'What a disgrace': Trump roasted for getting COVID jab while admin fans anti-vax flames

Matthew Chapman
October 10, 2025 
RAW STORY

President Donald Trump's physical results were released on Friday night, with White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt boasting that he is in excellent health and his heart is functionally 14 years younger than his biological age.

But the report also said Trump received a COVID booster vaccine — a detail not lost on people furious at Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., an infamous anti-vaccine conspiracy theorist, who moved to restrict the categories of people for whom COVID vaccines are recommended.

Commenters on social media quickly pointed out the irony, with many making fun of it and others simply outraged.

"Hey MAGA anti-vaxxers, Trump got a COVID booster shot," wrote the Blue Georgia account.

"Dear MAGA — guess who just got both the updated COVID vaccine and flu shots today? Your dear Leader Trump," wrote health analyst Dr. Eric Feigl-Ding. "Maybe you should get them too. Sincerely, An Epidemiologist Who Told You Trump Would Get COVID Booster."

"So Trump’s doctor says that Trump got the updated Covid vaccine and a flu vaccine shot," wrote political scientist Norm Ornstein. "Even as he says nothing while his secretary of HHS conducts a war against these vaccines. What a disgrace."

Canada reports first death linked to measles epidemic

CAUSED BY RELIGIOUS ANTI VAXXERS

By AFP
October 2, 2025


A measles screening sign at Victoria Hospital in London, Ontario on July 9, 2025

 - Copyright AFP/File Geoff Robins

An infant born prematurely in the western Canadian province of Alberta died as a result of measles, officials said Thursday, the first fatality linked to the disease’s resurgence in the country in the past year.

“A child, born prematurely after the mother contracted measles during pregnancy, died shortly after birth,” Alberta Health Minister Adriana LaGrange said in a statement, adding that the death was “from measles.”

In June, another premature infant with measles died in Canada, but authorities said the child had other medical complications and did not confirm the exact cause of death.

LaGrange warned in her statement that “children under five, pregnant women, and people with weakened immune systems face the greatest risks from measles.”

Canada, which declared measles eradicated in 1998 thanks to vaccinations, has recorded 5,006 cases of the disease since the start of 2025, most of which have been in the provinces of Alberta and Ontario.

Among these cases, 88 percent have involved unvaccinated individuals.

The Canadian measles outbreak began in October 2024 in the eastern province of New Brunswick. It has disproportionately affected Mennonite, Amish and other Anabaptist communities, experts say, in part due to their lower vaccination rates.

The disease is a highly contagious respiratory virus spread through droplets when an infected person coughs, sneezes or simply breathes.

It causes fever, respiratory symptoms and a rash, but can also lead to serious complications, including pneumonia, brain inflammation and death.

Anti-Trans Policy Deserves Same Scrutiny as Trump’s Tylenol Disinformation

None of this is science-based.

As a trans journalist, I see corporate media outlets as inconsistent in their treatment of right-wing disinformation.

By Katelyn Burns ,

Truthout

September 27, 2025

U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., joined by President Donald Trump, delivers an announcement in the Roosevelt Room of the White House on September 22, 2025 in Washington, D.C.Andrew Harnik / Getty Images


Honest, paywall-free news is rare. Please support our boldly independent journalism with a donation of any size.

Earlier this week, President Donald Trump and his celebrity health ministers Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Dr. Oz held a press conference to announce an evidence-free claim that pregnant women taking acetaminophen causes autism in children. Trump’s rambling speech provided no evidence other than his repeated assertions that pregnant women should not take the painkiller commonly sold under the brand name Tylenol.

Watching from afar, as a trans journalist who has been covering trans issues for about a decade, I found it interesting how many people — and corporate news outlets — questioned the obvious disinformation so quickly. The New York Times devoted several reporters to debunking the alternative reality the administration was trying to present when it comes to autism and Tylenol.

Those same outlets have not treated obvious disinformation from conservatives about transgender health care in the same way, instead portraying the handful of health providers who question the evidence-based standards of care developed over several decades as brave rebel truth tellers.

But there’s no real difference between an acetaminophen scaremonger like RFK Jr. and an anti-trans obsessive like J.K. Rowling. Neither are doctors, both have been poisoned by a steady stream of online propaganda and disinformation. They both spread lies as easily as they breathe, it’s just that certain segments of society feel a bit icky about the idea of trans people and so are more likely to listen to lies about my people.

None of this is science-based.

 Just this week, Mother Jones reported that Gordon Guyatt, known by colleagues as the “godfather of evidence-based medicine,” rebuked the anti-trans health care political group Society for Evidence-Based Gender Medicine. Despite having an association with the group in the past, Guyatt explained that the scientific basis for gender-affirming care for minors “not different from most of medicine,” and that it’s not always possible to run the rigorous double blind studies that are required for a thorough certification of some medical treatments.

Double blind studies require that neither the researchers nor the research participants know who is receiving the treatment of concern in the study. In the case of trans health, within a matter of weeks, both participants and doctors will know who has puberty blocker/hormone treatment and who has a placebo, thus invalidating the double blind portion of the study. Everyone with even a rudimentary knowledge of the scientific method can grasp this, and yet those who oppose trans care for youth insist that all of such care must be suspended until a long-term study of this kind can be conducted.

