Measles has returned, and Rfk Jr. is not taking it seriously

He Measles virus Now that it extends through Texas and other states, political position does not care. But when two deaths occur, the First deaths in a decade – And our Secretary of Health responds with a revolt of pseudoscience and topics, we have reached a moral crossroads in public health.

In an opinion article by Fox News on March 2, Secretary of Health Robert F. Kennedy Jr. began with a promising wink to the efficacy of the vaccine, declaring that “they protect children” and reinforce the immunity of the flock: language that was briefly aligned with decades of scientific evidence. However, within the paragraphs, he undermined this position by frameting vaccination as a matter of “personal choice”, a phrase that is often used in anti -cacamous play books. Worse, Kennedy inflated the relevance of vitamin A supplementation, a Clinical recommendation For patients in subtiled areas of the world, creating a false equivalence between proven prevention and situational treatment.

A day later, when the cases in western Texas passed 150, Kennedy took X, describing the outbreak as a “priority” after initially discarding its severity. But its late urgency rang hollow without concrete actions or a clear directive to get vaccinated, an obvious omission given that 97% of cases occurred in unvaccinated individuals. For March 4, during a Fox News interviewAny claim of scientific rigor collapsed. Kennedy promoted remedies not tested as Budesonide (a prescribed steroid for asthma) and cod liver oil (which has vitamins A and D), which dangerously implies that they could replace immunization. This decrease from the warm back of vaccines to the promotion of pseudoscientific alternatives occurred for only three days, all while measles cases continued to increase. Each statement threatens to erode public trust, potentially transforming what should have been a call for clarification for vaccination in a master class of dangerous ambiguity.

In 1963, when the first measles vaccine emerged, the parents surely cried with relief. This was not just another shot: it was the release of a pathogen that had filled the pediatric rooms with children panting through the air, their lungs devastated by pneumonia, its swollen brains of encephalitis. By 2000, the United States declared measles eliminated. Today, that triumph is falling apart not because the virus evolved, but because we seem that we have forgotten its anger.

Measles does not slide silently through back alleys; It explodes as a forest fire in a dry forest. A single cough in a grocery store can infect dozens, the virus persists in the air for two hours, looking for non -vaccinated hosts. Before vaccinesHe killed 2.6 million people annually, often babies. The MMR vaccine, introduced in 1971, became a shield: Two doses offering 97%protection, saving 60 million lives worldwide since 2000. However, here we are in 2025, observing the Erosion of flock immunity. One in five measles patients will be hospitalized; One in 1,000 will develop the brain. encephalitis. Contrast with the risk of 1 in 1 million severe reaction of the vaccine, a statistical whisper versus the roar of measles.

Behind these figures there are human faces: a Texas nurse who intubates a small child whose parents believed myths of “natural immunity”; A grandmother in Idaho, a newly widow after her immunosuppressed husband caught measles in a pharmacy. This is not hypothetical. It is happening now, driven by the erroneous information that the festors in politics are annulled. When leaders such as Kennedy Tout vitamin A as a solution, a tactic for malnourished regions, not suburbs of rich, divert the attention of the real defense: vaccines.

Public health cannot prosper in an America where pro-vacunate voices make fun of doubt as ignorance, while skeptics discard science as dogma. Measles reminds us: the virus exploitation division.

The Secretary Kennedy: I ​​implore that he leads with the clarity he showed when, briefly, you recognized vaccine safety.

For my colleagues in the field of medicine, we implore that we find ways to fight against wrong information without alienating the badly informed.

And for all Americans: remember that the measles rooms of the 1960s, full of children panting through the air, disappeared not by vitamins, but by vaccines. Our shared survival depends on rejecting false equivalences and adopting what works. The life of the next child hangs in the balance.