At a recent routine checkup, our pediatrician had a surprise: our son was going to get an unexpected shot. He’s at the youngest end of the recommended age range for this particular vaccine, and our doctor wanted him to get it immediately. Not because he’s at imminent medical risk, but because he’s at imminent political risk.
“I’m doing this with all my patients,” he told us. “Because if we wait until the next visit, your insurance might not cover it anymore.”
For those paying attention, there’s a flashing red signal going off for the 63 million American parents of school-age children: get your kids their vaccines now, because soon you might not be able to.
The anti-vaccine movement has long simmered in the background of public consciousness, like a virus lurking in a sweltering jungle. Vaccine skeptics would periodically spring forth to spread misinformation and harass state legislators, but achieved mostly mischief, public confusion, and aggravation (when I was a state legislative staffer, I would occasionally hear from the head of the local anti-vaccine group, an earnest, disarmingly pleasant woman who kindly remembered my children’s names and never changed a single state senator’s mind). Vigilant doctors and public health experts in charge of government policy mostly kept the anti-vaxxers relegated to the darker corners of medical discussion, and later to the backwaters of social media.
But the pandemic era created fertile ground to sow public doubt about whether the medical establishment was being fully forthcoming. With Democrats‘ slow-footedness on easing COVID-19 restrictions and then-President Donald Trump‘s political weaponization of public frustration, the new openness to doubting science was a lifeline that pulled vaccine activists from the far fringes.
From their strengthened position, in recent months the anti-vax cabal made its big move, executing a silent coup at the pinnacle of our medical establishment.
First, despite Robert F. Kennedy Jr.‘s assurances during his confirmation hearing to become U.S. secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) that he would leave the government’s process for reviewing and recommending vaccines alone, a mere four months later he fired all the members of the panel that advises the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) on how to use vaccines and replaced them with anti-vaccine conspiracy theorists.
Second, he immediately convened that group to get them to end—in contradiction of all known science—the use of the preservative thimerosal in flu shots. This was telling because studies have repeatedly shown no link between thimerosal and autism (as anti-vaxxers allege) or any other medical harm. Coincidentally, those studies were abruptly removed from the Centers for Disease Control website.
One of the committee members even acknowledged the medical findings, but said they had to act because misinformed people might fear harms anyway. Side note: if you thought the role of public health officials was to explain good science so that the public doesn’t act on bad science, welcome to the upside-down of RFK-world, where the government’s job is now to endorse non-scientists’ gut feelings and stoke public fear. Next, the CDC will announce that if you spill salt you should throw a pinch over your shoulder, because, ya know, demons.
Third—and this is the part that parents really need to pay attention to—RFK, Jr. finally said aloud what’s he’s clearly been itching to say for years: on top of his earlier announcement that the vaccine board would be revisiting the schedule for when vaccines are given, he actually wants to re-examine the use of all the childhood vaccines. Period.
The board’s recommendations determine vaccine insurance coverage for 55 million American kids. Affordability and coverage significantly affect how many kids get vaccinated. If they change the schedule or drop a vaccine, you lose coverage. Less coverage means less vaccination. Less vaccination means more sick and dying children.
We are now on the cusp of retrograde wingnuts achieving a stealth demolition of American vaccine policy. All it took was six months for a celebrated conspiracy theorist who does not even believe that germs cause disease to lie to gullible Republican senators about his plans, sack the people in charge of determining who gets what vaccines, open the citadel gates to anti-science diehards who—surprise—openly admit that they don’t intend to use science in making decisions, and finally announce that he’s coming for all of our kids’ vaccines next.
It’s bad enough that the Republican budget that Trump just signed into law will gut health care coverage for millions of American children. If RFK has his way, even if you still have coverage, you may not be able to afford the shots that your doctor wants to give.
Our pediatrician took the earliest possible chance to get my son his vaccine. Parents should call their doctor to find out what shots their kids should get—while they still can.
Matt Robison is a writer, podcast host, and former congressional staffer.
The views in this article are the writer’s own.
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