It's Not Just Measles

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

Washington Post editorial:

And it’s not just measles. Cases of other vaccine-preventable illnesses such as whooping cough, rotavirus and Hemophilus influenza Type B are all rising as parents decline to give their kids shots. That’s not only dangerous for those children but also those who are too young to get immunizations, as well as immunocompromised people whose bodies are unable to mount a response to surging pathogens.

The decline in vaccination predates this administration, but rhetoric from officials, especially Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., supercharged skepticism toward vital public health tools. That’s prompted enormous backlash, including among Senate Republicans — so much so that the White House reportedly felt compelled to sideline Kennedy on the issue. The administration has also needed to withdraw multiple nominees for health agencies because of previous anti-vaccine comments.

Whether this shift is permanent remains to be seen. Last week, President Donald Trump issued an executive order directing agencies to pare back recommended childhood vaccines, even though similar changes announced in March by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention were blocked in federal court.

At the same time, Kennedy is still reportedly pushing to craft new “research” to support his long-debunked claims that vaccines are unsafe.

The ultimate outcome of such efforts would be to make it harder for parents to access these medical innovations to keep kids safe. It would be like lining your house with kindling as wildfires spread nearby. Someone’s bound to get burned.

RFK Wrecks CDC, and Vaccine-Preventable Diseases Rise

 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.

Amaris Encinas at USA TODAY:

Whooping cough cases are on the rise, with Kentucky reporting its third infant death since the start of the year.

The Kentucky Department for Public Health reported in a Nov. 24 notice that the "highly contagious" respiratory infection, also known as pertussis, has become more prevalent in communities across the U.S. "in part due to declining vaccination rates."

"KDPH confirmed none of the infants who died of pertussis in Kentucky over the past 12 months had been vaccinated, nor had their mothers," the department said in a statement. "Kentucky’s three infant deaths from whooping cough are the commonwealth’s first whooping cough deaths reported since 2018."

 Erin Garcia de Jesús at  Science News:

 A measles outbreak in Canada began in October 2024. Continuous transmission more than a year later signifies that the virus is no longer eliminated, the Public Health Agency of Canada announced November 10. 

Now, the United States has until January 20, 2026 — one year after an outbreak began in West Texas — to bring measles cases under control without losing its elimination status. In 2025, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has documented 1,753 measles cases and three deaths across 42 states. More than 90 percent of those cases were in people who were not vaccinated. 

Measles has been eliminated from the United States since 2000, and such a reversal would be “a source of great embarrassment,” Schaffner says. “To those of us who were involved early on in demonstrating that measles could be eliminated from large land areas, to have to seemingly turn back the clock and start all over in trying to convince parents that vaccinating their children is very, very important is very disheartening.” 

Dhruv Khullar at The New Yorker:

Two weeks ago, by inserting what must be the most notorious asterisk in modern public health, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention caveated its long-standing position that vaccines do not cause autism. Under the direction of Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., the Secretary of Health and Human Services, a C.D.C. web page now contends that this is “not an evidence-based claim” and that research linking vaccines to autism has been “ignored by health authorities.” The fact that the original statement remains at all is due to an agreement with Senator Bill Cassidy, a physician and the chair of the Senate health committee, who disregarded decades of Kennedy’s vaccine skepticism to advance his confirmation after extracting a set of flimsy commitments that Kennedy is now betraying. The Autism Science Foundation said that it is “appalled” by the C.D.C.’s new stance; the American Medical Association warned of “dangerous consequences.”

The Department of Health and Human Services maintains that it is hewing to “gold standard, evidence-based science”—a piece of doublespeak so thick that it might unsettle Orwell. Discounting dozens of rigorous studies that have analyzed millions of patients and failed to connect vaccines to autism, the C.D.C. website claims that about half of parents of children with autism believe vaccines contributed to that autism. It cited a decades-old paper that surveyed a few dozen parents who strongly embraced alternative medicine, at two private practices in the Northeast. The web page points out that autism rates have risen in recent decades and so has the number of infant vaccinations—an observation that might also be made about prestige TV shows and pumpkin-spice lattes. The H.H.S. will now provide “appropriate funding” for studies on vaccines and autism, and last week it appointed a physician with a history of vaccine skepticism as the second-in-command at the C.D.C. The episode puts to rest any doubts about whether Americans can still trust information from the nation’s top health agency.

Vaccines, Data, and the Law

Jenna Chandler writes at The Orange County Register:

There are different ways to look at the correlation between disease and personal-belief exemptions. Researchers, including Jessica Atwell, a doctoral student studying global disease, epidemiology and control at Johns Hopkins University, say county data is too broad.

“What matters most is the community level when you’re talking about transmission of disease. In Southern California, especially, counties like Orange and San Bernardino are huge, and that can be misleading,” she said. “What matters most is who your child is interacting with at school, at church, in play groups. Who are they sharing a room with? Who are they swapping air with?”