They’re really just after an indefinite pause to the treatment they’re opposed to on political grounds. That doesn’t stop them from continuing to lie to an increasingly enthralled press and political sector, including some Democrats.

Anti-trans activists frequently point out the statistically higher percentage of trans people who are also autistic compared to the general population as another reason to override our autonomy as free and equal people by denying us health care. Like with trans people, those who seek to “cure” autism envision a world where there are no autistic people. It’s just another effort to stamp out the uniqueness of the human condition.

Related Story

Op-Ed |
FDA’s Arbitrary Restrictions on Vaccines Are Right Out of Anti-Abortion Playbook
Anti-vaxxers are copying a core anti-abortion strategy: if you can’t make it illegal, make it inaccessible instead. By Lauren Rankin , Truthout September 23, 2025

I long for the days when those in the corporate media will be able to see Trump’s lies about trans health care as easily as they can see Trump’s lies about Tylenol and autism. Until then, I’m standing alongside my autistic siblings against this heinous eliminationist health care agenda.


This article is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0), and you are free to share and republish under the terms of the license.

Katelyn Burns is an independent journalist and columnist for MSNBC and Xtra Magazine. She was the first ever openly trans Capitol Hill reporter in U.S. history. She co-hosts the Cancel Me, Daddy podcast and is a cofounder/owner of The Flytrap, a feminist media collective. She also runs the Burns Notice newsletter.

Sanders Launches Probe After RFK Jr. Stacked Immunization Panel With 'Vaccine Deniers'

"These individuals have already taken steps to upend decades of scientific research and vaccine policy, threatening the health and safety of all Americans," said a letter signed by Sanders and seven other Democratic senators.

U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) questions Robert F. Kennedy Jr. during a Senate Finance Committee hearing on Kennedy's nomination to be U.S. Health and Human Services secretary, on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., January 29, 2025.
(Photo: Alex Wroblewski/AFP via Getty Images)

Stephen Prager
Jul 29, 2025
COMMON DREAMS

Sen. Bernie Sanders on Tuesday launched an investigation into U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s purge of independent experts from a panel on vaccine recommendations.

Last month, Kennedy announced that he was "retiring" all 17 members of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, commonly known as ACIP, despite promising during his Senate confirmation hearing to keep the committee intact.

At the time, Sanders (I-Vt.)—chair of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions—warned that "firing independent vaccine experts is a dangerous, unprecedented move that will make it harder for the American people to access vaccines that are safe, effective, and essential to saving lives."

After the firings, Kennedy said, "We're going to bring great people onto the ACIP panel—not anti-vaxxers—bringing people on who are credentialed scientists."

In a letter sent to Kennedy Tuesday, Sanders and seven other Democratic senators said those fears have come to pass. Kennedy, they said, has replaced the panel of experts with "prominent vaccine deniers."

The most prominent of these figures is Dr. Robert Malone, who has described it as "high praise" to be dubbed an "anti-vaxxer."

Malone gained prominence during the Covid-19 pandemic by casting doubt on the illness's severity and baselessly suggesting that the mRNA vaccines used to treat the disease were "causing a form of AIDS."

Earlier this year, Malone also attempted to foment doubt that children had died due to the unprecedented measles outbreak in Texas.

Kennedy also appointed the former leader of his anti-vaccine organization, the Children's Health Defense, Lyn Redwood, a longtime proponent of the false belief that the vaccination for measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) causes autism.

Also on the committee is Vicky Pebsworth Debold, founder of the National Vaccine Information Center—one of the longest-running anti-vaccine organizations in America—who has argued that a vaccination caused her child's autism.

ACIP is in charge of examining scientific findings to make recommendations to the public about which vaccines to get and when.

"These individuals," the senators said, "have already taken steps to upend decades of scientific research and vaccine policy, threatening the health and safety of all Americans."

When Kennedy's new handpicked committee met for the first time in late June, the members made substantial changes to vaccine policy and hinted at others coming in the future.

The most significant change they made was the recommendation that Americans receive flu vaccinations free of the preservative thimerosal—which is partially made of mercury and prevents germs and fungi from contaminating batches of vaccines.

Thimerosal, which is a component of many multidose vaccines, has never been found harmful by any scientific study. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) provided a document to the committee that included 25 years of studies indicating thimerosal's safety. But that document was removed from the meeting without explanation.

When they questioned ACIP about its removal, the senators say Malone replied that it was "not authorized by the office of the secretary," which the senators concluded meant that Kennedy or one of his staff "had the document taken off CDC’s website."


Instead of credible science, Redwood presented a report likely generated by artificial intelligence, which included many debunked claims about the dangers of thimerosal, and even made reference to a CDC study on the dangers of the preservative that did not exist.

Kennedy's ACIP also determined that it would revise the childhood vaccine schedule that has been in place for decades. That schedule includes vaccines for polio, chickenpox, diphtheria, and tetanus—illnesses that once routinely killed children but have been virtually eradicated by mass immunization.

