Just get sick

The party of more disease won.

President-elect Trump says he’s going to let Robert F. Kennedy Jr. “go wild on health.” That has many pediatricians nervous, because of RFK Jr.’s anti-vaccine rhetoric. When another vaccine skeptic, Joseph Ladapo, became surgeon general in Florida, some doctors there say vaccine hesitancy got worse.

“It’s because people in power, like our surgeon general, as an example, are pushing this anti-vax message,” says Dr. Jeffrey Goldhagen, a professor of pediatrics at the University of Florida College of Medicine and president of the International Society for Social Pediatrics and Child Health.

Vaccine hesitancy has been growing in Florida. The routine childhood vaccination rate for kindergartners is now at 90.6%. That’s the lowest rate in more than a decade — and it’s well below the threshold needed for herd immunity against highly contagious diseases like measles.

Whatever. It’s worth spreading dangerous diseases in order to stick it to the libs.

When a measles outbreak occurs, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention advises parents to keep unvaccinated children at home after exposure, to stop the disease from spreading. But Florida Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo’s advice was quite different: He told parents of unvaccinated children that it was up to them to decide whether to send their children to school or keep them home.

Freedom. Freedom freedom freedom.

Ladapo has become a frequent target of critics who say his stances on vaccines go against established science. Last year, the CDC and FDA sent Ladapo a letter reprimanding him for spreading misinformation about COVID vaccines and fueling vaccine hesitancy. Now, Ladapo has been mentioned as a possible candidate to lead the Department of Health and Human Services. So has RFK Jr.

Yes, because freedom, and also because medical science is for libs while guesswork and unreasonable optimism are for the good people.

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