That rebuts testimony at an assembly hearing last week by Melissa Floyd, a member of California Coalition for Health Choice, which opposes SB277. Floyd told lawmakers there’s no correlation between the prevalence of disease and number of personal-belief exemptions in a county.

When pertussis came roaring back in 2010 in California, infecting more than 9,000 people and killing 10 infants too young to be vaccinated, the highest rate of disease was in Marin County, where 7.1 percent of children had personal-belief exemptions. Nevada County had the highest percentage of personal-belief exemptions that year at 18.9 percent but its case rate was dramatically lower, according to data from the California Department of Public Health.

But a 2013 study Atwell co-authored in the Journal of Pediatrics mapped the location and timing of outbreak clusters and compared that to the location and number of whooping cough cases with personal-belief exemptions. The study found people who lived in areas with high rates of personal-belief exemptions were 2.5 times more likely to live in a place with a lot of whooping cough cases.

Crystal Shepeard writes at Care2:

The law would also pass the First Amendment test due to a 1905 United States Supreme Court ruling that has been repeatedly upheld. In that case, a man refused to get a mandated Small Pox vaccine, not wanting to pay the required five dollars. While the case was not about religion, the Supreme Court noted that the “liberty secured by the Constitution of the United States does not import an absolute right in each person to be at all times, and in all circumstances, wholly freed from restraint, nor is it an element in such liberty that one person, or a minority of persons residing in any community and enjoying the benefits of its local government, should have power to dominate the majority when supported in their action by the authority of the State.” They concluded that it was in the power of the state to enact a compulsory vaccination program.

Pertussis

The Los Angeles Times reports:

California's pertussis epidemic has escalated, state health officials said Friday, with 4,558 cases reported this year as of Tuesday — 1,100 of those in the last two weeks. 

"We are off to a really bad start in 2014," Dr. Gil Chavez, state epidemiologist with the California Department of Public Health, said during a phone call with reporters Friday.

Cal Berkeley's California Magazine interviews Arthur Reingold, chief epidemiologist for the UC Berkeley School of Public Health:

Reingold is measured, even mild, when addressing anti-vaxxers. His restraint could be considered remarkable, considering that about five years ago, he was menaced by a disturbed student who was apparently set off by Reingold’s contention that vaccines should not be linked to autism. The man, who Reingold says had a history of of “crazy episodes,” showed up his office one day with a hammer and smashed everything in the place. (Fortunately, the epidemiologist was in Geneva at that time, and Reingold said he decided not to press charges after the student signed a legal document vowing to stay away from him.) 

The vast majority of vaccine resisters, of course, are well-intended and believe that they are acting in the best interests of their own children. Many emphasize that vaccines can trigger serious side effects, others accuse the government of being in cahoots with the pharmaceutical industry, and still others claim, without any credible scientific support, that vaccines cause the disease they are intended to protect against. “I am not wrong!” Sunshine wrote. “I’ve done my children a high service by not following the sheep and you know what, many parents are not following the sheep, or in this case I should say wolves….The growing polarization regarding vaccines is unmistakable.” 

The result? Research has concluded that the few states (including California) that make it easy for parents to opt out of vaccinating their children experience a far higher incidence of pertussis, and that clusters of non-medical vaccine exemptions may have contributed to an outbreak of pertussis in California in 2010.

Outbreaks Might Not Increase Vaccination Rates

A release from the American Academcy of Pediatrics:

Conventional wisdom holds that when the risk of catching a disease is high, people are more likely to get vaccinated to protect themselves.

This may not be the case, however, according to a study to be presented Monday, May 5, at the Pediatric Academic Societies (PAS) annual meeting in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.

Researchers, led by Elizabeth R. Wolf, MD, FAAP, compared rates of infant vaccination with the diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis vaccine (DTaP) before and during an epidemic of pertussis (whooping cough) in Washington state. Surprisingly, they found no difference in vaccination rates.

"We have always assumed that when the risk of catching a disease is high, people will accept a vaccine that is effective in preventing that disease. Our results may challenge this assumption," said Dr. Wolf, the Ruth L. Kirschstein National Research Service Award Fellow in General Academic Pediatrics at University of Washington, Seattle Children's Research Institute.

Washington state experienced a pertussis epidemic from Oct. 1, 2011, through Dec. 31, 2012, and infants were hit the hardest. The highly contagious bacterial disease causes uncontrollable, violent coughing that can make it hard to breathe. Pertussis also is known as whooping cough because a "whooping" sound often is heard when the patient tries to take a breath. Pertussis can lead to pneumonia, seizures (jerking and staring spells), brain damage and death.

