“Sabotaging RFK Jr’s Confirmation Will Increase Vaccine Hesitancy”
As MAHA loomed in the fall of 2024, we at SBM warned of its obvious risks. However, two prominent doctors, auditioning for roles in new administration, made a bold claim at the time. Although Robert F. Kennedy Jr. had been the USA’s anti-vaxx disinformation superspreader for 20 years, they argued that elevating him to the most powerful position in American medicine was required to restore confidence in vaccines.
Dr. Vinay Prasad wrote an article titled Sabotaging RFK Jr’s Confirmation Will Increase Vaccine Hesitancy that said:
At this point, the best way to curb vaccine hesitancy is to approve RFK Jr, and redirect his energies to generating more data. More data will answer the key questions that remain unanswered: which childhood immunization program is optimal. The worse (sic) thing we can do is tank his nomination. Then vaccine hesitancy will explode.
Dr. Martin Kulldorff wrote a nearly identical article titled The Cure for Vaccine Skepticism that said:
The only way to restore public trust in vaccination – which has taken a big hit since the lies attending the rollout of the COVID-19 vaccine – is to put a well-known vaccine skeptic in charge of the vaccine research agenda. The ideal person for this is Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who has been nominated to lead the Department of Health and Human Services…
We won’t restore vaccine confidence by preaching to the choir. After the COVID debacle, Kennedy’s stated goal is to return to evidence-based medicine free from conflicts of interest. Letting him do that is the only way that skeptics will trust vaccines again, and those of us who trust vaccines have no reason to be afraid of that.
As a reminder, at the same time Drs. Prasad and Kulldorff were arguing that Kennedy was the “only way to restore public trust in vaccination“, he was showing the movie Vaxxed III: Authorized to Kill. This is the sophisticated analysis and intellectual integrity they brought to the conversation.
“Hospitals See Diseases Resurge as Vaccinations Decline”
Enough time has passed that we can judge the validity of their promises. Has Kennedy returned to evidence-based medicine free from conflicts of interest? Has he generated more data to determine which childhood immunization program is optimal? Has he restored public trust in vaccination? Here are some headlines from this month alone:
US Hits A Scary Mark For Total Number Of Measles Cases — For The Second Year In A Row
The number of U.S. measles cases surpassed the 2,000 mark this week for the second time in two years, federal data shows. There have been 30 new incidents resulting in 2,030 confirmed cases so far this year, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Thursday. That’s inching closer to last year’s total of 2,288 cases, the agency noted. Before 2025, America’s yearly measles cases had not surpassed 2,000 since 1992. The highly infectious virus was largely considered eliminated in the U.S. in 2000 due to the preventative measles-mumps-rubella vaccine, but falling vaccination rates have helped the disease to spread again.
A new study in Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report from scientists with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and their state partners analyzes the patients hospitalized during the first two months of the measles outbreak that swept through West Texas in 2025, finding that nearly all were unvaccinated children, only 11% had preexisting conditions, and respiratory complications were common.
From January 20 to March 18, 2025, 325 measles cases were reported in the region, and 60 patients—roughly one in five—were hospitalized. Of the 54 hospitalized patients with available medical records, all were either unvaccinated or had unknown vaccination status. The vast majority (49; 91%) were younger than 18 years, and 48 (89%) had no underlying health conditions. One patient died.
Just because you can grab it off a drugstore shelf doesn’t mean it’s harmless. As the US confronted a major resurgence of measles last year, poison control centers reported a sharp spike in calls involving children exposed to a widely available supplement. Around the same time, new research shows internet searches surged for whether that same vitamin could be used as an alternative treatment for the potentially deadly disease. That spike in attention came after several prominent figures — including Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and podcaster Joe Rogan — discussed the nutrient as a possible tool in fighting the virus.
With Measles Roaring Back, the Search for a Treatment is On
As vaccination rates decline, biotech companies see a potential new market for measles drugs. Just this year, two U.S. biotechnology companies announced they would begin testing antibody treatments, one of them citing “measles incidence reaching levels not seen in decades.”
