Measles cases are surging in Europe and the US. This is what the anti-vax conspiracy theory has brought us; The Guardian, July 14, 2025

Zoe Williams , The Guardian; Measles cases are surging in Europe and the US. This is what the anti-vax conspiracy theory has brought us

"The effects of the MMR controversy, specifically, are revealing themselves now, nearly 30 years later: measles cases in Europe are at the highest levels in 25 years; in the US, cases are at a 33-year-high; last week it was reported that a child in Liverpool had died having contracted measles. It’s unknown whether the child was vaccinated (no vaccine can guarantee complete immunity) and it doesn’t matter – it wouldn’t make it any less tragic if that child’s parents had been caught in the swirl of misinformation, or any more tragic if they hadn’t. And it wouldn’t be germane anyway: everybody is better protected when everybody is vaccinated. This is never a decision you are making just for yourself.

It’s probably the most depressing conspiracy theory there is, not because the impacts are so much graver than some cranks who believe the Earth to be flat, but because vaccination is the most concrete proof of how much we rely on one another’s care and rationality. That’s true beyond disease – we also need each other for democracy, science, culture, civic life and everything – but in no other area can you see that, count it and put it on a graph."

Top Democrat Blames RFK Jr. for ‘Emergency’ Measles Outbreak; The Daily Beast, July 11, 2025

Sarah Ewall-Wice , The Daily Beast ; Top Democrat Blames RFK Jr. for ‘Emergency’ Measles Outbreak

"“Under your tutelage as Secretary, you have undermined vaccines, gutted public health funding, and dismantled core federal protections meant to keep Americans safe,” Schumer wrote. 

“By destabilizing the nation’s infectious disease response infrastructure via conducting mass layoffs including infectious disease scientists, indiscriminately issuing careless and devastating grant freezes and rescissions, and politicizing the overhaul of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP), you have walked our country into the nation’s largest measles outbreak in 33 years,” he continued.

The senator noted that the record number of measles cases comes 25 years after measles was eliminated in 2000, but cases have been on the rise amid an increase in vaccine skepticism."

Medical Societies Sue Kennedy and H.H.S. Over Vaccine Advice; The New York Times, July 7, 2025

Apoorva Mandavilli, The New York Times; Medical Societies Sue Kennedy and H.H.S. Over Vaccine Advice

 "Six leading medical organizations filed a lawsuit on Monday against Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the health secretary, and the federal Department of Health and Human Services, charging that recent decisions limiting access to vaccines were unscientific and harmful to the public.

The suit, filed in federal court in western Massachusetts, seeks to restore Covid vaccines to the list of recommended immunizations for healthy children and pregnant women.

Mr. Kennedy has been on a “decades-long mission” to undermine vaccines and to portray them as more dangerous than the illnesses they are designed to prevent, said Richard H. Hughes IV, a lawyer who teaches vaccine law at George Washington University and is leading the effort.

“The secretary’s intentions are clear,” Mr. Hughes said: “He aims to destroy vaccines.”

The plaintiffs include the American Public Health Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the Infectious Diseases Society of America, the American College of Physicians, the Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine and the Massachusetts Public Health Alliance."

US experts fear all vaccines at risk as Trump officials target mRNA jabs; The Guardian, June 14, 2025

Melody Schreiber, The Guardian ; US experts fear all vaccines at risk as Trump officials target mRNA jabs

[Kip Currier: How tragic that so many will suffer preventable ailments and some will die needlessly because of vaccine misinformation and disinformation and conspiracy theories fueled by quack science.]

[Excerpt]

"As top US health officials turn against some mRNA vaccines, experts fear for the country’s preparedness for the next pandemic and worry that other vaccines will be targeted next.

Donald Trump’s administration recently canceled a $766m award to Moderna on the research and development of H5N1 bird flu vaccines, and officials have announced new restrictions and regulations for Covid mRNA vaccines – actions that signal a move away from the breakthrough technology.

These changes add to other vaccine-related shakeups at health agencies, including layoffs and resignations of top vaccine officials and the abrupt termination of HIV vaccine research.

On Monday, Robert F Kennedy Jr, secretary of health and human services, announced he was disbanding the independent advisory committee on vaccines for the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

“I think mRNA vaccines are particularly at risk, although I think all vaccines are at risk,” said Paul Offit, professor of pediatrics at the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine.

“I think that this administration will do everything it can to make vaccines less available, less affordable and more feared.”"