The recommended vaccine schedule, the senators noted, determines what immunizations are required to be covered by health insurance companies and government programs like Medicaid and Medicare.

"If insurance companies, Medicare, Medicaid and other government programs stop covering vaccines, Americans will be forced to pay out of pocket," the senators said. "The only people who will be able to afford vaccines will be the wealthy."

The senators warned that this, along with Kennedy and his appointees' undermining of vaccine science, would result in "a resurgence of vaccine-preventable diseases."

Under Kennedy, the U.S. has already experienced its largest measles outbreak in 33 years, which has resulted in the first deaths from the disease in over a decade, following a downswing in measles vaccination.

Despite this, Kennedy has continued to downplay the disease's severity and the vaccine's well-documented effectiveness, even claiming that it causes "deaths every year."

The senators demanded that Kennedy provide information about why each of the nonpartisan members of ACIP were fired, and what criteria and vetting process was used to pick the anti-vaccine figures who replaced them.

"The harm your actions will cause is significant," the senators told Kennedy. "As your new ACIP makes recommendations based on pseudoscience, fewer and fewer Americans will have access to fewer and fewer vaccines. And as you give a platform to conspiracy theorists, and even promote their theories yourself, Americans will continue to lose confidence in whatever vaccines are still available."

Report Highlights Threat Posed by 'Trump Health Cabal'


"Trump has nominated unqualified and dangerous people to serve in the most important health positions in the country," said Eagan Kemp, the author of the report for the consumer advocacy group Public Citizen.


U.S. Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. speaks at a press conference at HHS headquarters in Washington, DC, on July 29, 2025.
(Photo: Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images)

Stephen Prager
Jul 30, 2025
COMMON DREAMS

The government watchdog group Public Citizen published a report on Tuesday warning that U.S. President Donald Trump's "dangerous health cabal threatens patients, providers, and the programs they rely on."

The report, written by healthcare policy advocate Eagan Kemp, takes aim at several of Trump's appointees to top healthcare posts. Among those highlighted are Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) head Mehmet Oz, Deputy HHS Secretary Jim O'Neill, and surgeon general nominee Casey Means.

"The first few months of the Trump administration have brought chaos and disaster to an already fragmented and dysfunctional health care system," the report says. "From efforts to make massive cuts to the ACA and Medicare and layoffs of huge numbers of HHS staff across the agency, it is tough to keep up with all the damage being done."

Kennedy, the report says, has aggressively promoted "conspiracy theories and dangerous anti-science views" during his time as HHS secretary.

The report notes Kennedy's fear-mongering about the safety of the highly effective measles vaccine as the U.S. experienced the largest outbreak in recent years, and his purge of credentialed independent experts from the panel that makes national vaccine recommendations in favor of a clique of anti-vaccine activists.

The report also points to Kennedy's decision to de-emphasize research into infectious disease and prescription drugs and his mass firings at other agencies within HHS, including the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

"With Kennedy taking command of the HHS, Americans are presented lies and disinformation at an unprecedented scale that are capable of unwinding a century of progress on fighting disease and promoting public health," it says.

The report also highlights Oz's efforts to further privatize Medicare by championing Medicare Advantage, which it says "would leave more Americans at the whim of greedy health insurance corporations." It cites one study, which found that since 2007, overpayments to private Medicare providers added up to more than $600 billion, and could amount to another trillion over the next decade.

Additionally, the report cites findings from the Government Accountability Office (GAO) that patients with significant healthcare needs were more likely to drop Medicare Advantage in favor of returning to traditional Medicare, which it says "indicates that these patients were unable to receive necessary care" under the privatized program.

It describes Oz's "massive conflicts of interest," including his six-figure investments in Medicare Advantage providers like UnitedHealth and CVS Health.

"Medicare Advantage plans regularly deny needed care, making it difficult for low-resource hospitals to remain open to serve the public," the report says."If Oz gets his wish of further expanding Medicare Advantage, it will threaten the solvency of many hospitals, particularly rural hospitals currently at risk of closure, as they would struggle to keep their doors open because they wouldn't have the consistent funding they need to continue serving their communities."

O'Neill, who was appointed last month as Kennedy's deputy at HHS, is described as "a long-time venture capital investor with concerning views that reflect his significant financial ties to for-profit biomedical companies," adding that "his interests run counter to [HHS's] public health mandate."

The report notes O'Neill—a staunch libertarian—is opposed to FDA regulations to ensure the safety and efficacy of drugs, which he said "kill a lot of people and provide a lot of harm to the economy."

He has called to eliminate the agency's mandate to ensure that drugs are effective before they are approved for sale. In a 2014 speech to a biotech group, O'Neill said the FDA should "let people start using them, at their own risk."

As an official in the George W. Bush administration's HHS, he also opposed FDA regulations on diagnostic tests that rely on computer algorithms—an even more pressing issue today given the increasing ubiquity of artificial intelligence, including in healthcare.

"While he has a limited public record of comments on health issues broadly," the report says, "his dangerous and misinformed views about the workings of the FDA provide deep cause for concern that he will prioritize ideological and corporate profit considerations over the public health mandate of the department."

