Just in time for that neighbor kid down the block to contract a nasty case of the measles, Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. earlier this month changed the longtime Centers for Disease Control’s recognition, in line with the evidence and science-backed beliefs of almost every physician on Earth, that vaccines do not cause autism.
That truth had long been on the CDC website because: vaccines do not cause autism.
But since a couple of conspiracy theorists think they do, and because one of those people, who has no scientific or medical training and yet is in charge of health in our sadly anti-intellectual nation, has the power to go wherever his eccentricities takes him, the website has been changed, apparently in order to scare moms and dads looking for informed vaccine advice for their newborns.
Here’s what happened: The CDC webpage formerly said that studies had shown “no link between receiving vaccines and developing autism spectrum disorder.” The evidence it cited was from a 2012 National Academy of Medicine review of scientific papers and a separate CDC study done the next year.
Earlier this month, the page was changed to read: “The claim ‘vaccines do not cause autism’ is not an evidence-based claim because studies have not ruled out the possibility that infant vaccines cause autism.”
Except that they have. The only way the convoluted logic of the new sentence could possibly be found to hold water is in the sense that anything could be related to anything else.
As New York Times medical policy reporter Sheryl Gay Stolberg writes, “Experts say Mr. Kennedy is correct, in a narrow sense, in saying that certain studies have not yet been done. But they say he is also asking for a level of proof that is difficult to achieve. As Dr. Arthur Caplan, who directs the medical ethics division at New York University, once wryly noted, ‘You can’t prove that Coca-Cola doesn’t cause autism either.’”
So things were already bad enough under the unhealthy Kennedy regime. We now live in a nation ruled by people who don’t believe what the evidence shows, but believe what they like to believe.
In the 51 years since the World Health Organization began its global vaccination program, the actual evidence shows that vaccines have stopped 154 million deaths worldwide, with 146 million of those being children under the age of 5. The old, evidence-based CDC from the normal times listed vaccines as one of the 10 greatest public health achievements of the 20th century.
Anyway, things just got worse. Last week, quietly, with no press release, Kennedy installed as the No. 2 man at the CDC Dr. Ralph Abraham from Louisiana who when he directed public health in that state stopped its mass vaccination campaigns for children.
You might remember this Dr. Abraham from the COVID era, because he was one of those who promoted selling ivermectin, the anti-parasite drug, over the counter, although studies showed it was ineffective against the deadly disease. Turns out the good doc is a veterinarian as well as a physician, so there may be the problem.
When he was surgeon general of Louisiana, his health department waited two months to tell residents about a deadly whooping cough, or pertussis, outbreak in the state. Other public health departments on learning of such a development usually instantly set up statewide vaccination campaigns. Abraham did not.
Dr. Nirav Shah, who was in Abraham’s post as principal deputy director of the CDC before resigning earlier this year, says that Abraham is “unqualified” for the job.
“A large part of the principal deputy’s portfolio is emergency response,” Shah said. “Delayed notifying of the public of at least two pertussis deaths is not just unacceptable, it’s shameful.”
RFK Jr. says he wants to make America healthy again. The evidence suggests otherwise.
Larry Wilson is on the Southern California News Group editorial board. lwilson@scng.com.