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Mastodon: AboutGet the appKeyboard shortcutsView source codev4.4.0-nightly.2025-03-19

Public *
ˈdälfən™🐬 💥 🌊

There is so much wrong with this statement by Health & Human Services (HHS) Secretary RFK Jr.

1) Autism isn’t a chronic disease. It isn’t even a disease.

2) Autism doesn’t lead to someone potentially developing fatal encephalitis (brain swelling) or pneumonia.

3) Autism doesn’t require urgent medical hospitalization (which measles can) & stress the healthcare system.

3) Autism doesn’t spread from person-to-person in the air.

/1

"We've had two measles deaths in 20 years in this country - we have 100,000 autism diagnoses every year," he said. "We need to keep our eye on the ball. Chronic disease is our enemy." https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/10/health/measles-texas-kennedy-fox.html Accessed: 10 March 2025 at 1636 MST
#PublicHealth#measles#autism
Public
ˈdälfən™🐬 💥 🌊

It’s true that the measles generally has a low mortality rate in the #USA, but that doesn’t mean it is something to fool around with.

The effect of disease is more than mortality (death). It’s about morbidity (illness, chronic illness) too.

And the #measles can make someone VERY ill.

/4

#PublicHealth #health

~ Measles rarely kills in the US – but when it does, here’s how ~
(from 2019)

cnn.com/2019/02/05/health/how-

CNN · Measles rarely kills in the US – but when it does, here’s howBy Susan Scutti
Public
ˈdälfən™🐬 💥 🌊

Again, it’s not all about the potential of measles to cause death. The disease has significant morbidity risk as well.

Complications from #measles can lead to permanent blindness, deafness, or intellectual disability (all of which affect someone for life).

/5

Death isn't the only possible consequence. Measles can also cause permanent blindness, deafness and intellectual disability. Before the vaccine became available, about a thousand people every year had encephalitis because of the virus. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/10/health/measles-texas-kennedy-fox.html Accessed: 10 March 2025 at 1636 MST
#PublicHealth#health
Public *
ˈdälfən™🐬 💥 🌊

So it’s a false comparison.

Here are screenshots of the article if you want to check it out.

/6a

#PublicHealth #health #measles #autism #rfkjr

~ Without Offering Proof, Kennedy Links Measles Outbreak to Poor Diet and Health ~

nytimes.com/2025/03/10/health/

Without Offering Proof, Kennedy Links Measles Outbreak to Poor Diet and Health In a recent interview, the health secretary also suggested that the measles vaccine had harmed children in West Texas, center of an outbreak. In an interview posted online last week, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the health secretary, offered unorthodox, and at times contradictory, messages on vaccination. Eric Lee/The New York Times (Image of the Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary raising his right hand by a podium and microphone as if speaking to an audience). https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/10/health/measles-texas-kennedy-fox.html Accessed: 10 March 2025 at 1636 MST
By Teddy Rosenbluth March 10, 2025 Updated 5:22 p.m. ET In a sweeping interview, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the health and human services secretary, outlined a strategy for containing the measles outbreak in West Texas that strayed far from mainstream science, relying heavily on fringe theories about prevention and treatments. He issued a muffled call for vaccinations in the affected community, but said the choice was a personal one. He suggested that measles vaccine injuries were more common than known, contrary to extensive research. He asserted that natural immunity to measles, gained through infection, somehow also protected against cancer and heart disease, a claim not supported by research. He cheered on questionable treatments like cod liver oil, and said that local doctors had achieved "almost miraculous and instantaneous" recoveries with steroids or antibiotics. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/10/health/measles-texas-kennedy-fox.html Accessed: 10 March 2025 at 1636 MST
The worsening measles outbreak, which has largely spread through a Mennonite community in Gaines County, has infected nearly 200 people and killed a child, the first such death in the United States in 10 years. Another suspected measles death has been reported in New Mexico, where cases have recently increased in a county that borders Gaines County. The interview, which lasted 35 minutes, was posted online by Fox News last week, just before the President Trump's address to Congress. Segments had been posted earlier, but the full version received little attention. Mr. Kennedy offered conflicting public health messages as he tried to reconcile the government's longstanding endorsement of vaccines with his own decades-long skepticism. Vaccines are "recommended" for West Texans, but the risks of immunization have been underestimated, he said. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/10/health/measles-texas-kennedy-fox.html Accessed: 10 March 2025 at 1636 MST
Mr. Kennedy acknowledged that vaccines "do prevent infection" and said that the federal government was helping ensure that people have access to "good medicines, including those who want them, to vaccines." "In highly unvaccinated communities like Mennonites, it's something that we recommend," he said. Mr. Kennedy described vaccination as a personal choice that must be respected, then went on to raise frightening concerns about the safety of the vaccines. He said he'd been told that a dozen Mennonite children had been injured by vaccines in Gaines County. People in the community wanted federal health workers arriving in Texas "to also look at our vaccine-injured kids and look them in the eye," Mr. Kennedy said. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/10/health/measles-texas-kennedy-fox.html Accessed: 10 March 2025 at 1636 MST
Public
ˈdälfən™🐬 💥 🌊