Means, Trump's pick for surgeon general—who would be the top authority on public health recommendations—is described as having "little to no managerial experience in the context of government agencies or scientific research."

She does not have an active medical license, and dropped out of her surgical residency. According to colleagues, she did so after coming to believe "that modern medicine is a conspiracy to keep people sick."

A "wellness influencer" in the mold of Kennedy, she has a history of anti-vaccine views and has advocated for getting rid of the Hepatitis B vaccination for babies, which is credited with reducing HBV infection by 68% over a decade after its introduction in 1991. Means has also said that birth control pills are overprescribed, and that they signal a "disrespect of life."

She also stands to potentially profit from her decisions as surgeon general, the report says, since she remains the chief medical officer of a glucose monitoring technology company and has not stepped down from her post despite the possible conflicts of interest.

"The range of unscientific ideas, wellness products, and conspiratorial claims that Means is associated with," the report says, "makes her a potentially dangerous person to serve in a role that requires being a credible health communicator for the country and upholding sound science."

The state of healthcare in the United States, the report says, is about to become more precarious following the passage of the "One Big Beautiful Bill Act," which is projected to result in 10 million people losing their health insurance. Medicare privatization has also accelerated, with hiked rates for Medicare Advantage plans.

"The fact that Trump, Kennedy, and their allies have taken so many dangerous and misguided actions on health in just the early months of the new administration," the report says, "highlights the need for vigilance and strong pushback from anyone who wants a better healthcare system."

 

Trump and America: One-hundred days in the waiting room of fascism

Wednesday 30 April 2025, by Dan La Botz

  Version imprimable

Since taking office 100 days ago, President Donald Trump has been engaged in destroying America’s liberal, democratic state and its social welfare systems, taking away citizens’ and non-citizens’ rights, and attacking the institutions of civil society such as universities and the media. Trump’s attack on our government and our society has shocked, disoriented, and disconcerted the American people. The resistance has been growing, but is still too divided, small, and weak to stop Trump

Trump dominates the Republican Party that controls not only the presidency, but also Congress and the Supreme Court. Trump created and put billionaire Elon Musk in charge of the Department of Government Efficiency which has run riot through government departments and agencies carrying out mass firings of hundreds of thousands of federal workers and cutting the budget of social welfare programs. Trump has signed 137 executive orders, many of them directed to ending diversity, equity, and inclusion programs that deal with racism. The flurry of actions by Trump, Musk and others are too numerous to list, so we look at only a few areas.

Trump, and his immigration team, Stephen Miller and Tom Homan, are ramping up mass deportations of immigrants. In August the Trump administration will end temporary protective status (TPS) which provides the right to live and work in the United States for 800,000 immigrants from 16 countries. They will have to leave or be subject to deportation to Haiti or Ukraine or wherever they’re from. Trump’s ultimate goal is to deport 11 million undocumented immigrants and he is prepared to do so under a 1798 law known as the Alien Enemies Act which allows the president to deport immigrants without a hearing. Hundreds of immigrants have been rounded up in violation of the Constitution and without due process and deported and imprisoned in El Salvador. Trump has said that he is also prepared to deport U.S. citizens in the same way.

Trump and his Secretary of Health Robert F. Kennedy Jr. have taken an axe to the two most important government public health institutions in the United States: The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and the National Institutes of Health (NIH). They plan to cut the CDC from 82,000 to 62,000 employees. At the NIH 1,200 are being laid off and 30,000 scientists have had their research funding abruptly terminated. And $2.7 billion will be cut from research grants.

Kennedy who has promoted conspiracy theories is an anti-vaxxer who now faces the largest measles outbreak in decades. In 2000, the United States declared that thanks to vaccination measles had been eliminated, but now, due to the anti-vaxxers who refused to vaccinate their kids, there are almost 900 cases of measles in 29 states, with two children and one adult dead. We risk a national epidemic.

The Republicans are anxious to extend Trump’s 2017 tax cuts for the rich from 2025 to 2034 at a cost of $4.5 trillion in federal revenue. At the same time, the Internal Revenue Service workforce that collects the taxes is being reduced from 102,000 to 65,000 employees, so fewer taxes will be collected. All of that means that with less income, there must be less spending. The New York Times writes that “The proposed budget for the 2026 fiscal year would cut billions of dollars from programs that support child care, health research, education, housing assistance, community development and the elderly.”

The situation is frightening, dangerous. The resistance largely takes the form of legal action. Some 186 lawsuits have been brought against the Trump administration and in 122 of them the courts have at least temporarily paused the closing of agencies and firing of workers. There have been national protests that brought millions into the streets, but so far nothing is stopping Trump.

Attached documents

• trump-and-america-one-hundred-days-in-the-waiting-room-of_a8973.pdf (PDF - 905.2 KiB)
  Extraction PDF [->article8973]

Dan La Botz
Dan La Botz was a founding member of Teamsters for a Democratic Union (TDU). He is the author of Rank-and-File Rebellion: Teamsters for a Democratic Union (1991). He is also a co-editor of New Politics and editor of Mexican Labor News and Analysis.


