Image by Win McNamee via Getty / Futurism
The anti-vaxxer in charge of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is now suggesting that the best way to not get measles is… getting measles?
If you’re lost, us too. During an interview with Fox News, HHS secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. insisted that getting the infectious disease was “normal” when he was a kid before claiming that being exposed to the virus provides longer-lasting immunity than inoculation.
“It used to be, when you and I were kids, that everybody got measles. And the measles gave you lifetime protection against measles infection,” said the brain-wormed blue blood. “The vaccine doesn’t do that. The vaccine is effective for some people for life, but for many people it wanes.”
While there’s some research suggesting that “natural” immunity gleaned through measles infection can provide longer-lasting protective effects than immunization with the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine, studies have also shown that unvaccinated children who contract the virus are more likely to end up with weakened immune systems overall. In short, getting measles without being vaccinated against it can make a child sicker down the line — and that’s if it doesn’t kill them first.
Though the HHS head did offer tempered support for MMR vaccination a few weeks ago in a Fox News op-ed penned in the wake of the first measles death in the United States in a decade amid the growing outbreak around the country, he’s also walked it back repeatedly since. In yet another Fox interview, Kennedy suggested that cod liver oil has provided “very, very good results” for people infected with measles, and said that he directed doses of Vitamin A to be sent to Gaines County, the West Texas region where the outbreak began.
This latest exchange — which, by the way, took place inside a Steak ‘n Shake burger chain in Florida where workers “RFK’ed” their fries by switching from vegetable oil to beef tallow to appease the anti-pharma health nut — is clearly in the latter camp.
“There are adverse events from the vaccine,” Kennedy said. “It does cause deaths every year. It causes all the illnesses that measles itself cause, like encephalitis and blindness, etc., so people ought to be able to make that choice for themselves.”
Regardless of what our boneheaded HHS secretary claims, cases of encephalitis — a potentially life-threatening brain swelling disorder generally caused by West Nile virus, untreated herpes simplex, or measles itself — linked to vaccination are vanishingly rare. As the nonprofit Encephalitis International organization notes, only about one or two out of every million children who receive an MMR vaccine will develop the disorder, while between one and three in 1,000 children who get measles will end up getting it.
While each state has its own laws requiring what vaccines children must get to attend school, most have exemptions for medical, philosophical, or religious reasons. To that end, Kennedy is correct to say that people can and should make the choice whether to get vaccinated — but with numbers like that, the odds are clearly in favor of the jabs.
More on measles: Man Whose Daughter Died From Measles Stands by Failure to Vaccinate Her: “The Vaccination Has Stuff We Don’t Trust”