Measles, mumps and polio are considered diseases of the past. In the early to mid-20th century, scientists developed vaccines that effectively eliminated the risk of anyone getting sick or dying from an illness that had killed millions over the millennia of human history.
Sanitized water and antibiotics are available as well as vaccines Marked as the era of modern medicine. The United States was This is the cutting edge of disease eradicationwhich helped increase life expectancy and economic growth in the post-war era. Montana native Maurice HillemanThe so-called father of modern vaccines, developed the flu shot, hepatitis shot, and measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccine in the 1950s and 60s, which became virtually universally accepted among Americans.
Smallpox, which has the most common form A 30-percent mortality ratehas been eliminated. Mitch McConnell, the Republican titan of the Senate, may be the last major public figure He was infected with polio in childhoodLess than a century later It’s paralyzing A current American president. Measles probably infected millions of people annually in the United States in the 1800s, although exact estimates from that era are difficult. In the early 1990s, thousands of people has died from disease every year. It was still infected Kills more than half a million and hundreds on average each year In the 1950s and 60s, before vaccines debuted. Diphtheria, a deadly respiratory infection, killed more than 1,800 people annually between 1936 and 1945 as vaccines against it were still being introduced. Today, it hasn’t killed anyone in the United States in decades.
The vaccines that made this possible are among the most important achievements in human history. And yet many Americans appear to be losing faith in them, a worrying trend that could accelerate if President-elect Donald Trump succeeds in handing control of the top US health agency to Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the nation’s leading vaccine denier. .
Kennedy spent much of his public career thoroughly pushing debunked A theory of a link between autism and childhood vaccines. he has supported an anti-vaccine group in Samoa, where measles vaccination rates have since fallen; A 2019 outbreak killed 83 people met with anti-vaccine advocates just months after visiting Kennedy Island. He is the same way to suspect about the safety and effectiveness of the Covid vaccine, a position that helped push the lifelong Democrat toward Trump. After RFK Jr. dropped his own presidential campaign this year, he became Trump’s most influential health adviser and last week was named the president-elect to lead the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).
Kennedy the day after Trump’s election emphasized He “wouldn’t take away anyone’s vaccine.” Instead, he said, he planned to compile vaccine safety data so people could make their own decisions. But vaccine safety has been studied extensively — and the negative effects Kennedy claims to remain unknown. (There are others in Trump’s orbit stated Kennedy would nevertheless use the information he received to try to bring the vaccine to market.)
Experts fear his appointment will legitimize his anti-vaccine stance — and exacerbate the public’s growing ambivalence toward this important public health measure.
As long-accepted, life-saving public health measures become increasingly politically polarized, routine vaccination rates is rapidly declining in many parts of the United States. In the 2019-2020 school year, less than 90 percent of K-12 students in three states were vaccinated against measles, mumps and rubella. By the 2023-2024 school year, 14 states had dropped below that threshold. The number of states with more than 95 percent of schoolchildren vaccinated — the preferred coverage to prevent outbreaks — dropped from 20 to 11 over the same period.
It’s no wonder that the number of U.S. measles is on the rise More than four times 2023 to 2024. No one has died from measles in the United States Since 2015But if vaccination rates continue to decline, this highly contagious disease (a person may become infected A dozen other people) will spread increasingly easily, increasing the risk of American children dying.
We know how to prevent it. We’ve had remarkably safe, effective shots for decades. We just have to keep using them.
