Mr. Kennedy, Vaccines Save Lives & You Are Not Your Amazing Father! 

Let me start with memories…taking care of my daughters before there was a vaccine for chicken pox, how sick they were, how miserable. High fever, angry rash turning into itchy, fluid-filled blisters that finally scab over. And not just on arms and legs, but often inside the mouth, on eyelids, and the genital area. 

Raising children before the advent of the MMR (measles, mumps and rubella) meant days, weeks of illness, having them miss school, worrying that they might infect others. It also meant worry of complications from high fevers and lack of appetite. 

BUT RFK SAYS NO! HE DENIES THE SCIENCE

TIME Magazine reported the following, concerning Kennedy’s distrust of the MMR: “Kennedy’s brand of extreme anti-vaccine activism can have deadly consequences, one example being a visit to Samoa in June of 2019 with local anti-vaccine activists…”

Then later, that same year, a measles outbreak occurred, resulting in 83 preventable deaths, most in children under 5—because they had not been vaccinated. After this outbreak, Kennedy actually wrote a letter to the Prime Minister of Samoa, attempting to deflect blame from the anti-vaccine movement, suggesting the outbreak was because the MMR vaccine was defective. However, physician-scientist David Gorski provided a thorough dissection of  Kennedy’s “deceptive pseudoscientific talking points” in Kennedy’s letter. I believe the physician-scientist. I do not believe Mr. Kennedy.

HISTORY

The four childhood diseases: Measles, Mumps, Rubella and Chicken Pox, have basically receded, failing to infect children living in the United States, because of the MMR and the Chicken Pox vaccines which over time have created Herd Immunity. 

Definition: herd immunity is a form of immunity occurring when the vaccination of a significant portion of a population (or herd) provides a measure of protection for individuals who have not developed immunity.

When a high percentage of the population is protected through vaccination against a virus or bacteria, it is difficult for a disease to spread, because there are so few susceptible people left to infect. It is particularly crucial for protecting people who cannot be vaccinated. These include children who are too young to be vaccinated, people with immune system problems, and those who are too ill to receive vaccines (such as some cancer patients). 

Recently, we saw and experienced the positives of vaccination, due to the Covid19 pandemic. Immunocompromised people, pregnant women, and people with compromised immune systems were vaccinated against Covid and remained healthy!

HERE IS A SNAPSHOT OF THE SCIENCE.

• When you vaccinate your children and grandchildren you are also protecting vulnerable members of your community by reducing the spread of disease.
• When you get a flu shot, you are protecting the elderly and immunocompromised from dying of the flu–some do every year.
• “When the number of people vaccinated drops below 95 percent, a community loses herd immunity to highly contagious germs…”

HERE IS A SNAPSHOT OF WHAT CAN GO WRONG: Unvaccinated at DISNEYLAND

The first case of measles was reported on January 5, 2015, in an unvaccinated 11-year-old Californian resident. Between December 2014 and March 2015, 131 Californians were infected, with almost 90% of cases occurring in southern California. Linked to the California cases were 16 cases in six other US states, 159 cases in a religious group in Québec, Canada, and one case in Mexico. Almost all the Canadian cases were unvaccinated. The source of the initial Disney theme park exposure was not identified, but specimens from several cases matched with the recent measles outbreak in the Philippines.

LOOKING AT THE HISTORY: POLIO, 1950s

In a recent article in TIME, Jeffrey Kluger provides great information: in 1952 there were 57,879 cases of paralytic polio in the United States. By 1961, six years after the Salk vaccine was introduced, that number fell to 1,312, a 98% reduction. Today the figure is zero. Measles?? In the 1950s, 3-5 million people contracted the disease EACH YEAR! 48,000 of those cases were hospitalized. In 2012 there were only 55 cases. WE DON’T WANT TO GO BACK.

Some states have excellent rates of coverage: Louisiana 96.6% rate for the MMR and 98.3% for diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis Tdap. Mississippi boasts a near perfect 99.9%. But California, with its contributing figures from Orange County where mothers often listen to a certain pediatrician who tells them not to vaccinate if they don’t want to, has only 92.7% for the MMR and 92.5% for Tdap. This is serious. Populations cannot afford the numbers to drop below 95%. It puts too many people at risk. It puts immunocompromised people, infants and cancer patients at risk.  (note: hopefully these numbers have changed, more being vaccinated, after all the negative publicity this Orange County doctor has received.)

FIGHTING BACK, THINGS YOU SHOULD KNOW

1. Your pediatrician can outline the consequences of not vaccinating your children.

If you child gets:

mumps: deafness, inflammation of the brain (encephalitis), inflammation of testes which can cause a drop in the sperm count and inflammation of the ovaries though fertility is not affected;

measles: ear infections, pneumonia, encephalitis; and in a pregnancy miscarriage or premature birth; death, as one or two out of 1,000 die;

German measles, rubella: poses a grave danger to a pregnant woman’s fetus and can cause miscarriage or birth defects like deafness, intellectual disability, heart defects; 85 out of 100 babies born to mothers who had rubella in the first 3 months of her pregnancy will have a birth defect.

2. MOBI- maximizing office-based immunizations–in other words, taking the opportunity to offer vaccines to children whenever they appear in the medical office. “We think people listen to their providers,” Says Mary DiOrio, the state of Ohio’s epidemiologist.
3. Laws. 49 of the 50 states have laws that require kids to be vaccinated before attending public schools and daycare centers. Ohio does not extend the law to daycare centers. PROBLEM: parents can utilize an opt-out form for religious reasons–but this is being exploited.
4. Schools are now permitted to require unvaccinated children to stay homeduring outbreaks and to bar them from school activities. Says superintendent of schools in Delaware County, Ohio: “We say unvaccinated kids can’t come to school dances or play on sports teams because of the risk. That gets it on the child’s radar screen.” NOTE: this is a sound idea, but in our turbulent recent times, I am not sure this is being followed.

The DTaP vaccine prevents diphtheria, tetanus, and pertussis. Diphtheria and pertussis spread from person to person. Tetanus enters the body through cuts or wounds. DIPHTHERIA (D) can lead to difficulty breathing, heart failure, paralysis, or death, though because of immunizations, some of these diseases are becoming rare. 

THEREFORE, RFK Jr, if you are unable to trust science, if you continue to “preach” lies about vaccines, then you do not deserve to be POTUS, now or any time in the future.

So bye, bye,  MR. Kennedy. 

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