed the deaths of measles-afflicted infants. Green traveled to Capitol Hill this week in a bid to sway senators by sharing his story, part of a larger effort by advocates to scuttle Kennedy’s selection as secretary of health and human services by focusing on the Samoan crisis.

3.14 Action, a liberal-leaning advocacy group, this week began airing an ad featuring [Hawaii Governor Josh] Green and others who condemned Kennedy for raising doubts about vaccines ahead of Samoa’s outbreak.

The RFK Death Toll

 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.

At The Times of London, Samuel Lovett tells how RFK helped cause a deadly 2019 measles outbreak in Samoa:

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.

"When you think of RFK Jr., think of rows of tiny coffins."

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.

Mona Charen at The Bulwark:

In 2019, Samoa was experiencing a spike in measles cases due to a mistake and a lie. The mistake was made in 2018 by two nurses who mixed ingredients for a measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine incorrectly, causing the deaths of two infants. (They pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter.) The lies came soon after, encouraged by RFK Jr., who has consistently propagated the myth that the MMR vaccine causes autism, peanut allergies, and other ailments. Though he now denies that he was ever “anti-vaccine,” Kennedy declared as recently as July that “there is no vaccine that is safe and effective,” and, in another interview: “I do believe that autism does come from vaccines.”

Many Samoans had seen the film Vaxxed, produced by two of Kennedy’s anti-vaccine allies, which alleged that the MMR vaccine was harmful and that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had committed fraud. (Samoa, as distinct from the territory of American Samoa, is a sovereign state with its own health ministry that can and does regulate vaccines. In the United States, the FDA has that responsibility, not the CDC.)

The film and social media rumors led to an uptick in parents refusing to get their kids vaccinated. After the deaths of the two infants, RFK Jr. threw gasoline on the fire with a visit to the island in 2019, meeting with local vaccine opponents and voicing suspicions that the MMR vaccine had contained a mutant strain and had caused the then-burgeoning epidemic. Eventually, more than 3 percent of the whole population of the island was infected. For babies aged six to eleven months, that figure was closer to 20 percent. More than 150 of them died.

Dr. Paul Offit, pediatrician and author of Deadly Choices: How the Anti-Vaccine Movement Threatens Us All, told the Guardian that “the Samoan incident showed us how disinformation can kill. [RFK Jr.] sowed further distrust, he jumped all over it—he met with anti-vaxxers in Samoa to promote the notion that ‘it’s not measles, it’s the vaccine,’ and immunization rates dropped.”

When you think of RFK Jr., think of rows of tiny coffins.

WSJ editorial:

Many conditions can be treated and prevented without drugs. The next Trump Administration could use its bully pulpit to encourage exercise, healthier eating, less screen time and regular screenings for cancer and diabetes.

But vaccines are also essential to preventing disease in children and adults. Childhood vaccines have all but vanquished deadly infectious diseases in the U.S. HPV vaccines have greatly reduced cervical cancer. Scientists have discovered that latent viruses like Epstein-Barr can trigger auto-immune conditions and cancers later in life, so developing anti-virus vaccines can ward off debilitating diseases.

Mr. Kennedy says he doesn’t plan to take away anyone’s vaccines, but he wants to reduce liability protection for vaccine makers. Removing a vaccine from HHS’s National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program, which compensates patients for adverse effects caused by vaccines, would force companies to withdraw from the market to avoid costly lawsuits.

Trump transition manager Howard Lutnick told CNN before the election that this was RFK Jr.’s plan: “He says, if you give me the data, all I want is the data and I’ll . . . show how that it’s not safe. And then if you pull the product liability, the companies will yank these vaccines right off of the market.”
***

Who will benefit from RFK Jr.’s agenda? The trial lawyers and China, which is seeking to surpass the U.S. in biotech including mRNA. If RFK Jr. were a Democratic nominee, GOP Senators would oppose him as a threat to public health. If they confirm him, they’d better hope they won’t need the cures that won’t be developed.

 

Trump to RFK: Go Wild

 In The Politics of Autism, I discuss autism quackery.  There have been lots of bogus "cures" over the years:, including chelation. 

Trump says he would give RFK Jr. a role in a future administration and let him do whatever he wants on health.  His agenda -- which includes chelation -- would put Americans at risk.

Brett Samuels at The Hill:

Former President Trump said Sunday that he would let Robert F. Kennedy Jr. “go wild” in dealing with issues related to food, medicine and health in a potential second administration.

“I’m going to let him go wild on health. I’m going to let him go wild on the food. I’m going to let him go wild on the medicines,” Trump told supporters at Madison Square Garden.

...

Kennedy has denied being against vaccines outright but has long peddled debunked conspiracy theories about them. At a congressional hearing last year, he denied telling people to avoid getting vaccinated, but two years earlier he said on a podcast that he regularly tells strangers not to vaccinate their babies. And on CNN in December, he denied saying no vaccines are “safe and effective,” despite having said exactly that in an interview last July.

Derek Lowe at Science:

Since 2015, he led a nonprofit called Children's Health Defense that engaged in relentless anti-vaccine propaganda. As recently as 2019, CHD (and Kennedy himself) were both involved in stocking anti-vaccine fears in Samoa, which directly led to a measles outbreak that killed dozens of children. Kennedy has tried to cover up his role in this completely preventable tragedy, but the record is clear. As far as I'm concerned, he and Children's Health Defense have blood on their hands.

Samoa and the Antivax Death Toll

In The Politics of Autism, I analyze the discredited notion that vaccines cause autism. This bogus idea can hurt people by allowing diseases to spread.   And among those diseases could be COVID-19.

Antivaxxers are sometimes violent, often abusive, and always wrong. A 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.