International Viewpoint is published under the responsibility of the Bureau of the Fourth International. Signed articles do not necessarily reflect editorial policy. Articles can be reprinted with acknowledgement, and a live link if possible.

United States - Trump and America: One-hundred PRIL in the waiting room of fascism

APRIL,  30  2025, by LA BOTZ Dan

Since taking office 100 days ago, President Donald Trump has been engaged in destroying America’s liberal, democratic state and its social welfare systems, taking away citizens’ and non-citizens’ rights, and attacking the institutions of civil society such as universities and the media. Trump’s attack on our government and our society has shocked, disoriented, and disconcerted the American people. The resistance has been growing, but is still too divided, small, and weak to stop Trump.

Trump dominates the Republican Party that controls not only the presidency, but also Congress and the Supreme Court. Trump created and put billionaire Elon Musk in charge of the Department of Government Efficiency which has run riot through government departments and agencies carrying out mass firings of hundreds of thousands of federal workers and cutting the budget of social welfare programs. Trump has signed 137 executive orders, many of them directed to ending diversity, equity, and inclusion programs that deal with racism. The flurry of actions by Trump, Musk and others are too numerous to list, so we look at only a few areas.

Trump, and his immigration team, Stephen Miller and Tom Homan, are ramping up mass deportations of immigrants. In August the Trump administration will end temporary protective status (TPS) which provides the right to live and work in the United States for 800,000 immigrants from 16 countries. They will have to leave or be subject to deportation to Haiti or Ukraine or wherever they’re from. Trump’s ultimate goal is to deport 11 million undocumented immigrants and he is prepared to do so under a 1798 law known as the Alien Enemies Act which allows the president to deport immigrants without a hearing. Hundreds of immigrants have been rounded up in violation of the Constitution and without due process and deported and imprisoned in El Salvador. Trump has said that he is also prepared to deport U.S. citizens in the same way.

Trump and his Secretary of Health Robert F. Kennedy Jr. have taken an axe to the two most important government public health institutions in the United States: The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and the National Institutes of Health (NIH). They plan to cut the CDC from 82,000 to 62,000 employees. At the NIH 1,200 are being laid off and 30,000 scientists have had their research funding abruptly terminated. And $2.7 billion will be cut from research grants.

Kennedy who has promoted conspiracy theories is an anti-vaxxer who now faces the largest measles outbreak in decades. In 2000, the United States declared that thanks to vaccination measles had been eliminated, but now, due to the anti-vaxxers who refused to vaccinate their kids, there are almost 900 cases of measles in 29 states, with two children and one adult dead. We risk a national epidemic.

The Republicans are anxious to extend Trump’s 2017 tax cuts for the rich from 2025 to 2034 at a cost of $4.5 trillion in federal revenue. At the same time, the Internal Revenue Service workforce that collects the taxes is being reduced from 102,000 to 65,000 employees, so fewer taxes will be collected. All of that means that with less income, there must be less spending. The New York Times writes that “The proposed budget for the 2026 fiscal year would cut billions of dollars from programs that support child care, health research, education, housing assistance, community development and the elderly.”

The situation is frightening, dangerous. The resistance largely takes the form of legal action. Some 186 lawsuits have been brought against the Trump administration and in 122 of them the courts have at least temporarily paused the closing of agencies and firing of workers. There have been national protests that brought millions into the streets, but so far nothing is stopping Trump.

Dan La Botz

---

P.S.

• IVP. Wednesday 30 April 2025:
https://internationalviewpoint.org/spip.php?article8973

RFK Jr. Spreads Dangerous Lies About Measles as Texas Outbreak Tops 220 Cases

Dozens of people, mostly children, have been hospitalized in Texas due to the outbreak.

By Chris Walker , 

Truthout

March 12, 2025

Signs point the way to measles testing in the parking lot of the Seminole Hospital District across from Wigwam Stadium on February 27, 2025, in Seminole, Texas.Jan Sonnenmair / Getty Images


Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is pushing dangerous falsehoods about measles as an outbreak in western Texas and eastern New Mexico rages on.

In Texas specifically, a total of 223 people have contracted measles since the outbreak began in January, with at least 29 people, mostly children, requiring hospitalization. One child, who was unvaccinated, has died from measles, while a second unvaccinated person’s death is currently being investigated by health officials.

The outbreak doesn’t show signs of ending anytime soon, and the Texas Department of State Health Services has predicted that “additional cases are likely to occur in the outbreak area and the surrounding communities.”

Another case of measles has been identified in Maryland. That individual recently arrived in the state from an international trip, and it’s not suspected their infection is related to the Texas outbreak.

The federal response to the measles outbreak in the Lone Star State has been muddled by Kennedy repeatedly peddling disinformation regarding how to prevent and treat the virus.