Dr. Wolf and her colleagues compared the proportion of 3- to 8-month-olds who had received the recommended number of doses of pertussis-containing vaccine before the epidemic and during the epidemic. Infants who received at least one dose by 3 months of age, at least two doses by 5 months and at least three doses by 7 months are considered up to date by the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

"We hypothesized that a whooping cough epidemic would result in more parents getting their children immunized against whooping cough," Dr. Wolf said. "But compared to a time before the 2011-2012 whooping cough epidemic in Washington state, there was no significant increase in receipt of whooping cough vaccines for infants during the epidemic."

Results did show considerable variability in vaccination rates among different counties.

"Vaccination rates in the U.S. are still below public health goals," Dr. Wolf noted. "We don't fully understand what improves vaccine acceptance. This study found no significant increase in vaccination coverage statewide during the 2011-2012 pertussis epidemic. This finding may challenge the assumption that vaccine acceptance uniformly increases when risk of disease is high."

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Dr. Wolf will present "The Effect of the 2011-2012 Pertussis Epidemic on Infant DTaP Vaccination in Washington State" from 12:00-12:15 p.m. Monday, May 5. To view the study abstract, go to http://www.abstracts2view.com/pas/view.php?nu=PAS14L1_3380.

Whooping Cough: WaPo Notices

The Washington Post takes note of the whooping cough outbreak in California:

In California it is legal and quite easy to refuse vaccination, and the discredited theory that vaccines cause autism has created clusters of unvaccinated children. In affluent Marin County north of San Francisco, for example, about 13 percent of parents refused vaccination for their kindergartners in 2009, according to the state's Department of Public Health. Marin has one of the highest rates of infection this year.

Pertussis is more infectious than smallpox, polio or influenza, and it spreads quickly through the unprotected. It often escalates from what seems to be a regular cold into a severe respiratory infection that causes some patients to gasp for air with a distinctive high-pitched whooping sound.

But while shunning vaccine is probably playing a role in the epidemic, particularly in some areas of the state, it isn't the only cause, according to Kathleen Harriman, California's chief epidemiologist for vaccine-preventable diseases. Better detection explains some of the increased reports of pertussis. But Harriman and other experts worry that the epidemic could also point to serious problems with the current vaccines.

Whooping Cough and Vaccines, Continued

The Los Angeles Times reports:

Public health officials say California's lackluster immunization rates could be a factor in the epidemic spread of whooping cough, a bacterial disease expected to take its largest toll in the state in five decades.

California is one of only 11 states that does not require middle school students to receive a booster shot against whooping cough, also known as pertussis, which infects the respiratory system.

The state is the only one in the nation to report such a dramatic surge in pertussis, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Five newborn babies in California have died so far this year, and at least 910 people are confirmed to have the illness.

...

Public health officials also worry that some parents may decline vaccination because they believe that vaccines cause autism, an idea that has been studied and rejected by scientists.

Dr. Robert Benjamin, deputy health officer for the Alameda County Public Health Department, said the whooping cough epidemic should cause parents to reexamine their decision to skip or delay recommended vaccinations.

"Anyone who has experienced pertussis, either themselves or in their kids, they know this is not a disease to mess with," Benjamin said. "This is a disease that can kill the most vulnerable newborns — not only in their households, but in the households of other people."

See also

• Laura Shumaker's blog;
• A news story in the San Francisco Examiner;
• And a Reuters story about a new study of vaccines and autism.

Whooping Cough in an Affluent County

Christina Jewett reports at CaliforniaWatch:

Preliminary data from state public health officials show that the state’s richest and one of its poorest counties are leaders in the number of whooping cough cases, as cases of the illness are mounting to epidemic proportions. (See the data in a spreadsheet below.)

The reasons for the apparent trend are surprising.

As I’ve documented here, Fresno often stands out in measures of a vulnerable population gripped with child poverty and other ills.

The opposite is true of Marin, a county often voted among the nation’s fittest.

So what’s going on? Parents in Marin County are citing “personal belief” and signing waivers to opt out of immunizing kindergarten-bound children, said Dr. Fred Schwartz, the county public health officer. The practice is highly controversial and driven by fears (many debunked) that vaccinations can cause more harm than good.

Schwartz said 7.1 percent of kindergartners enter school without shots, among the highest rates in the state.

People in Marin County appear to be concerned with mercury as a neurotoxin. In a recent Earth Week project, several pharmacies swapped out mercury thermometers with digital ones.

Early last year, the Marin Independent Journal reported:

The number of autistic students in Marin has doubled in the past seven years, from 76 in 2001 to 152 in 2008. That statistic has increased by an average of 12 percent each year since the 2001-02 school year for a total increase of 123 percent, according to the Marin County Special Education Local Plan Area, the division of the county Office of Education that provides support to students with developmental disorders.

Whooping Cough

An outbreak of whooping cough in California is adding a new element to the vaccine controversy.

See a Mother Jones article and a story from ABC: