TCA vol. 29: That time when RFK Jr accidentally proved measles vaccines work
Hoisted by his own petard.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr (son of Senator Robert Kennedy and nephew of President John F. Kennedy) is running for president in 2024 as a Democrat. Considering he has been invited by the Republicans to testify before Congress this July about internet censorship, and Fox’s Sean Hannity will be hosting a town hall with him this week, it may be that he aligns more closely with Republicans. RFK Jr. is an environmental lawyer with important work under his belt like helping to clean the Hudson River, but is most well known recently for his anti-vaxx disinformation and conspiracy theories. Here are some of his more wild beliefs:
AIDS is not caused by HIV, but by being gay and usage of the drug “poppers”
School shootings are caused by antidepressants
COVID-19 was bioengineered to avoid infecting the Chinese and Ashkenazi Jews
Chemicals in our water are turning kids gay and trans
The polio vaccine has killed millions of people
Vaccines cause autism
Not only are each and every one of these ideas dead wrong, they are offensively wrong. They are obviously offensive to already stigmatized groups of people like Jews, those suffering with mental illness, gay and trans folx, and the Chinese…. they are offensive to me as a scientist because they are all so easily disprovable with simple science.
I refuse to combat each of his falsehoods because it’s futile. He employs a tactic called the “firehose of falsehood” originally part of the Soviet propaganda tactic. In this strategy, a person spews so many lies simultaneously and consistently that it is impossibly time consuming to combat them all with truth. By the time I thoughtfully gather the evidence to combat one of his claims, he has already made ten more. Besides, the burden of proof lies on the person making the claims, not those trying to defend against them. And as we know, “extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence”.
RFK Jr. is one of the “disinformation dozen”. Twelve people who are responsible for over 65% of the vaccine-related disinformation and hoaxes on the internet. Even his family has disavowed him and stated that he is unfit for public office.
Measles vaccine deaths in Samoa
The story of RFK Jr. and the Measles vaccine comes out of a tragedy in the country of Samoa. In July of 2018, two infants died after receiving the MMR vaccine and the reasons why were unknown at the time. Their tragic deaths were used by anti-vaccine groups, including the Children’s Health Defense (founded and led by RFK Jr.). In July and August 2018, the Children’s Health Defense Facebook page made several posts identifying the MMR vaccine as the reason the children died (these Facebook posts were eventually deleted, but the internet never forgets). RFK Jr. himself even flew to Samoa over the next year to speak with local leaders and anti-vaxxers and used this opportunity to “prove” that the MMR vaccine was unsafe.
Measles vaccination in Samoan children dropped drastically over the next year, from 90% to 31%. Measles is the most contagious disease of humans ever known. In a non-immune population, each person infected with measles is predicted to transmit the disease to up to 18 other people. Measles can also be fatal. While the fatality rate of measles in the USA is less than 1%, in countries with poor access to health care, malnutrition or overcrowding, the fatality rate can rise to 25%. For the survivors, long term complications can happen like pneumonia, encephalitis and the almost always fatal Subacute Sclerosing Pan Encephalitis (SSPE) which lays dormant for years and then stikes as the child typically enters their teens. Plus, measles infection can also alter your immune system (called immune amnesia), essentially wiping out all your immunological memory so that you are again susceptible to all the diseases you were previously infected with or vaccinated against.
Eventually, it was discovered that two nurses inadvertently mixed up the MMR vaccine incorrectly for these two infants. MMR vaccine is shipped as a powder, and must be liquified with the right solution before administration. These nurses used expired anaesthetic as the solution instead of the sterile saline they were supposed to use. This is the reason the two infants died. These two nurses eventually plead guilty to manslaughter and were sentenced to 5 years in prison.
The Children’s Health Defense never updated its followers on the real reason the infants died. They allowed the misinformation about the vaccine’s safety to persist.
Then, an outbreak
In August of 2019, a measles-infected passenger on a plane from Aukland landed in Samoa. What followed is tragic and predictable. In a country with only 31% of the infants vaccinated with MMR, the highly contagious measles virus spread like wildfire. The measles outbreak was in full force by October and lasted until December. By the time it ended, 5,675 cases of measles were reported in Samoa (and hundreds in nearby Tonga, Fiji, American Samoa and Kiribati). 81 people died in Samoa, mostly children under 5.
What was RFK Jr.’s response to this outbreak? He doubled down on the vaccine conspiracy theories and wrote a letter to the Samoan Prime Minister blaming the outbreak on the vaccines itself. In this letter he states these “possibilities”:
The vaccine failed to produce long term immunity
The measles virus has mutated and the vaccine no longer protects against the new variant
Those that died in the oubreak actually died of vaccine-strain measles virus, not circulating measles.
Again, I’m not going to waste my time debunking all these theories, since the proof is in the pudding: The Samoan Health Ministry partnered with the WHO and UNICEF in early October to start a mass measles vaccination campaign across the island resulting in a 95% vaccination rate (over 265,000 doses were distributed). The measles outbreak ended in December as the case rate dropped to 0.
So, MMR vaccine coverage drops, a measles outbreak happens, sickens and kills those children that were unvaccinated.
The MMR vaccine is re-established in the country and the disease disappaears.
The Aftermath
To their credit, the Samoan government worked hard to control this outbreak and prevent new ones. During the outbreak, they established quarantines and lockdowns to limit spread. They shut down government for 2 days so that all government workers could assist in the vaccination/control efforts. They combatted disinformation by charging anti-vaccine conspiracy promoters with possible jail time. Parliament passed a bill in December 2019 to make MMR vaccination mandatory going forward. However, there have been many calls for an inquiry, laying blame squarely on the Samoan government for allowing the vaccination rate to plummet to 31% in the first place and lay the ground for this outbreak to occur. We’ll see if that ever happens.
The HotTake
MMR vaccination coverage in Samoa dropped to 31% after fear of vaccine safety was started with the unfortunate death of two infants (ultimately determined not to be caused by the vaccine) but inflamed by anti-vaccination activists like RFK Jr. A subsequent measles outbreak devastated the island, resulting in 80+ deaths. Re-establishment of the MMR vaccine was what ended the outbreak and prevented more deaths. MMR vaccines are safe and effective and our only tool to prevent measles-related outbreaks, disease and death.
Stay happy, healthy and informed,
Jessica at TCA
Bond, S. Just 12 People Are Behind Most Vaccine Hoaxes On Social Media, Research Shows. NPR.
Kashinsky, L. The Kennedy campaign the Kennedys don’t want to see. Politico.
Letter to Samoan Prime Minister from Children’s Health Defense.
Belamarich, P. Measles and Malnutrition. Pediatrics in Review.
Samoan nurses jailed over deaths of two babies who were given incorrectly mixed vaccines
Thornton, J. In the aftermath: the legacy of measles in Samoa. The Lancet.
MEASLES OUTBREAK IN THE PACIFIC - SITUATION REPORT No. 9. WHO.