Who's To Blame For Measles Deaths?

At least one child is dead in the growing measles outbreak centered in west Texas and the antivaccination group founded by HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. has moved in for the kill. This was a horrific, avoidable tragedy. The child came from a relatively closed community with low vaccination rates. The ultra-religious parents told Children’s Health Defense—the organization Kennedy stepped down from when he ran for President last year—that their kid’s death hasn’t convinced them that vaccination is necessary.

This is not the first time Kennedy and his organization have swooped down on vulnerable communities. In 2018 in the island nation of Samoa, two children died tragically when nurses accidentally mixed the measles vaccine with an expired muscle relaxant. Vaccination programs were suspended while the deaths were investigated and measles cases began to surge. Several months later Kennedy wrote to the Prime Minister of Samoa blaming the outbreak on vaccinations themselves, and even visited the island, supporting local antivaccine activists through his Children’s Health Defense organization.

The 83 measles deaths on the island can’t all be blamed on Kennedy personally, but his activism certainly contributed. And now the antivaccine organization that Kennedy founded is at the epicenter of the current outbreak in Texas, holding the hands of grieving parents and telling them that they did everything right.

History has shown us that antivaccine activism during outbreaks leads directly to sick and dead kids. The Texas Mennonite parents are being told by supposed authorities that vaccination wouldn’t have saved their child. They certainly bear some responsibility for their own child’s death, but the largest part of the blame lies both with a failing public health system and with antivaccine groups that swoop in and feed off the blood of dead children.

I cannot imagine the grief of these parents, and it would be natural for them to latch onto any explanations that relieves them of their share of guilt. But the guilt ultimately lies with people like our Secretary of HHS, someone responsible for the health of our nation, yet working in a way proven to lead to more illness and death.

We have had the tools to prevent measles outbreaks for longer than I’ve been alive. We eliminated endemic measles in the US twenty-five years ago. But vigilance and the fight against misinformation is all that stands between our efforts and dead children.

Stay well.

-pal