OK, let’s start with the quick TL;DR; version – No, RFK Jnr is wrong about vaccine skepticism, he is a crackpot. I really should not need to publish any of this … but hey, for what are obvious reasons, here we are.
RFK Jnr has long deep dark history of promoting utterly absurd non-scientific BS. In his published book, he has literally hundreds of pages where he repeats a lot of HIV/AIDS denialism that is just factually wrong. He also has been a fanatical anti-vaccine advocate long before any of us had heard about COVID.
To be very very clear, the anti-vaccine stuff he comes out with is not scientific and has no credible evidence. We will get to debunking some of the popular myths shortly, but first permit me to spell it out with crayons.
What have Vaccines ever done for us?
What there is rather solid evidence for is that vaccines have been the most successful medical intervention ever created by humans.
The abundance of evidence for this is right there, for anybody who cares to actually check.
Polio …
Measles …
Covid …
Many of the tin foil hat brigade now do acknowledge that COVID deaths are reduced by the vaccine, but claim that there has been an increase in all cause mortality — the supposedly “mysteriously died”. No, just stop, it is all BS. Any death, from any cause, and they will cite it as “proof” if the person who died was also vaccinated.
In reality by the numbers: COVID vaccination was associated with LOWER all cause mortality & non-COVID mortality.
There is plenty more of the same for many other diseases.
Tetanus, Diphtheria, Hepatitis A, Hepatitis B, HiB, Meningococcus, for most of us, are now no longer a concern.
Smallpox anybody? Totally eradicated.
The world was once a very different place. Life has been utterly transformed by the rise of vaccines.
Back in 2015 Tynan DeBold and Dov Friedman, did a truly excellent series of graphs within the WSJ titled “Battling Infectious Diseases in the 20th Century: The Impact of Vaccines“. Using CDC data they created a set of seven graphs that really do demonstrate the huge positive impact.
In the above I covered Polio, Measles, and Polio. Here are a couple of their graphs that revel the impact of several more …
Rubella …
SmallPox …
This is all a cue for “Ah yes, that’s all true, but …“.
OK, let’s go there now.
Myth 1: Vaccines Cause Autism
This has been extensively studied and very robustly debunked.
“Yes but … “.
Seriously, just stop. There is no relationship between vaccines and autism – Period.
What is true is that the anti-vaccine movement vigorously promotes this BS claim on the basis of exactly zero credible evidence.
What is true is that there has been a increase in the number of autism diagnoses, but that’s not because the actual rates of autism have increased, it is down to an increase in the ability of medical professionals to conduct screenings and diagnose autism, typically around the time kids also got routine vaccines.
The root behind this specific myth is a medical hoax perpetrated by fraudster by Andrew Wakefield. He supposedly gathered data and then published a paper within The Lancet that promoted the idea of a link between the MMR vaccine and Autism in 1998. In 2009 a journalist discovered the hoax and published the details …
The medical council in the UK launched an investigation and soon established that it was indeed all true. The paper contained faked data. Wakefield lost his license to practise medicine in the UK and The Lancet redacted the paper.
You might wonder why Wakefield did this. It was discovered that he planned a rival vaccine and products (such as a diagnostic kit based on his theory) that could have made his fortune. When this was revealed, Wakefield sued for libel … but when faced with the reveal that they had the evidence that this was true, he quickly dropped his case. The key was the release of records obtained from the Legal Services Commission, showing that it had paid £435,643 in undisclosed fees to Wakefield for the purpose of building a case against the MMR vaccine several years before Wakefield published his paper.
Wakefield left the UK in total disgrace and came to the US where he set himself up as an anti-vaccine “expert” and ow earns money by giving talks promoting his fake claim to willing listeners.
The anti-vaccination propaganda film Vaxxed: From Cover-Up to Catastrophe that went out in 2016 was directed by him. It just rakes over his usual BS claims and claims some grand conspiracy to cover things up by the CDC. That might fly with some gullible people, but the issue goes far beyond the reach of the CDC. Not one single scientific body within any nation state on the planet finds such a link.
“Yes, but we need to study this …“
No, just stop. We don’t. Literally billions have been spent studying this, one more study is not going to change this.
The bottom line is transparently clear …
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC),[17] the IOM of the United States National Academy of Sciences,[18]and the National Health Service[19] have all concluded that there is no link between the MMR vaccine and autism. A systematic review by the Cochrane Library concluded that there is no credible link between the MMR vaccine and autism, that the MMR vaccine has prevented diseases that still carry a heavy burden of death and complications
Anybody telling you there is a link has either been successfully conned, or knows the truth and is lying to you.
There are of course various other anti-vaccine myths, but this one is the big one. However, let’s also mull over a few of the others.
Myth: Natural Immunity Is better
There are parents who opt to avoid vaccine and instead throw pox parties for their kids. The idea is that getting it naturally when young enables the kids to develop immunity naturally, and that this is far better.
Let’s pick one as an example – measles.
