The leading pediatricians were already worried about the future of the vaccine. Then came RFK Jr.

According to Dr. Adam Ratner, a pediatrician, the best and worst cases of vaccination are “nothing happens.”

Children who have been successfully vaccinated against a vaccine-preventable disease – measles are not suffering from disease in their condition to name the most infectious and most infectious of them; I never miss school and don't go to the hospital. They do not suffer from life-changing complications. They will not die prematurely.

Without this action, it is easy to forget the role they played to keep the child healthy. It is easy to disrupt a society that responsibly controls measles for a society no longer threatened by measles.

These moments of self-satisfaction are when effective public health programs creep up, leading to lower vaccine rates and diseases being held back for a long time, Ratner said.

And most often, the first preventable illness is to cover the elbow with the elbow, which is how to get back to the scene. This is a highly contagious virus that is surprisingly skilled at exploiting our social and physical weaknesses.

Measles is “the first thing you see when public health starts to get upset,” Ratner said recently from his office in New York City.

“It's not that humans are immune to these diseases or that they are magically protected against these things that Americans have killed many of us,” he said. “They can come back, and they will.”

Ratner, who leads the pediatric infectious disease unit at Hassenfeld Children's Hospital in Nyu Langone, traces the history of the virus and its vaccinations in his new book, “Booster Shot: The Urgent Lessons of Measles and the Uncertain Future of Child Health.” Masu.

Ratner began drafting the book after the 2018-19 measles outbreak in New York City.

He continued writing during the Covid-19 pandemic as the debate over trust in public health became bitter and insane.

The Senate appears poised to confirm President Trump's candidate, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., and prominent vaccine critic, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., as the next secretary of health. It's published.

“He's sadly writing a book that he couldn't get the timing up,” he said. Dr. Paul Offitvirologist and immunologist at the University of Pennsylvania.

“As people become more and more comfortable with vaccines, vaccination rates are beginning to decline as people become more and more cynical about vaccines. Running a vaccine education center at the Philadelphia Children's Hospital, where Ratner was a fellow, Offitt said: “Measles are coal mine canaries, because it is the most contagious and far-reaching disease that can be prevented by vaccines.”

In a book published Tuesday, Ratner describes the virus that once regularly took a life of “an incomparable ability to spread from person to person.” At least 400 US children per year.

Ratner has become available “well before the moon landing” with a safe, inexpensive and effective vaccine to prevent most cases, but measles is a collective measure necessary to keep the population healthy. It has been proven to be significantly effective in undermining efforts. Vaccines are, to some extent, chronic victims of their own success.

“The more you get to use the measles vaccine, the lower the case rate. The lower the rate, the less people will think about measles,” writes Ratner. Parents may wonder why it is worth injecting their children to prevent illnesses that no one can get. Politicians may question whether the vaccination drive is worth funding.

“When you forget,” writes Ratner. “Measles will flourish.”

Before the introduction to the 1963 measles vaccine, almost all US children signed contracts before their 15th birthday, resulting in the Up to 4 million Every year, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control. An estimated 48,000 people were hospitalized annually due to serious complications such as encephalitis.

The measles vaccine, combined with the 1971 mumps and rubella vaccinations, is widely considered a victory for public health. MMR vaccines have been saving since 2000 An estimated 63 million lives.

there were 284 cases of measles Last year, 40% of those in the US required hospitalization. According to the CDC, 96% of cases were in people who had not been vaccinated, who either had not finished the MMR series or had no known vaccine status.

However, complete eradication remains elusive and control of the virus is unstable, Ratner warns.

The population achieves herd immunity from measles if more than 95% are fully vaccinated. Last year's cohort of kindergarteners failed to reach its target, with only 92.7% completing their measles, mumps and rubella vaccine series. The uptake rate for kindergarteners for all vaccines has decreased from the previous year.

Globally, armed conflict and social upheavals can overturn vaccination goals. But it doesn't require violence to derail public health goals, Ratner writes.

“Even in wealthy countries, when anti-vaccine charlatan and pseudo-science peddlers thrive, when funding for vaccination programs is cut, well-intentioned parents learn how to deliver reliable information from the opposite, as the opposite is slashed when funding for vaccination programs is cut. And therefore, if you can't vaccinate your child, measles is often the first sign,” writes Ratner. “It's a sure sign that other issues aren't that late.”

Ratner completed the book well before the 2024 election and Kennedy's subsequent promotion.

Kennedy has been the chairman of child health defense for several years, falsely claiming that childhood vaccines can cause autism; A well-documented history He publicly questioned the science behind Shot. He described the health effects of the 2015 vaccine as the “Holocaust.” He later apologized.

Confirmation hearings were held twice before Last month, Senate Committee Kennedy said his views on the vaccine were mischaracterized and that he supported a childhood vaccination schedule.

In a recent interview, Ratner said the outsighted vaccine critics, who lead the Department of Health and Human Services, are “terrifying.” “We cannot imagine a bad situation for the country's public health.” (He points out that his view on Kennedy is his own, and does not represent his hospital position.)

“People are trying to make political points and people are angry about a lot of things. But the problem is that fallout is a real kid,” Ratner said. “When you can't license a new vaccine, when you have to fight to maintain what is already licensed on the recommended schedule, it's a child. It's going to suffer.”

As long as humans were experimenting with it, there were vaccination skeptics. When Puritan Minister Cotton Mother publicly proposed in 1721 to be an early form of natural po vaccination, a hand-burner crashed out of his window and crashed with a note. did. Pox for you. ”

Hanging from his office is a framed vintage poster commissioned by the CDC in the late 1970s, when the Vietnam War and Watergate swayed the public's faith in government authorities.

On top of “Star Wars” characters R2-D2 and C-3PO, the poster asks: He reminds us that vaccine hesitancy has been with us for decades, and he says that accessible and reliable messengers can make a difference. The interests are rarely high.

“We've seen a lot of fun and healthy foods,” said Jay Vaughnhagen, a microbiologist and immunologist at Indiana University School of Medicine.

If we can't find a way to rebuild that trust — if the health and public health community doesn't reunite with the public, and the other way around, more people, mostly children, will suffer,” Volnagen said. Ta. “We need to come together as a community, see each other and make choices to expand beyond ourselves.”