Robert F Kennedy Jr once again sparked fury for his comments about measles vaccines and autism — though not for the reason his critics are used to.
The HHS Secretary was grilled on Chris Cuomo’s show on NewsNation for his role in eroding public trust in the measles vaccine, which has led to a resurgence of the virus.
After noting that Canada’s measles count stands higher at 1,069 cases, RFK Jr performed a balletic pivot to a different ‘epidemic’: autism.
‘We’ve had four measles deaths in this country in 20 years,’ RFK Jr said animatedly.
‘We have 100,000 autism cases a year…That should be in the headlines,’ Kennedy told a panel of journalists appearing with Cuomo before an audience of supporters.
He added: ‘When I was a kid, there were 2 million measles cases a year and none of them got headlines. And we had 400 deaths.
‘We had deaths between 1 in 1,200 and 1 in 10,000. We have so many kids now who are afflicted by chronic disease. And the media never covers them. They only want to cover measles.’
The US is in the midst of ever-growing measles outbreaks across 30 states that have sickened 884 people, 97 percent of whom were unvaccinated. About 11 percent of people who have gotten sick have been hospitalized, and three people have died, including two little girls — marking the first fatalities in a decade.
HHS Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr, a long-time vaccine skeptic, once again urged more focus on what he describes as an ‘epidemic’ of autism, rather than on the comparatively small number of deaths caused by measles
Kennedy became increasingly more impassioned as he was asked about vaccine hesitancy and measles, his voice rising in intensity, his hand gestures become more emphatic, and opting instead to talk about chronic diseases more broadly.
His calls for more attention on rising rates of diabetes in children garnered a smattering of applause.
Kennedy has previously made the debunked claim that rising rates of autism spectrum disorders are linked to the measles mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine.
Doctors say the soaring rates are the result of better screening measures, general awareness and changing diagnostic parameters.
‘By 2035, we’re going to be spending a million dollars a year on autism,’ RFK said. ‘Autism in 1970 was 1 in 10,000 Americans. Today, it’s 1 in 31.’
America is an outlier when it comes to autism, with far higher rates than peer nations.
In the UK, around one in 57 children is on the autism spectrum. In Canada, the rate is about one in 50. In Japan it’s roughly one in 55 while Australia’s rate is slightly higher at one in 40.
It comes as Texas experiences America’s largest measles outbreak since 2000, with 663 people — mostly young children — infected.
More cases were recorded in 2019, but officials believe these were the result of multiple outbreaks caused by repeat cases of the virus being imported from abroad.
Two girls, aged 6 and 8, have also died from the disease.
The third confirmed measles death in the US this year was in an unvaccinated adult in New Mexico.
Kennedy said: ‘When I was a kid, there were 2 million measles cases a year, and none of them got headlines. We had 400 deaths – about 1 death per 1,200 cases, or 1 in 10,000.’
Kennedy was approximately 14 years old when the MMR vaccine was introduced.
Until then, measles was considered a necessary evil to be endured in childhood, which could prove fatal, and it did not earn many front-page headlines.
However, when the vaccine became publicly available, annual deaths decreased from approximately 400 to 500 per year to nearly zero.
RFK Jr, pictured on a visit to the epicenter of the measles outbreak in Seminole, Texas, has previously promoted the thoroughly discredited claim that rising autism rates — largely due to improved screening, awareness, and evolving diagnostic criteria — are linked to the MMR vaccine, pesticides, and heavy metals
This led to measles being declared eliminated in 2000 – a designation that means there has been no transmission of the disease in at least a year.
Cases would still crop up occasionally, but were almost always linked to a person traveling internationally.
The vast majority of measles outbreaks – around 90 percent – occur in communities where few or no people are vaccinated.
Dr Peter Hotez, the nation’s preeminent infectious disease expert and vaccine developer at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, told Stat: ‘My concern is this does become a new normal for us.’
Dr Peter Marks, former top vaccine regulator at the FDA, added: ‘Unless we dramatically change course, drastically change course, it’s going to be a problem. This is what measles does.’
Health experts maintain that the best way to prevent severe complications of measles, including brain swelling and death, is to get vaccinated.
There is no standard treatment or cure for measles, which kills one in 1,000 patients. At the same time, there have been no documented deaths from the MMR vaccine in healthy, non-immunocompromised people.
In a 2005 article for Rolling Stone that has now been pulled from the publication’s website, Kennedy argued that the preservative thimerosal – a mercury-based vaccine preservative – was causing an ‘epidemic of autism, speech delays, and ADHD’ in American children.
When the vaccine became publicly available in 1963, annual deaths decreased from approximately 400 to 500 per year to nearly zero
The US phased thimerosal out of childhood vaccines four years prior, and autism rates continued to increase.
Further, more than 100 scientific studies have found no evidence that exposure to the preservative causes autism, which RFK Jr recently painted as a life-destroying condition that keeps people from dating, having jobs, and paying taxes.
Around one in 36 children are on the autism spectrum, which encompasses milder forms that cause social difficulties and restricted interests to severe cases in which a person has little to no verbal skills or engages in self-harming practices.
In the 1970s, an autism diagnosis was reserved for children who were highly impaired, non-verbal, physically disabled, and overall unable to care for themselves.
The diagnosis has since been expanded to cover a broad spectrum of subtypes, including people who can function independently as members of society.