Related Story

Measles Outbreak in Texas Highlights Impact of Underinvestment in Public Health
Like COVID, measles is revealing how aging infrastructure and doctor shortages leave rural communities vulnerable. By Pooja Salhotra , TheTexasTribune March 10, 2025

Late in February, Kennedy, a noted anti-vaxxer, downplayed the significance of the outbreak, claiming that such outbreaks happen “every year” — ignoring the fact that 20 years ago, before anti-vaccine sentiment gained prominence, measles were considered eliminated in the U.S. due to low case numbers. The HHS head also falsely stated that people were only hospitalized for measles in Texas for “quarantine” purposes, a claim that has been disputed by a Texas health official.

Kennedy has since said that vaccines could work to protect people in the region. However, he has continued to push disinformation about the prevention and treatment of the virus.

In an appearance on Fox News earlier this month, for example, Kennedy claimed that higher doses of Vitamin A — including cod liver oil — could help in treating measles. Vitamin A is pushed in other countries as a helpful treatment, but usually only when a person’s body is experiencing a deficiency in that vitamin. Cod liver oil contains Vitamin A, but, according to FactCheck.org, it “isn’t advised at all for measles — and would need to be consumed in a potentially dangerous amount to get the recommended dosage of the vitamin used during an infection.”

Telling viewers to consider those options could discourage them from seeking professional medical treatment if they or their family members get sick, and could also cause harms unrelated to the virus itself.

On Tuesday, Kennedy continued to promote falsehoods about the virus. In a second appearance on Fox News, in an interview with host Sean Hannity, Kennedy baselessly insinuated that contracting measles is a better protection against the virus than getting vaccinated — a claim that is both unfounded and dangerous, as the long-term effects of measles can be very detrimental.

“It used to be, when I was a kid, that everybody got measles. And the measles gave you lifetime protection against measles infection. The vaccine doesn’t do that,” Kennedy, who has no professional or educational background in health care, said on the program.

A two-dose vaccination regimen against measles generally gives lifetime protection against the virus. When “breakthrough measles” cases do occur, they are generally milder in severity and have fewer complications compared to cases in which unvaccinated people contract measles, other research has found.

According to Johns Hopkins University, exposing people to measles, especially children, is far more dangerous than vaccination.

“Measles is a dangerous disease and the vaccine is very safe. The risks of severe illness, death, or lifelong complications from measles infection far outweigh the generally mild side effects some people experience following vaccination,” the university says on its website.

Five Years After COVID’s Onset, the Republican Party Wages War Against Vaccines

Despite the ongoing spread of COVID, measles and bird flu, Trump has handed power to anti-vaxxers and vaccine skeptics.

By Sasha Abramsky ,

Truthout

March 11, 2025

A health worker prepares a dose of the measles vaccine at a health center in Lubbock, Texas, on February 27, 2025.Ronaldo Schemidt / AFP via Getty Images

With vaccine skeptic Robert F. Kennedy Jr. now in control of the Department of Health and Human Services, state-level anti-vax politicians believe their moment has struck to fundamentally shift the country away from mass vaccination programs. As a result, the U.S. stands on the edge of a series of cascading public health crises.

Today marks the fifth anniversary of the World Health Organization’s declaration of the global COVID-19 pandemic, and the rapid implementation of stay-at-home orders in an attempt to stem the tide of airborne sickness and death.

In the days leading up to this grave anniversary, last week Iowa Republicans moved a state bill out of subcommittee and into the full Iowa Senate Health and Human Services Committee that would make it a misdemeanor offense for Iowa doctors to give a patient an mRNA vaccine. The bill, Senate File 360, targeted what its supporters labeled “gene-based vaccines,” which it defined as those generated through using mRNA, and threatened health care providers with a $500 fine for vaccinating patients, and, even more insidiously, with a revocation of their state license to practice.

In the end, the bill didn’t make it out of the full committee and onto the Iowa Senate floor, thus killing it off for the current legislative year. But the fact that both of the Republicans on the three-person subcommittee voted to advance it, despite public comments being overwhelmingly against the measure, is indicative of how far anti-vaxxers have advanced in mainstreaming their ideas within the GOP. Legislators in Montana and Idaho have also introduced legislation this year aimed at banning mRNA vaccines.

Meanwhile, Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis has asked legislators to make permanent a ban on COVID vaccine mandates at both government offices and private businesses. And state public health officials in Louisiana have stopped all promotion of COVID vaccines and Mpox vaccines, and have even stopped promoting routine flu shots as well. This follows on from Texas’s decision last year to stop promoting COVID shots.

Related Story

Don’t Forget the History of COVID in Prison: An Interview With Victoria Law
The pandemic bared the cruelty of prison in new ways. It was a lost opportunity to move away from mass incarceration. By Maya Schenwar , Truthout March 11, 2025

In recent years, a growing number of GOP voters have self-identified as vaccine skeptics. Polling last year suggested that only 26 percent of these voters believed it was “extremely important” for their children to stay up to date on their vaccines. By contrast, nearly two-thirds of Democratic voters felt this to be “extremely important.”

Many vaccine skeptics send their children to private schools so as to avoid having to comply with public school vaccine mandates, and in some school districts in places like West Texas, the epicenter of the latest measles outbreak, the numbers of unvaccinated children far exceeds the 5 percent safety threshold that allows for herd immunity to largely stymie the spread of measles.