/6b
(more article screenshots)

#PublicHealth #health #measles #autism #rfkjr

~ Without Offering Proof, Kennedy Links Measles Outbreak to Poor Diet and Health ~

Yet the M.M.R. vaccine itself has been thoroughly studied and is safe. There is no link to autism, as the secretary has claimed in the past. While all vaccines have occasional adverse effects, health official worldwide have concluded that the benefits far outweigh the very small risks of vaccination. Mr. Kennedy asserted otherwise: "We don't know what the risk profile is for these products. We need to restore government trust. And we're going to do that by telling the truth, and by doing rigorous science to understand both safety and efficacy issues." In response to questions about Mr. Kennedy's position on vaccination, a Health and Human Services spokesman pointed to a recent opinion piece in which he wrote that the shots prevented children from contracting measles and protected people who couldn't be vaccinated. "However, he believes that 'the decision to vaccinate is a personal one," the spokesman said, referring to Mr. Kennedy's opinion article. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/10/health/measles-texas-kennedy-fox.html Accessed: 10 March 2025 at 1636 MST
Mr. Kennedy claimed that it was "very difficult" for measles to kill a healthy person and that malnutrition played a role in the Texas outbreak. Early in the interview, Mr. Kennedy acknowledged the seriousness of measles infection, noting that it can lead to death, brain swelling and pneumonia. But he also described the illness as rarely fatal, even before 1963, when the vaccine became available. He said measles has a "very, very low infection fatality rate." According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, for every thousand people infected with measles in the United States, the virus kills one to three. One study estimated that without vaccination today there would be 400,000 hospitalizations and 1,800 deaths annually. Death isn't the only possible consequence. Measles can also cause permanent blindness, deafness and intellectual disability. Before the vaccine became available, about a thousand people every year had encephalitis because of the virus. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/10/health/measles-texas-kennedy-fox.html Accessed: 10 March 2025 at 1636 MST
In later comments, Mr. Kennedy suggested that severe symptoms mainly affected people who were unhealthy before contracting measles. "It's very, very difficult for measles to kill a healthy person," he said, adding later that "we see a correlation between people who get hurt by measles and people who don't have good nutrition or who don't have a good exercise regimen." West Texas is "kind of a food desert," he added. Malnutrition "may have been an issue" for the child who died of measles in Gaines County. Texas health officials said the child had "no known underlying conditions." Dr. Wendell Parkey, a physician in Gaines County with many Mennonite patients, said the idea that the community was malnourished was mistaken. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/10/health/measles-texas-kennedy-fox.html Accessed: 10 March 2025 at 1636 MST
Mennonites often avoid processed foods, raise their own livestock and make their own bread, he noted. From a very young age, many members of the community also help with farming and other physically demanding jobs. "They're the healthiest people out here," he said. "Nutritionally, I would put them up against anybody." https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/10/health/measles-texas-kennedy-fox.html Accessed: 10 March 2025 at 1636 MST
George Baily

@dalfen let me guess - he's going to endorse a proprietary wonder supplement powder drink

Mar 11, 2025, 12:46 PM·Public·Elk
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