By Dan Murphy
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has deep ties to Westchester County. He raised his kids in Bedford and has taught environmental law at Pace University Law School for many years. He is a respected member of a famous American family, but for those of us fearful of having our children become infected with a return of the Measles because of those who have not been vaccinated, we agree with members of the Kennedy family who took RFK Jr. to task for his views against vaccinations.
Two of RFK Jr.’s siblings, Kathleen Kennedy Townsend and Joseph Kennedy II, and RFK Jr.’s niece Maeve Kennedy McKean, penned the following op-ed in Politico last week criticizing his anti-vax stand:
“Americans have every right to be alarmed about the outbreak of measles in pockets of our country with unusually high rates of unvaccinated citizens, especially children. Right now, officials in 22 states are grappling with a resurgence of the disease, which was declared eliminated in the United States in 2000. With more than 700 cases already reported and indications that more outbreaks will occur, 2019 will likely see the most recorded cases of measles in decades. And it’s not just measles. In Maine, health officials in March reported 41 new cases of whooping cough, another disease once thought to be a relic of the past – more than twice as many cases as this time last year.
“This problem isn’t only an American one. The World Health Organization reports a 300 percent increase in the numbers of measles cases around the world this year compared with the first three months of 2018. More than 110,000 people are now dying from measles every year. WHO, the health arm of the United Nations, has listed vaccine hesitancy as one of the top 10 threats to global health in 2019. Most cases of preventable diseases occur among unvaccinated children, because parents have chosen not to vaccinate, have delayed vaccination, have difficulty accessing vaccines, or the children were too young to receive the vaccines.
“These tragic numbers are caused by the growing fear and mistrust of vaccines, amplified by internet doomsayers. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. – Joe and Kathleen’s brother and Maeve’s uncle – is part of this campaign to attack the institutions committed to reducing the tragedy of preventable infectious diseases. He has helped to spread dangerous misinformation over social media and is complicit in sowing distrust of the science behind vaccines.
“We love Bobby. He is one of the great champions of the environment. His work to clean up the Hudson River and his tireless advocacy against multinational organizations who have polluted our waterways and endangered families has positively affected the lives of countless Americans. We stand behind him in his ongoing fight to protect our environment. However, on vaccines he is wrong.
“And his and others’ work against vaccines is having heartbreaking consequences. The challenge for public health officials right now is that many people are more afraid of the vaccines than the diseases, because they’ve been lucky enough to have never seen the diseases and their devastating impact. But that’s not luck; it’s the result of concerted vaccination efforts over many years. We don’t need measles outbreaks to remind us of the value of vaccination.
“It is understandable that parents may have questions about vaccines and health care procedures concerning their children. We need to be able to have conversations that address skepticism about the safety and efficacy of vaccines without demonizing doubters. The reality is that vaccines can have side effects. However, the public health benefits of vaccines to every citizen far outweigh any potential side effects, which, when they do occur, are overwhelmingly minor, rarely serious, and more than justified by the overall benefit to vulnerable populations.
“The fact is that immunizations prevent some 2 million to 3 million deaths a year, and have the potential to save another 1.5 million lives every year with broader vaccine coverage, according to WHO. Smallpox, which plagued mankind for thousands of years, has been eradicated through vaccines. Because of immunizations, no cases of polio have been reported in the United States since 1979. And countries such as Australia, with robust human papillomavirus vaccine programs, are on track to eliminate cervical cancer – a major killer of women around the world – in the next decade. This is the only vaccine we have that fights cancer. No matter what you might have read on social media, there is no scientific basis to allegations that vaccines against HPV pose a serious health threat. And numerous studies from many countries by many researchers have concluded that there is no link between autism and vaccines.
“As parents and concerned citizens, we stand behind the hard work of scientists and public health professionals at organizations like WHO and the Department of Health and Human Services, whether in the National Institutes of Health, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention or the Food and Drug Administration. Their tireless efforts guide the development, testing and distribution of safe and effective vaccines against 16 diseases, including measles, mumps, rubella, hepatitis, polio, diphtheria, tetanus, influenza and HPV. The necessity and safety of vaccines are backed up by every major medical organization, including the American Medical Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Public Health Association, and scores of others.
“Those who delay or refuse vaccinations, or encourage others to do so, put themselves and others – especially children – at risk. It is in all our interests to make sure that immunizations reach every child on the globe through safe, effective and affordable vaccines. Everyone must communicate the benefits and safety of vaccines, and advocate for the respect and confidence of the institutions which make them possible. To do otherwise risks even further erosion of one of public health’s greatest achievements,” wrote Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, former lieutenant governor of Maryland and former chairwoman of the Global Virus Network; Joseph Kennedy II, a former member of Congress; and Maeve Kennedy McKean, executive director of Georgetown University’s Global Health Initiatives.
In January 2017, RFK Jr. met with President-elect Donald Trump to discuss the anti-vaccination crusade. Trump was supposed to appoint Kennedy to a commission to look into the harmful effects of vaccines, but the appointment, nor the commission, were ever established and President Trump recently urged Americans to have their children vaccinated.
Ironically, and thankfully for the health of all of us in Westchester, RFK Jr.’s children were vaccinated. So far only 15 cases of Measles have been confirmed in Westchester.
Rockland County has been one of the hardest-hit counties in the United States from the new measles outbreak, which stared in ultra-Orthodox Jewish communities last year after some unvaccinated children got sick with measles during a trip to Israel, according to the New York Times. And while many in the Orthodox community do vaccinate their children, the measles outbreak in Rockland and in New York City has made the New York-metropolitan area the
And the concern of many is the misinformation that is turning more and more families away from vaccinated their children. A recent anti-vaccination rally was held in Monsey, Rockland County, and attended by hundreds of supporters – most of them ultra-Orthodox Jews.
RFK Jr. has been a skeptic of vaccines since 2005, and has tied vaccinations to autism, anxiety and depression in young children. And despite the Kennedy family publicly standing opposed to his views, Bobby Kenney Jr. continues to publicly discuss his unfounded views, in the midst of an epidemic.
Last month in Washington State, he began listing all the diseases he thought vaccines were responsible for… “ADD, ADHD, speech delay, autism, food allergy, autoimmune diseases. Prior to 1986, 12 percent of kids in this country had chronic disease,” said RFK Jr. “Today it’s 54 percent.”
A recent medical study that took more than a decade to complete, studying more than 650,000 children, found no link between MMR and autism, confirming previous reports and studies. And last week in Albany, RFK Jr. joined a rally opposed to a proposed New York law that would strengthen vaccination laws, including eliminating religious exemptions for vaccinations.
“They’re telling us now that they’re gonna censor Facebook because they want to get rid of misinformation about vaccines. But we’re just talking about science,” said Kennedy. “We’re giving them peer review. You’ll never hear peer review from a vaccine proponent. What you’ll hear is appeals to authority. What does that mean? That vaccines are safe because CDC says they’re safe.”
Unfortunately, RFK Jr., one of the great environmental advocates of our time, shares the same views on vaccination as Alex Jones, who also claims that the Newtown school shooting was a hoax.