Kennedy has caused irreparable harm to vaccines; The Washington Post, June 13, 2025

Leana S. Wen, The Washington Post ; Kennedy has caused irreparable harm to vaccines

"Robert F. Kennedy Jr. this week put to rest any doubt about his intent to use his perch as health and human services secretary to advance his long-standing anti-vaccine agenda. In an unprecedented move, Kennedy fired all 17 members of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s key vaccine advisory committee. He has since named eightreplacements, at least two of whom are outspoken vaccine skeptics.

One of them is Robert Malone, who became known during the pandemic as a prominent critic of coronavirus vaccines, suggesting, among other falsehoods, that they cause a form of AIDS. More recently, he claimedthat a Texas child who died of measles had not actually succumbed to the disease. Another pick is Vicky Pebsworth, who blames vaccines for causing her son’s autism. She has praised discredited former physician Andrew Wakefield, whose fraudulent research falsely linked vaccines to autism, and represented organizations that question vaccine safety.

Less is known about some of the other committee members’ vaccine views or, with the exception of infectious-disease specialist Cody Meissner, what makes them qualified to advise the CDC on vaccine recommendations. No matter what the newly restructured panel — known as the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, or ACIP — decides, Kennedy will have already achieved his goal of causing irreparable harm to the CDC and eroding the public’s trust in vaccines."

RFK Jr. Conducts His Vaccine Purge: His claims about conflicts of interest proved to be nothing.; Wall Street Journal, June 10, 2025

The Editorial Board , Wall Street Journal; RFK Jr. Conducts His Vaccine Purge: His claims about conflicts of interest proved to be nothing.

"We’d like to conclude we were wrong to oppose Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to run the Health and Human Services Department, but alas, no. The latest evidence is his purge of a vaccine advisory panel."

RFK Jr. Is as Bad as We All Imagined: If it walks like a quack, talks like a quack, and quacks like a quack.; The Bulwark, June 10, 2025

WILLIAM KRISTOL, 

ANDREW EGGER, AND 

JIM SWIFT

, The Bulwark; RFK Jr. Is as Bad as We All Imagined: If it walks like a quack, talks like a quack, and quacks like a quack.

"In an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal, Kennedy launched his latest offensive against America’s vaccines, announcing he had fired all seventeen members of the Centers for Disease Control’s Advisory Committee for Immunization Practices (ACIP). Kennedy, a dyed-in-the-wool anti-vax activist, said in an accompanying statement that the move had been necessary to “reestablish public confidence in vaccine science” and to rid the committee of “any specific pro- or anti-vaccine agenda.” He said he would appoint replacements, presumably before the ACIP’s next meeting, which is scheduled to begin in two weeks.

The ACIP’s influence on federal health policy is enormous. As the CDC’s institutional brain trust for best-in-class vaccine science, it issues guidance that shapes federal policy for recommended vaccine schedules, including which vaccines should be administered to children. (Notwithstanding Kennedy’s odd assertion that the committee had “never recommended against a vaccine,” the ACIP does not authorize new vaccines for public use, a responsibility that belongs to the Food and Drug Administration.)

How important is the ACIP? Important enough that Sen. Bill Cassidy, a Republican and a doctor, made it his line in the sand for supporting Kennedy’s nomination as secretary of health and human services—a nomination he could have derailed. In announcing his decision to vote yes on Kennedy, Cassidy said the nominee had committed to him that he would maintain the ACIP “without changes.”

In response to yesterday’s news, Cassidy blandly noted “the fear that the ACIP will be filled up with people who know nothing about vaccines except suspicion” and lamely promised to “continue to talk with [Kennedy] to ensure this is not the case.”

RFK Jr. fires CDC’s independent vaccine advisors; The Hill, June 9, 2025

 NATHANIEL WEIXEL , The Hill; RFK Jr. fires CDC’s independent vaccine advisors

"Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said he is removing every member of the independent panel advising the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on vaccines, an unprecedented escalation in his quest to reshape the agency.

In a Wall Street Journal op-ed released Monday, Kennedy said the move was necessary to restore faith in vaccines. 

“A clean sweep is needed to re-establish public confidence in vaccine science,” Kennedy wrote. 

“The public must know that unbiased science—evaluated through a transparent process and insulated from conflicts of interest—guides the recommendations of our health agencies,” Kennedy said in a subsequent statement. 

Kennedy said removing every member of the panel will give the Trump administration an opportunity to appoint its own members. Kennedy has long accused ACIP members of having conflicts of interest, sparking concern among vaccine advocates that he would seek to install members who are far more skeptical of approving new vaccines."