Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is committing “public health malpractice,” says a longtime epidemiologist.
ELIZABETH JACOBS; [email protected]
Jacobs is Professor Emerita of epidemiology at the University of Arizona.
Jacobs told the Institute for Public Accuracy: “We have a motto in public health: saving lives a million at a time. Because that is what public health is doing. But the danger is that you can also take lives a million at a time. That’s the risk you’re putting people in if you’re committing public health malpractice. There is no one thing that is problematic or falling apart right now. It is a whole number of intertwined, catastrophic events happening at once.”
Jacobs expressed her concerns over measles, whooping cough, and bird flu outbreaks. “RFK Jr. is not taking the steps that are needed to start stemming the measles outbreak in particular,” Jacobs said. “There needs to be one unified message coming from all levels of public health right now, and that message is ‘you need to get vaccinated with MMR.’ Instead, RFK Jr. is publicly lying about the vaccine. U.S. Congress is sitting by and letting the secretary of HHS tell the world a lie, which is that the MMR vaccine contains aborted fetus debris. This is a demonstrable lie. He also lied about the vaccine being against the Mennonite religion.
Jacobs also criticized new appointees like Vinay Prasad, who was tapped to be the FDA’s vaccine regulator. “If the idea is to build trust in public health,” Jacobs added, “then putting someone [like Prasad] in a leadership position who has spent the last five years undermining public health is a terrible idea. We have seen this play out already. Letting anti-vax people occupy positions of power does not build trust. It is a flawed idea that is already backfiring. When RFK Jr. has even mentioned the MMR vaccine, anti-vax people get angry with him. What is needed is consistent messaging from every level that the MMR vaccine is safe and effective, and that individuals who are near infants––whether through work or in their family––need to be vaccinated against whooping cough to protect infants. That includes pregnant women in their third trimester.
“The other major red flag is this idea [of RFK Jr.’s] that Covid vaccines will need new clinical trials. It’s not possible to do that. It is biologically incorrect to say that Covid boosters are new vaccines. This is the method we have used to update the flu vaccine for many years. It is also unethical to do a vaccine trial of something we know works. There are reams of data showing that Covid vaccine boosters reduce hospitalizations and deaths. The vaccines aren’t perfect, but they’re safe and confer protection, especially among the most vulnerable. I’m concerned that we will not have Covid boosters for the fall. Vaccine manufacturers have four months from this point to produce vaccines and go through the quality control process. It won’t be possible to get that done if they keep fiddling around.
“In the Michigan health department, they are struggling to keep up with whooping cough contact tracing because they are also dealing with measles contact tracing. If you start severely underfunding public health and have several outbreaks running at the same time, it starts to have an additive effect, where public health departments are less and less effective. We are being overwhelmed with outbreaks to the point that health departments are unable to do contact tracing.
“I’m going to start volunteering with my local public health department. They are short on staff and it’s getting worse. I’m going to try to build up a group of public health volunteers to help out at vaccination clinics. Other public health agencies may need volunteers too––tasks as simple as picking up samples or doing data entry.”