Harmless … right?
No. The absurdity in play here is that measles itself has a 1 in 500 chance of death.
When we started vaccinating for measles back in the 1960s it had the intended effect; the decline and obliteration of Measles. We might think of it as a harmless childhood illness, but its eradication is truly a big deal. The prognosis for measles is that complications such as bronchitis, sensorineural hearing loss, and panencephalitis (which is fatal), can occur, so eradicating it was a leap forward for healthcare.
Something deeply weird also happened once we started vaccinating for measles – deaths from all infectious diseases also plummeted.
Why was established by a 2015 paper published in Science entitled “Long-term measles-induced immunomodulation increases overall childhood infectious disease mortality“.
When you get measles, what actually happens is that your immune system is suppressed, and that makes you more susceptible to any and every infection. This is well understood and documented. What was odd is that long after the immune system has recovered and the measles is gone, a period of roughly 5 weeks to a couple of months, patients appear to be still far more susceptible to other infections.
The lead author of the paper, Michael Mina, explains …
“We found measles predisposes children to all other infectious diseases for up to a few years,”
What they discovered is that Measles does is not simply to make you ill for a few weeks, it also wipes your immune system memory of the resistance you have already acquired in life up to that point. In other words, it gives your immune system amnesia on how to fight against previous infections it had already previously learned how to cope with.
“The immune system kind of comes back. The only problem is that it has forgotten what it once knew,” – Mina
Bottom Line: “Natural” immunity really is not your best choice.
The COVID vaccine was not properly tested, it was experimental
We can’t not mention this one.
Yes, you guessed it, that “experimental” claim is also total BS, proper clinical trials were indeed conducted.
The outcome facts are also well established. A 2023 study reveals -“at least 232,000 deaths could have been prevented“
That’s a vast number of people to willingly sacrifice themselves on the alter of “Doing my own research“.
Associated with this is also the claim that having the vaccine results in a higher probability of death. Again no, total BS, and this is also well-established via studies.
Other Vaccine Myths
Myth : Vaccines contain many harmful ingredients.
Vaccines contain ingredients that allow the product to be safely administered. Any substance can be harmful in significantly high doses, even water. Vaccines contain ingredients at a dose that is even lower than the dose we are naturally exposed to in our environment.
Myth : There are microchips in the COVID-19 vaccine.
Do I really need to say it?
No.
Myth : COVID-19 vaccines will alter my DNA.
The mRNA that was used in some of the COVID vaccines is a template for making virus proteins that then stimulate the body’s immune system to produce antibodies that will lead to immunity to the virus. mRNA is rapidly degraded and is not integrated into the individual’s own DNA, so it will not alter the genetic code of the individual.
Rinse and repeat.
All of it is nonsense … and yet because they read it on Social Media, it is embraced as fact.
One things is very very clear
I’ve said it above, but will no repeat it once again.
Vaccines have been the most successful medical intervention ever created by humans.
Medical Ethics and Vaccine Mandates
Some might argue after COVID for “freedom” and choice and so their issue is not with the effectiveness of vaccines, but instead is with the use of vaccine mandates.
Medical Ethics 101: Beneficence, nonmaleficence, autonomy, and justice constitute the 4 principles of ethics.
Huh?
OK, in simple terms – (i) to benefit the patient, (ii) to avoid or minimize harm, and to (iii) respect the values and preferences of the patient.
Vaccine refusal is a tricky topic. If enough people refuse, then this creates a pool for a virus to live in and propagate from, so there needs to be enough people in the general population willing to take the vaccine.
You can’t normally force individuals to accept treatment if they refuse it … however … this is not something that is just about them, it also about all of us.
The case made by Professor Julian Savulescu, Faculty of Philosophy, University of Oxford, within the BMJ for a mandatory COVID vaccine is this …
Mandatory vaccination, including for COVID-19, can be ethically justified if the threat to public health is grave, the confidence in safety and effectiveness is high, the expected utility of mandatory vaccination is greater than the alternatives, and the penalties or costs for non-compliance are proportionate. I describe an algorithm for justified mandatory vaccination. Penalties or costs could include withholding of benefits, imposition of fines, provision of community service or loss of freedoms. I argue that under conditions of risk or perceived risk of a novel vaccination, a system of payment for risk in vaccination may be superior. I defend a payment model against various objections, including that it constitutes coercion and undermines solidarity. I argue that payment can be in cash or in kind, and opportunity for altruistic vaccinations can be preserved by offering people who have been vaccinated the opportunity to donate any cash payment back to the health service.
I get where he is coming from.
If indeed there exists a real possibility of people who refuse a vaccine end up running around and inflecting lots of people with something that may kill you and/or many others, then yes, the hard choice to do a mandate is very sensible.
A John Donne expressed it within his poem “No Man Is an Island“, we are interconnected.
One last Question for you
Let me finish with a question: What are your thoughts on Mandatory Vaccinations, is the above stance wrong, and if so then why?