“Get vaccinated, please!” We have a solution to your problem! » The recent call for vaccination of Dr Mehmet Oz, administrator of Medicare and Medicaid in the United States, contrasts sharply with his previous support for Robert Kennedy Jr., controversial Secretary of Health.
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But the current outbreak of measles cases in the United States is leading to a change in discourse, at least occasionally. “Not all diseases are equally dangerous (…), but measles is a disease against which you must be vaccinated,” said this heart surgeon a few days ago.
PHOTO JULIA DEMAREE NIKHINSON, ASSOCIATED PRESS ARCHIVES
The Dr Medicare and Medicaid Administrator Mehmet Oz during a White House announcement in February
From a strict epidemiological point of view, it is still too early to establish a certain cause and effect link between the significant resurgence of measles in the United States – at its peak since the turn of the 2000s – and the decisions of Robert Kennedy Jr. until now.
But what seems obvious is that of all diseases, it is measles that will act as the canary in the mine.
If vaccination coverage falls in the United States, it is probably for this disease that it will be felt the most quickly because it is the most contagious and the one on which (Kennedy’s decisions) could have the quickest consequences, if it has not already done so.
The Dr Nicholas Brousseau, public health specialist at the National Institute of Public Health of Quebec
For other less contagious diseases, it will still take “a certain number of years, five, six or seven years, before we see a real resurgence” which could be linked to current decisions, adds the Dr Brousseau.
As concerned as the scientific community is almost everywhere, in the immediate future, in Quebec, the Dr Brousseau notes that Robert Kennedy Jr.’s speech does not seem to have any impact. The proportion of children receiving recommended vaccines remains very high – around 9 out of 10 children, notes the Dr Brousseau.
The Kennedy effect and counter-powers
In any case, the measles boom in the United States adds to the stones accumulating in the shoes of vaccine skeptic Robert Kennedy Jr. these days.
Last week, a federal judge suspended the overhaul of American vaccine policy launched by Donald Trump’s Secretary of Health.
In the decision (which Washington intends to contest), it is written that the American government “disregarded” science and that of the current “fifteen members” of the committee responsible for vaccine recommendations, “only six seem to have significant experience in the field”.
Everything indicates that the states, which have a certain latitude in terms of the vaccination schedule, did not wait for this decision: according to a survey by the non-governmental organization KFF, 30 states, including the District of Columbia where Washington is located, have decided not to follow the new vaccination recommendations emanating from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and inspired by the policies of Robert Kennedy Jr.
The counter-powers are therefore at work, but the Kennedy effect still has immediate repercussions in many places for many parents.
Last Thursday, Reuters reported that the childhood vaccination rate (for the seven core vaccines) fell by three percentage points in Michigan between January 2025 and January of this year, a drop 13 times greater than the average annual change over the past 18 years.
This is consistent with polls conducted in recent months in the United States on people’s loss of confidence in vaccines, notes François Audet, professor at the University of Quebec in Montreal and director of the Canadian Observatory on Humanitarian Crises and Action.
We should not be surprised, he continues. When an anti-vaccine speech is delivered “by a character who looks like a preacher”, it necessarily has an impact.
With Agence France-Presse
