Commentary

Medical Expert On RFK Jr.: 'Please, Please, Not Him -- No One Else Can Be As Bad'

Forty years ago, a false notion spread across the U.S.: that pertussis and whooping cough vaccines caused brain damage in children.

By the mid-‘80s, over $3.2 billion in lawsuits were filed against pharma firms, recalled Dr. Paul Offit, director of the Vaccine Education Center at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. “So companies just left the market. There were 18 companies that made vaccines in 1980. By the end of the decade, there were four.”

Today, there are still only four companies that make vaccines for American children -- GSK, Merck, Pfizer and Sanofi -- and Offit wouldn’t be surprised if they all left the market should Senate hearings starting today result in Robert F. Kennedy Jr,'s confirmation as head of the U.S. department of Health and Human Services (HHS).

“Vaccines are a fragile market,” Dr. Offit told a webinar, The Center for Inquirer’s “Skeptical Inquirer Presents” series. “They're not something you give every day. They're never going to compete with products like lipid-lowering agents, diabetes drugs and psychological drugs, much, much, much bigger moneymakers. They can easily be jettisoned.”

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How are those pharma companies responding?

As you might expect.

“I just talked to one person in the industry, and her response was, ‘We are just waiting to see what happens,” said Dr. Offit.

RFK Jr., who has already sued Merck over its HPV vaccine, “will do everything he can to make vaccines more expensive and less available,” Dr. Offit said, helping to expedite their demise.

Dr. Offit and RFK Jr. are natural enemies. The latter has led the anti-vaccine movement for the past two decades, the former notes, while Dr. Offit is a member (as of now, at least), of the Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee for the Food and Drug Administration, part of HHS.

Dr. Offit has also written several books sure to not be among RFK Jr.’s favorites: “Deadly Choices: How the Anti-Vaccine Movement Threatens Us All,” “Bad Advice: or Why Celebrities, Politicians, and Activists Aren't Your Best Source of Health Information” and “Tell Me When It's Over: An Insider's Guide to Deciphering Covid Myths and Navigating Our Post-Pandemic World.”

“He views vaccines as toxins,” Dr. Offit said. “He believes vaccines are hurting our children. So he tries to find ways to fit things into his belief system. He'll say the polio vaccine has killed many, many, many more people than it saved,” Dr. Offit recalled. “He just makes it up and keeps saying these things that are outlandish.

“That disease, which would cause 30,000 cases of paralysis and about 1,800 deaths a year, was eliminated from this country by 1979.”

Dr. Offit continued, “[RFK Jr.’ was born in 1954. I remember polio and so does he,” noting how polio survivor Mitch McConnell had fought back against requests to restrict the polio vaccine. “And Donald Trump immediately said, ‘No, no, no, not that vaccine,’ because he was born in 1946. He remembers polio. You don’t want to relive polio.”.

Nor measles.

“That's the one that's going to come roaring back,” Dr. Offit declared.

“Measles is the most contagious of the vaccine-preventable diseases. If you are sick with COVID, and you go about your normal day not masked, and you meet the number of people you would normally meet, assuming they're all susceptible, you'll infect two to four people a day.  With measles, the number's 18.”

Unfortunately, Dr. Offit explained, “We don't fear these diseases anymore…It’s not just that we've largely eliminated measles. We've eliminated the memory of measles. People don't remember how sick that virus can make you.”

And so, “The CDC reported, when they still could report things, that the vaccine exemption rate among kindergarteners is the highest it's ever been, and as a consequence, we're losing herd immunity.

“In 2023, we had about 58 cases of measles. In 2024, we had 290 cases of measles, with 16 outbreaks. We're not going in the right direction. And I think this is only going to get worse in this administration."

Does RFK Jr. have any positive policies?

Well, Dr Offit agrees with RFK Jr.’s belief in eating “better, less processed food,” but decries how he’d implement that because “he's a science denialist. If the science doesn't fit into his biases, then he's going to reject it.”

He even ridiculed RFK Jr.’s criticism of Kellogg’s Froot Loops for containing food dyes.

“I'm just thinking, do people eat Froot Loops for fruit nutrition? Doesn’t the fact that the word fruit is spelled f-r-o-o-t make you wonder whether it's really, you know, fruit?”

“He's right that we can do better,” Dr. Offit agreed, “but he’s not the guy to head three major scientific agencies. We can be more healthy, but please, please, not him. No one else can be as bad.”

1 comment about "Medical Expert On RFK Jr.: 'Please, Please, Not Him -- No One Else Can Be As Bad'".
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  1. Laurie Sullivan from lauriesullivan, January 29, 2025 at 2:20 p.m.

    Long live RFK Jr., if he can only get toxins out of our food supply, and the food the school system feeds my grandchildren.

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