Our Public Health System Under Attack

Yesterday, an anti-vaccine conspiracy theorist opened fire on the headquarters of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta. Both he and a law enforcement officer were killed.

For years, activists like me have been screaming that antivaccine rhetoric is deadly, both because of the injuries to our public health and to health professionals as individuals (similar to what has happened in the past to abortion providers). Healthy debate is one thing, but the violent rhetoric of the antivaccine movement, and public health leadership that supports them makes violence inevitable.

Let’s look at some of the words coming from our so-called leaders.

In 2021, Robert Kennedy called the Covid-19 vaccine “the deadliest vaccine ever made.” This lie, repeated over and over since the release of the vaccine, is the actual danger. There has never been a verified death due to covid vaccines. This doesn’t mean it’s never happened or cannot happen. But after literally billions of doses given, there have been only a handful of deaths that are even possibly caused by the covid shot (compared to millions of deaths in unvaccinated people).

On the other hand, politically-driven conspiracy theories about covid vaccines have killed people. Studies done on the first few years of the pandemic showed Republican voters had significantly greater risk of dying of covid.This doesn’t prove causation, but vaccine uptake among GOP voters was significantly lower than Democratic voters, as deaths were higher. This difference in party affiliation cropped up after the introduction of the vaccine—before the vaccine, party affiliation wasn’t relevant. Once vaccines became available, Democratic voters were more likely to get the shots, and less likely to die of covid.

There were other important demographic trends in covid infections, hospitalizations, and deaths, with minorities suffering a greater impact than others, especially early in the pandemic. This was likely due to healthcare disparities rather than some sort of biological difference between Black and white patients. Unfortunately, the current administration has made the study of health care disparities very difficult. Now, conspiracy theorists can explain away anything (e.g. the virus somehow targets conservatives) but many well-done studies have shown this same pattern—vaccine hesitancy is greater in GOP voters, as are poor outcomes from covid infection.

Kennedy, however, has some alternative explanations for differences in covid outcomes among ethnic groups:

Antivaccine and antiscience messaging kills. It kills in two ways—immediately, as when a troubled conspiracy theorist takes to heart the messaging from our current leadership, and more slowly—vaccine uptake drops and measles spreads; mRNA vaccine development is halted, leaving us to scramble to rely on older, more inferior technology. There is a scramble for new treatments for measles, a disease that we had eliminated with a safe and effective vaccine. We shouldn’t have to waste time and money looking for treatments that may or may not exist when we already have the ability to eliminate the disease!

A lot of the current insanity really comes down to the question of who do you trust. I find in my own practice, patients tend to trust me. I also try to explain the reasons for my recommendations so that patients can make informed decisions.

But many people rely on non-experts (e.g. social media influencers), and so-called professionals who have chosen to go against the consensus of actual experts.

When important, seemingly non-political choices (like public health policy) are driven by political ideology, people die. On an individual level, we can often reach vaccine/science denialists. Some will never change, and we shouldn’t even try, but many are open to being persuaded by people they trust.

Conspiracy theorists, fed by Kennedy and others, will undoubtedly kill again. But the wholesale dismantling of our public health infrastructure is more dangerous than any lone gunman. Please, please contact your representatives and demand they stand up for public health.

Stay well.

-pal