The anti-science, anti-medicine mindset of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is killing people by quashing life-saving vaccines.
There is no other explanation why Moderna’s paperwork to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for its new mRNA flu vaccine was initially rejected, citing supposed faults with the study the pharma giant had already conducted into the drug. The FDA has since reversed course and agreed to review the vaccine, but the episode still feels like a warning nonetheless.
Meanwhile in Florida, a small private college in Collier County is in the early days of a measles outbreak, with more than 60 cases reported as of Friday. It’s much worse in South Carolina, which has seen close to 1,000 cases of measles due a too-low vaccine rate. This has pushed the head of another HHS subdivision, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, Dr. Mehmet Oz, to beg people to get their children the measles shot.
Flu season has hit Central Florida. Here’s what you need to know.
Oz, a TV doctor, but still a real doctor, knows that the measles vaccine is safe and effective and will prevent the disease from spreading. His boss, RFK Jr., instead sows doubt, which causes parents to not vaccinate their kids. And we get triple-digit outbreaks and kids may die.
As with much else in this wretched administration, the initial refusal to review Moderna’s vaccine was a transparent pretext for officials to pursue political and ideological preferences under the guise of regular government administration. The FDA must be very meticulous about what pharmaceuticals it considers and approves; these are things that can easily kill or maim if they are not correctly formulated and tested. The problem here is that the guiding principle is clearly not a scientific or rigorous one.
Kennedy has made no bones about his misplaced skepticism of mRNA vaccines, pinging off the proliferating conspiracies around the COVID vaccines — incredible innovations that saved countless lives during one of the worst global catastrophes in recent memory.
Beyond the study Moderna already did, we had an unintentional global study of mRNA vaccine safety as millions took the therapeutics during that era; years on, the only effect seems to have been that many, many people did not die preventable deaths or were subjected to potentially lifelong consequences from COVID infection.
The idiotic recommendations of RFK and his minions are at least often things that reasonable people can just ignore and doctors can disregard, even if they are setting the broad agenda of health policy (or lack thereof) in the United States.
But as with the dismantling of huge swaths of our research capacity, the original refusal to even consider this mRNA flu vaccine on what are obviously ideological grounds shows future potential for the FDA to affect a hell of a lot more people than just the cranks who agree with them. Without FDA sign-off, it’s likely that these vaccines won’t be available, coming off one of the worst flu seasons in history. The flu might not be quite as deadly as COVID, but it has killed thousands nationwide, including children, just this season.
Refusing to consider what might be effective remedies will condemn some people to die.
RFK and his cronies seeded throughout the public health infrastructure are not going to change, no matter how much the countervailing evidence piles up. They will keep doing damage until someone stops them, and the clearest someone with that power is Congress.
Everything may have become political war now, but we sincerely hope that at least the potential deaths of thousands of children might cut through that noise. Lawmakers must act to remove RFK and the others who would toss our kids to the wolves.
This editorial has been adapted from one that originally appeared in The New York Daily News. The Sentinel sometimes shares editorials whose views correspond with our own. The Orlando Sentinel Editorial Board includes Executive Editor Roger Simmons, Opinion Editor Krys Fluker and Viewpoints Editor Jay Reddick. Use insight@Orlandosentinel.com to send letters to the editor.