 At MSNBC, Mehdi Hassan reports on what he did to Samoa.  Kids died.

RFK and Wakefield

In The Politics of Autism, I analyze the discredited notion that vaccines cause autism. This bogus idea can hurt people by allowing diseases to spread.   And among those diseases could be COVID-19.

Antivaxxers are sometimes violent, often abusive, and always wrong. A 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.

Derek Beres, Matthew Remski, and Julian Walker at Time:

By 2019, Kennedy was the leading buyer of antivax ads on Facebook, and was implicated in a measles outbreak in Samoa that infected 5,700 and killed 83. The outbreak followed the tragic deaths of two children who had received contaminated vaccines. Kennedy traveled to Samoa, and was pictured with a local antivax advocate. This was followed by Children’s Health Defense sending a letter to the Prime Minister of Samoa, urging him to question the general safety of the Measles, Mumps, & Rubella (MMR) vaccine. This tragedy echoed the measles outbreaks in Somali immigrant communities in Minnesota in 2011 and 2017.

The Somalis had been specifically targeted by the antivax propagandist Andrew Wakefield, whose falsified 1998 study started the still-lingering conspiracy theory that the MMR vaccine causes autism. More than a year before Kennedy lost his Instagram account for spreading medical misinformation, he used it to sing Wakefield’s praises, dubbing him “among the most unjustly vilified figures of modern history.” In 2021, the Center for Countering Digital Hate linked Kennedy on their list of the 12 influencers responsible for up to 73% of all antivax content on Facebook, and 65% of all digital antivax content overall. (Kennedy was reinstated to Instagram on June 4, 2023, on the grounds that he’s running for president.)

Antivaxxers Go Global

In The Politics of Autism, I analyze the discredited notion that vaccines cause autism. This bogus idea can hurt people by allowing diseases to spread.   And among those diseases could be COVID-19.

Rebecca Speare-Cole at The Evening Standard:

Nearly one in six Britons will refuse a coronavirus vaccine if and when one becomes available in the UK, according to a recent survey.

The findings come amid a significant rise in anti-vaccination sentiment on social media.

In a survey conducted by YouGov on behalf of research group Centre for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH), only 6 per cent of people polled said they would definitely not get vaccinated.

A further 10 per cent also said they would “probably not”, meaning at least 16 per cent are not open to getting inoculated against Covid-19.

Loveday Morris and William Glucroft at WP:

Germany already had a fervent anti-vaxx movement, reflecting a historic skepticism of government control and an affinity for alternative medicine. [You-know-who was big on alternative medicine. -- ed.] Now, health experts have warned that even if a coronavirus vaccine gets approval, refusals could open the way to a resurgence while threatening efforts to keep other preventable diseases in check.

“With such a bad pandemic, there were people that said it would make anti-vaxxers wake up and see that vaccines are important,” said Heidi Larson, director of the London-based Vaccine Confidence Project. “But it’s actually done the opposite.”

Anti-vaxx groups have become highly “active and aggressive,” she said. “I think we are in a vulnerable spot right now.”

In Germany, conspiracy theories over a vaccine abound. Attila Hildmann, a vegan chef, has become one of the leading voices of the resistance, accusing the health minister of promoting a surveillance state and forced-vaccination program at the behest of Bill Gates.

...
Surveys of Germany conducted by the University of Erfurt found that in late June, 64 percent of respondents said they would be willing to get a hypothetical coronavirus vaccine — down from 79 percent in mid-April. The notion of mandatory vaccination was rejected by 38 percent of respondents.

The Australian Broadcasting Corporation:

With some Victorians refusing COVID-19 testing, it has become more important than ever to counter online misinformation, which may be influencing communities in virus hot spots.

In one Facebook post spotted by Fact Check this week, a slick, shareable infographic posted by a newly-created Facebook page claims there is "no evidence" that COVID-19 tests used in Australia are accurate. The post, shared by Friends of Truth, also states they have not been safety tested and are "unapproved".

Reuters:

Anti-vaccine protesters took to the streets in Johannesburg on Wednesday to voice their concern over Africa’s first human trials for a potential coronavirus vaccine.

Last Wednesday, the University of the Witwatersrand in partnership with Oxford University rolled out South Africa’s first clinical trial, which will consist of 2,000 volunteers.

The involvement of South Africa in vaccine trials is intended to ensure the continent will have access to an affordable vaccine and not be left at the back of the queue.

About 50 people held protests at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, saying they did not want Africans to be used as guinea pigs, reflecting concerns among some on the continent over testing drugs on people who do not understand the risks.

At The Washington Post, Adam Taylor reports on the earlier measles outbreak in Samoa.

Samoa Lifts State of Emergency

In The Politics of Autism, I look at the discredited notion that vaccines cause autism. Twitter, Facebook, and other social media platforms have helped spread this dangerous myth.   Measles can kill.

From BBC:

Samoa has lifted a six-week state of emergency, which was put in place amid a measles epidemic that killed 81 people and infected more than 5,600.

Just 200,000 people live on the South Pacific island nation, and vaccination rates are far lower than in neighbouring countries.

Most of those killed in the outbreak were babies and young children.

Infection rates slowed earlier this month after a vaccination drive pushed immunisation rates towards 95%.

...
Globally, measles cases are on the rise - including in the US and Germany - as parents forego life-saving vaccines because of false, repeatedly debunked theories linking childhood immunisation with autism.

...
Prominent anti-vaxxer Edwin Tamasese was arrested in Samoa earlier this month and charged with incitement against a government order.

Mr Tamamese had posted false theories about measles on Facebook, and instead promoted the use of ineffective remediesEmerg to treat the deadly illness - such as using papaya leaf extract and vitamin C.

He also called the government's vaccination programme "the greatest crime against our people".