As RFK Jr. delivers his message on measles, public health experts hear a familiar tune
The standard public health approach in a measles outbreak is a full-throated appeal for vaccinations. RFK Jr. is working from a different playbook.
The headlines on Robert Kennedy Jr.’s measles commentary published on Sunday excited proponents of vaccines who have worried about the Health and Human Services Secretary’s oft-aired skepticism about the value and safety of vaccines. With a growing outbreak of measles in Texas, they’d been watching HHS and its new leader, waiting for the call to vaccinate children that the headlines implied the article would contain.
But as they read through the commentary looking for a full-throated appeal for parents of unvaccinated children to get their children immunized — the standard public health approach in a measles outbreak — what they saw instead was coded text from a different playbook, one written by opponents of vaccines.
