12/15/2024 --dailykos
After President-elect Donald Trump nominated Robert F. Kennedy Jr., an anti-vaccine activist, as his top health official, experts warn of a resurgence of preventable diseases. by Arthur Allen, for KFF Health NewsThe availability of safe, effective COVID-19 vaccines less than a year into the pandemic marked a high point in the 300-year history of vaccination, seemingly heralding an age of protection against infectious diseases.Now, after backlash against public health interventions culminated in President-elect Donald Trump’s nominating Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the country’s best-known anti-vaccine activist, as its top health official, infectious disease and public health experts and vaccine advocates say a confluence of factors could cause renewed, deadly epidemics of measles, whooping cough, and meningitis, or even polio.“The litany of things that will start to topple is profound,” said James Hodge, a public health law expert at Arizona State University’s Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law. “We’re going to experience a seminal change in vaccine law and policy.”“He’ll make America sick again,” said Lawrence Gostin, a professor of public health law at Georgetown University.RELATED STORY: Trump picks RFK Jr. and his brain worm to be in charge of your health