Anguished Parents, Crying Doctors: Life Amid Utah’s Measles Outbreak
“I wish that people could see what I see,” said Nathan Money, a hospital pediatrician in Utah whose eyes welled up with tears as he described children he has treated for measles struggling to breathe. “This train is going in the wrong direction, and it can feel like a helpless situation, because we’re just not seeing the public messaging and leadership that’s needed to turn this around.”
Hospitals See Diseases Resurge as Vaccinations Decline
Doctors around the country say they are seeing more cases of serious, sometimes life-threatening illnesses that vaccines have long kept at bay, including whooping cough and bacterial infections that can cause pneumonia or meningitis.
The concern among doctors comes on the heels of a resurgence of measles nationwide, fueled by distrust in vaccines that grew during the Covid-19 pandemic, and that Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and President Trump have amplified. Public health experts have long seen measles as a harbinger: Because it is so exceptionally contagious, it can be the first disease to spike as vaccination rates broadly decline, and a sign of more to come.
Source: Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health
Things don’t seem to be going well to me, and the man whom Drs. Prasad and Kulldorff marketed as the only person who could prevent these headlines is responsible for creating them. Kennedy claimed that “the (measles) outbreaks are actually declining” when in fact they were just ramping up, and that the MMR “causes deaths every year… encephalitis, blindness“. He said that only “very, very sick kids should die from measles“, and that “it’s very hard to tell” if measles kills kids at all. He blamed doctors for the death of their patients, saying that “children, healthy children, should not die of measles and there’s no reason they should if doctors know how to treat at the hospital, that will not happen.” He’s never acknowledged that measles can hurt children without killing them, even though it caused encephalitis in children in South Carolina this year. He’s touted vitamin A as a cure-all, and now people are getting sick from it. All this has occurred since he assumed power last year, as anyone with at least two functioning neurons could have predicted.
Meanwhile, during Dr. Prasad’s disastrous tenure at the FDA, he falsely claimed the COVID vaccine killed 10 children. He censored vaccine studies whose results he didn’t like. He fear-mongered about ultra-rare vaccine side-effects, even mere MRI abnormalities. He promised new vaccines RCTs and failed to deliver them. He personally rejected successful vaccine RCTs.
For his part, Dr. Kulldorff is working behind the scenes at the CDC to advance Kennedy’s anti-vaxx agenda. He beclowned himself-“we are rookies”– during his embarrassing turn leading the now defunct ACIP and has sought to decimate the vaccine schedule simply to copy Denmark.
Neither doctor used their voice and authority to encourage vaccines. As measles spread under their watch, they sat back and said nothing.
“Brilliant, analytically rigorous, prolific, and passionate about improving the way we generate and apply medical evidence.”
How did we get here?
The answer isn’t just that doctors like Drs. Prasad and Kulldorff debased themselves by spreading mind-blowing absurdities to obtain power- only Kennedy can save vaccines!– it’s that the medical profession let them. Most medical “leaders” yawned and looked away, while others spread mind-blowing absurdities to glorify MAGA/MAHA doctors. For example, an editorial in the NJEM last year described Dr. Prasad as:
Brilliant, analytically rigorous, prolific, and passionate about improving the way we generate and apply medical evidence.
That was obviously false, and like predictions that Kennedy would save vaccines, it was bound to age poorly. MAGA/MAHA doctors were overt political propagandists above all else, and that’s how they should have been treated by the medical community. A failure to do helps explain how got here.
Moving forward, MAHA/MAGA doctors will be disgraced pariahs for the rest of their lamentable careers. They made their choices and those are the consequences. They will be remembered for their COVID disinformation, their incompetence in public office, and their responsibility for the entire MAGA/MAHA regime, but no one will care about their oh-so controversial hot takes once they are out of power and can’t do any more damage. However, this irrelevance should have been their fate long ago. Medicine failed to police its own, and children are paying the price today.
There are still years left to go.