Vaccine expert worries child measles deaths are being 'normalized'
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There's a moment from Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s confirmation hearing that now feels very relevant. Senator Ron Wyden, a Democrat from Oregon, is pressing Kennedy on his long history purveying misinformation about vaccines. In 2021, in a book called The Measles Book, you wrote that parents...

had been, quote, misled into believing that measles is a deadly disease and that measles vaccines are necessary, safe and effective. And Wyden asks Kennedy directly about measles. Mr. Kennedy, is measles deadly? Yes or no?

The death rate from measles... The exchange quickly devolves into crosstalk, but at the end of it, before Wyden's time expires, Kennedy said this. We need to move on. Senator, I support the measles vaccine. I support the polio vaccine. I will do nothing as HHS secretary.

That makes it difficult or discourages people from taking either of those vaccines. Anybody who believes that ought to look at the measles book you wrote saying parents have been misled into believing that measles is a deadly disease. That's not true.

This exchange is relevant now because the U.S. is in the midst of ongoing measles outbreaks, more than 700 cases so far this year, three deaths. As the Secretary of Health and Human Services, Kennedy, has said, the measles vaccine is the best way to prevent the spread of the disease. He reiterated that in an interview last week with CBS News.

The federal government's position, my position is people should get the measles vaccine. But in the same interview, he raised false doubts about vaccines. Right now, we don't know the risks of many of these products because they're not safety tests. And alongside vaccines, Kennedy has talked up unproven treatments for measles. His department has also cut billions of dollars of funding to state health departments, which puts local vaccination programs at risk.

And he forced out the Food and Drug Administration's top vaccine regulator, Dr. Peter Marks. In Marks' resignation letter, he wrote, "...truth and transparency are not desired by the Secretary, but rather he wishes subservient confirmation of his misinformation and lies."

Consider this. RFK Jr. publicly promised he would support vaccines when he became health secretary. As a measles outbreak rages, Marks says his department is not doing enough. From NPR, I'm Mary Louise Kelly. Support for NPR and the following message come from Betterment, the automated investing and savings app. CEO Sarah Levy shares how Betterment utilizes tech tools powered by human advice.

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It's Consider This from NPR. Measles is an extremely contagious disease. It is also extremely preventable. The vaccine is highly effective. For decades, it has made measles outbreaks in the U.S. relatively rare and measles deaths rarer still. That is why public health experts say vaccination is a critical part of getting the current outbreaks under control.

Secretary Kennedy has a decades-long history of undermining confidence in vaccines. So how is his department handling this outbreak? For one view on that, I spoke with Dr. Peter Marks. He was the top vaccine regulator at the FDA until he was forced out last month after clashing with Kennedy. May I begin with what happened last month? You had been in this top vaccine job at the FDA since 2016. Why did you leave?

You know, it wasn't an elective departure, but it was one that became clear that it was going to happen based on an accelerating number of events that seem to be conspiring against vaccines in this country. Can you briefly walk us through what you were not on board with that you saw happening? We, I think, need to focus on what is in front of us right now.

in the world, which is right now we have outbreak of measles in the United States. We have other infectious diseases which are potentially preventable with vaccines. And we have vaccines for these infectious diseases that are both safe and effective.

May I, and I want to get into everything that you're setting us up to discuss about vaccines, but I do have another question about the circumstances of your departure. The HHS put out a statement in which they said, if you do not want to get behind restoring science to its golden standard and promoting radical transparency, then he, meaning you, Dr. Marks, he has no place at FDA under the strong leadership of Secretary Kennedy, end quote.

May I ask your response? Yeah, so I'm happy to respond to that. Anybody who knows me knows that that is Orwellian speak because they know that I am somebody that is guided by the science and that will follow the science in support of doing what is right.

and in support of my Hippocratic oath as a physician. So I view that as something that I'd rather just move past because dwelling on that is not gonna help save the next child that's likely to die from measles in the next two to four weeks in the United States based on the current epidemic curve.

Let me focus us on these measles outbreaks. The epicenter is in Texas, in rural West Texas. How satisfied are you with the federal response? I believe that the federal response has been tepid at best. It is not the type of forceful response that's necessary now that we have outbreaks of at least three cases in at least seven jurisdictions.

There are many other states that have isolated cases, and not every case is reported to CDC, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. And we estimate that the actual number of cases is probably roughly five times as many as has been reported to CDC. So you're dealing, as ever, with imperfect data. What would a forceful response look like?

A forceful response involves going into the various states, working with the states to find the best way to get across the message for vaccination in that particular state. Because this particular vaccine has benefits that so greatly outweigh the risks. I need to say it as many times as I can. The vaccine doesn't kill children. The vaccine doesn't cause encephalitis. And the vaccine doesn't cause autism.

The vaccine has some transient short-lived adverse effects in about 15 to 20 per 100,000. But compare that to 100 to 120 deaths per 100,000 children who get measles.

And this is a remarkably good vaccine.

that the protection offered by the MMR vaccine, measles, mumps, rubella, that it wanes very rapidly. Is that true?

That's a false statement. Two doses of this vaccine provides essentially lifelong immunity. That kind of statement, as well as the statements about how the vaccine doesn't give good maternal transfer of antibodies to a neonate, as well as natural measles infection, those are just ways to discourage vaccination. And so that subtle way of

I encourage vaccination, but maybe it's not such a great idea. That's not how we do public health messaging. Another point that Kennedy has made is talking about the benefits of infection. I'm referencing an interview he gave to Fox in which he said,

Back in the day, everybody got measles. Measles gave you lifetime protection against measles infection, and the vaccine doesn't do that. Dr. Marks, your response? Okay. So if we want to go back to a time when we got our drinking water from the same place that we put our sewage, we can go ahead and do that.

But we have made tremendous public health advances. One of them is vaccination. Vaccines that we have that come through the FDA approval process in the United States have been determined to have benefits that greatly outweigh risks. Measles vaccine provides protection nearly lifelong.

against a virus that kills otherwise about one in a thousand children who get the virus. So if we decide that we want everyone to get the measles so they have lifelong protection, it means that one child out of every thousand will die. Those are healthy children.

When and how do you see this current measles outbreak ending? Well, I think what's probably going to happen is at some point after a few more children die, someone will really get activated and we will have the kind of robust public health response that we need. I hope that happens before too many children's lives are lost. But you think that's what it's going to take? More children dying?

It's such an awful thought. I would have thought that after a second child died, we would have all been activated to do this. But it seems like because it's being normalized as, well, children die of measles, this is something I truly worry about. And it actually keeps me up nights some because there is no reason in the United States for us to have a single child die of measles. ♪

Dr. Peter Marks, he was, until last month, the top vaccine regulator at the Food and Drug Administration. Dr. Marks, thank you. Thank you so much for having me. This episode was produced by Connor Donovan. It was edited by Courtney Dorning. Our executive producer is Sammy Yinnigan. It's Consider This from NPR. I'm Mary Louise Kelly.

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