It’s not a surprise, therefore, that five years after COVID began its rampage through the U.S. population, on the way to killing well over 1.2 million people, the U.S. is facing a series of growing public health risks.

In Texas and New Mexico, the most serious outbreak of measles in the U.S. in decades has sickened hundreds and killed at least two people, including an unvaccinated child and an unvaccinated adult.

In normal times, given the hyperinfectious nature of measles, the CDC, the NIH, and every other branch of the federal and state public health system would be firing on all cylinders to get as many unvaccinated children and adults as possible vaccinated.

But these aren’t normal times: Public health agencies are being decimated by huge personnel and spending cuts; the travel budgets of staffers are being all but frozen; vaccine advisory committees aren’t being allowed to meet, meaning that, if and when the vaccine committees resume meeting, it will still be a scramble to accurately choose which flu strains to vaccinate against for next year’s flu season in the northern hemisphere; and scientific grants are being stalled.


Public health officials in Louisiana have stopped all promotion of COVID vaccines and Mpox vaccines.

And while Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has half-heartedly come out in support of the vaccine that protects against measles, mumps and rubella, he has also preached a regimen of cod liver oil and vitamin A for at-risk kids, and continues to muse aloud about the dangers of vaccines, thus muddying the waters at a time when experts say a laser focus on vaccines ought to be the order of the day.

Making matters worse, with huge demand for measles, mumps and rubella vaccines in Texas and New Mexico at the moment, doctors’ offices and pharmacies are reportedly running out of stock of the vaccine; and with the federal government in turmoil, there does not appear to have been a coordinated effort to get extra doses into the states at the epicenter of this epidemic. In fact, while the U.S.’s worst measles outbreak in decades picks up pace, the CDC is busy setting up studies to revisit conspiracy theories about childhood vaccines causing autism — theories that have already been debunked.

Measles isn’t the only infectious disease to worry about. This season, bird flu experts worry that with hospitals seeing so many people suffering from regular flu, there’s a risk that the few patients with H5N1, or bird flu, might serve as incubators for a mutation of the bird flu that picks up genes from regular flu — hand-delivered by the large numbers of patients being admitted to hospitals — that would allow it to transmit within the human population more effectively. The World Health Organization, with which Trump recently severed U.S. ties — estimates a mortality rate as high as 50 percent for H5N1. Given the lethality of bird flu, vaccine research should be center stage. Instead, the “Department of Government Efficiency” accidentally fired many of the USDA’s bird flu experts; and while the department did try to rehire these workers once the mistake was identified, not all have returned. Meanwhile, as mentioned above, the CDC has put on hold vaccine committees that study the flu and recommend vaccines.

Meanwhile, advocates worry that distribution of the Mpox vaccine is at risk. The reason is that outreach for the vaccine has targeted the LGBTQ population, since the disease has spread furthest within that group in the U.S.; but in the new anti-DEI era, this targeted outreach may run afoul of new restrictions on what words can and can’t be used in government public health efforts.

And, with USAID programs around the world terminated, as well as contracts with UNICEF, major international efforts to eradicate polio through expanding vaccination efforts have also been thrown into reverse, leading to the very real possibility of burgeoning polio outbreaks. Given the infectiousness of the disease, it’s unlikely that large-scale outbreaks in multiple countries would be contained overseas, and it’s all too likely that wealthy countries such as the U.S. could also see polio outbreaks in consequence of these shortsighted spending cuts.

As more of Trump’s nominees get confirmed, the anti-vax leanings of the federal government will only become more pronounced. Dave Weldon, the physician nominated to head the CDC, has publicly embraced conspiracy theories about childhood vaccines and autism — despite such theories being thoroughly disproved. Jay Bhattacharya, Trump’s nominee to head the NIH, is more measured in his conversation on vaccines — but he, too, appears open to funding studies to explore potential links with autism. And in his address to Congress last week, Trump himself appeared to lean into the notion that vaccines lead to autism, prompting at least one Democratic lawmaker to walk out of the speech.

The COVID pandemic, which began surging in the U.S. five years ago, should have led to more long-term investments in public health and in vaccination programs across the country. Instead, five years and well over a million deaths later, the pandemic has given way to political fissures and a federal government tilting the scales against vaccine research and distribution. It’s hard to see how this can lead to anything other than more preventable disease outbreaks and more deaths.

This article is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0), and you are free to share and republish under the terms of the license.


Sasha Abramsky
Sasha Abramsky is a freelance journalist and a part-time lecturer at the University of California at Davis. His work has appeared in numerous publications, including The Nation, The Atlantic Monthly, New York Magazine, The Village Voice and Rolling Stone. He also writes a weekly political column. Originally from England, with a bachelor’s in politics, philosophy and economics from Oxford University and a master’s degree from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, he now lives in Sacramento, California.

'Going to go much higher': Doctor slams anti-vaxxers amid Texas measles crisis

Brad Reed
February 17, 2025 
RAW STORY

Doctor vaccinates child patient. (Arlette Lopez/Shutterstock.) 

