President Donald Trump has now turned his dangerous and unfounded suspicion about childhood vaccines into federal policy.
It is a menacing assault on the hard-won victories of science, medicine and evidence.
Trump on Monday signed an executive order calling for doctors and medical practitioners to dispense childhood vaccines across separate medical visits, and for the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine to be divided into three individual shots.
He issued a presidential fiat that not only takes the place of how science and medicine research and practices are delivered to the American public, but he also upended the critical foundations with a dangerous boatload of quackery.
It was a throwback to my childhood, where moms would collect every kid on the block for “Pox Parties” when one kid broke out in chickenpox pots or sores.
Despite the legends, doctors did not recommend such stunts.
Before the vaccine for chicken pox became widespread, chickenpox infected about 4 million children a year, resulting in about 10,000 kids ending up in hospitals and 100 of them dying.
Real science helped solve that problem, until now.
All credible medical and science groups and organizations have made clear that Trump’s claims about vaccines are unproven. And in many cases, his lies are provably untrue.
The science behind how and when children should receive vaccines has not suddenly changed.
Trump, and the equally dangerously unqualified Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr, nonetheless continue saying that the number or timing of childhood vaccines might contribute to autism.
That claim has been thoroughly discredited. For several years, scientific consensus and decades of studies have firmly concluded that there is no connection between childhood vaccines and autism.
None.
Dr. Andrew Racine, president of the American Academy of Pediatrics, cited more than 40 methodologically well-designed studies conducted in seven countries involving more than 5 million children. His conclusion leaves no room for guessing: There is no link.
That should end the argument. Instead, Trump and Kennedy are doubling down, and they are risking American children, and all of America, with their ill-conceived stunt.
Kennedy was a notorious anti-vaccine activist before entering politics, making a living as an ambulance-chasing lawyer taking on medical cases. As health secretary, he has fired the entire 17-member federal vaccine advisory committee and installed replacements who issued unjustified, more restrictive recommendations.
A federal judge has since halted those recommendations. Kennedy also personally directed the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to abandon its position that vaccines do not cause autism without supplying any new evidence to justify the change.
Nothing is more contrary to legitimate science and medicine than who Kennedy is and what he has done.
The vaccine revolution is among humanity’s extraordinary achievements. The story is transparent and constantly scrutinized by real scientists and doctors. Vaccines are rigorously studied, continuously monitored and are responsible for preventing a wide range of dangerous and even deadly human diseases.
Trump’s timing, a stunning distraction from his disastrous Iran War debacle, could hardly be worse. Students are returning to classrooms while the country is confronting a measles outbreak that experts warn could cause the United States to lose its measles-elimination status.
At the same time, federal data show kindergarten vaccination rates declining and exemptions reaching an all-time high in schools, including Colorado.
Spacing vaccines out may sound responsibly cautious to a naive and anxious parent. But public-health experts warn that it can instead needlessly leave children vulnerable to infection before they return for another appointment.
Worse, studies cited by the Associated Press this week found that combination vaccines make children more likely to complete all recommended vaccinations by age 2 than single-shot approaches, according to reports this week.
This is precisely where physicians and qualified public-health officials must stop whispering or just offering any kind of lip service. Parents deserve clear advice from their own doctors and local health institutions. They don’t need political mandates masquerading as science or goodwill.
Sen. Bill Cassidy, a Republican and physician who chairs the Senate Health Committee, made clear how non-partisan Trump’s vaccine farce is. “The President does not have the expertise to make these changes,” he said.
Colorado law does not make anyone get any vaccine, nor any medical procedure they don’t want for themselves or their children. What the law does is ensure that anti-vaxers don’t make health decisions for responsible, cogent parents, and endanger their children, by pushing unvaccinated children into the school community, putting everyone at risk.
Congress, state lawmakers and the science and medical communities need to bring the curtain down on this lurid sideshow immediately.
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