Dr. Jonathan Reiner on Monday warned that the measles outbreak currently hammering communities in Texas is only going to get worse in the coming weeks.

Appearing on CNN, Reiner was asked by host Manu Raju how concerned he was about the measles outbreak which is largely hitting unvaccinated communities.

He replied that he was extremely worried about what's to come.

"It's going to go much higher, Manu," he said. "It's completely related to anti-vaccine sentiment... Texas as a whole has a very liberal opt-out policy for vaccinating kids before school. And in Texas, in that county in Texas, 18 percent of kindergartners, their parents opted them out of of vaccination. So there is a huge opportunity for a very opportunistic virus like measles to infect kids."

Reiner further emphasized that resistance to vaccinations was the primary reason that measles was ripping through communities.

"What's sad about this is that this is completely preventable," he said. "The vaccine is really spectacularly effective at preventing infection, it's about 98 percent effective at preventing infection. So every single person who's coming down now with measles in Texas is basically acquiring this disease because they have not been vaccinated."

Watch the video below or at this link.

Vaccine misinformation: a lasting side effect from Covid


ByAFP
January 18, 2025


The pandemic led to a surge in anti-vaccine misinformation that is still affecting the world, experts warn - Copyright AFP/File Stefani Reynolds
Chloé Rabs and Daniel Lawler

A fringe anti-vaccine movement took advantage of the Covid-19 pandemic to bring conspiracy theories to a much wider audience, propelling dangerous misinformation about life-saving jabs that still endures five years later, experts warn.

Vaccine scepticism was around long before Covid but the pandemic “served as an accelerant, helping to turn a niche movement into a more powerful force,” according to a 2023 paper in The Lancet journal.

The pandemic also marked a change in strategy by anti-vaxxers, who previously targeted parents because children routinely received the most jabs.

But when next-generation vaccines were developed in record time to help bring Covid under control, mandatory vaccination was introduced for adults in many countries.

Vaccine scepticism suddenly had a much larger audience, bringing together people across swathes of the political spectrum.

“During this period, we observed several bubbles with normally well-defined borders converge towards anti-vaccine beliefs,” said Romy Sauvayre, a French sociologist specialising in vaccine hesitancy.

The pandemic saw conspiracy theorists, “alternative medicine” enthusiasts, politicians and even some doctors and researchers make or amplify false information about vaccines or Covid.

One example was hydroxychloroquine, which controversial French researcher Didier Raoult claimed could cure Covid, in an initial study that was recently retracted.

Donald Trump, who was US president at the time and will be inaugurated again on Monday, was among those who then promoted the drug.

“Behind these sometimes quite radical media doctors, there are broader issues of trust in health authorities,” said sociologist Jeremy Ward, who has studied vaccination in France since 2020.

– ‘Backbone of vaccine misinformation’ –

Beyond concerns about health, “this movement has mainly been structured around the defence of individual freedom”, said Jocelyn Raude, a researcher in health psychology.

This was seen during the pandemic, when protests proliferated against mandatory vaccination and lockdown measures.

The anti-vaccine movement found particularly fertile ground on the far-right, with some proponents reaching the highest rungs of power.

Trump’s pick for health secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., has repeatedly spread anti-vaccine conspiracies, including suggesting that Covid is an “ethnically targeted” virus.

The Center for Countering Digital Hate named RFK Jr. and his anti-vaccine group Children’s Health Defense — from which Kennedy has temporarily withdrawn — among its “disinformation dozen” of leading online anti-vaxxers.

Callum Hood, the centre’s head of research, said Kennedy’s “accounts were some of the fastest growing anti-vaccine accounts during the pandemic”, reaching an audience of millions.

“That is a really strong position to be in when you start to look to build a support base for his political ambitions.”

Noel Brewer, a public health professor at the University of North Carolina and one of the authors of The Lancet study, said that “social media has been the backbone of vaccine misinformation efforts”.

– Rising measles as bird flu looms –

The consequences of this mass misinformation are difficult to calculate.

“Some researchers believe that repeated exposure to false information can cause people to not get vaccinated, while others believe the effect is relatively weak because it would only allow them to justify pre-existing vaccine hesitancy,” said Raude.

Meg Schaeffer, an epidemiologist at the SAS Institute, told AFP that “misinformation around Covid” was driving down overall vaccination rates in the United States, including for long-conquered measles.

“The result is hundreds of cases of measles in kids, half of whom are hospitalised — that’s something we never used to see in the US,” she said.

With fears rising about the potential threat of bird flu to spark a mass outbreak in humans, there are also concerns that vaccine hesitancy could inhibit the world’s ability to fend off another pandemic.

“If we would for instance be confronted with a pandemic in the near future, we would have major issues with the use of vaccines because of that,” Dutch virologist Marion Koopmans told AFP.

With the world largely turning its attention away from Covid, some anti-vaxx influencers have been pivoting to other conspiracy theories.

“These same accounts now share content that is pro-Russian or sceptical about climate change,” said Laurent Cordonier, a sociologist at the Descartes Foundation.

While these subjects may not seem connected, “the driving force is anti-system sentiment”, he added.