On a quiet summer day in 1978, then-40-year-old medical photographer Janet Parker came down with chicken pox, or so she thought. Within nine days, Parker was admitted to the hospital, being too sick to stand. She had developed sores that covered her body, blinded her eyes and caused renal failure. During this horrifying ordeal, Parker’s father suffered cardiac arrest due to stress and died, while Parker’s boss committed suicide, believing he had allowed the virus to leak from the lab where he and Parker worked. Soon, Parker developed pneumonia and could no longer respond verbally. Exactly a month after her symptoms first appeared, Janet passed away.
Parker was the last known victim of smallpox, a virus invisible to the human eye. Smallpox was once one of the deadliest diseases, killing more than 300 million people in the 20th century alone. Thankfully, Janet’s story no longer unfolds in hospitals around the globe due to a heroic invention: the vaccine. Vaccines were first invented in 1796 by Edward Jenner, who used weaker versions of a disease to inoculate people. In 1959, amid the heightened tensions of the Cold War, humanity came together and announced one of its most ambitious goals ever: the eradication of smallpox.
Within 20 years of the goal being announced, smallpox was eradicated from all corners of the Earth through a massive and sustained vaccination campaign. While numerous vaccines exist for other diseases, smallpox remains the only human disease to be successfully wiped out. Polio, measles, mumps and rubella are still lurking out in the world, quietly waiting for a chance to reemerge and wreak havoc. A recent measles outbreak in western Texas has infected 505 people, hospitalized 57 and killed two children. Given that measles was declared eliminated in the U.S. in 2000, this resurgence is alarming.
As contagious and preventable diseases make a comeback across America, President Donald Trump chose a vaccine skeptic to lead the nation’s health efforts. Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the current director of the Department of Health and Human Services, is a conspiracy-peddling vaccine skeptic who seems ill-equipped for his job. Even as the measles outbreak raged on in western Texas, Kennedy dithered in his response. Although the outbreak was first reported in January, Kennedy didn’t issue anything until a Fox News editorial, which was also posted on the Department of Health and Human Services website, was published and later deleted. In that editorial, Kennedy claimed vaccines are a personal choice while promoting Vitamin A as a cure for measles. In another Fox News interview, he suggested that steroids and cod liver oil can be used to treat measles — which remains unproven.
In April, Kennedy finally admitted on X that the MMR vaccine was the most effective way to prevent measles. However, in a subsequent post, he claimed to have met “two extraordinary healers … who have treated and healed some 300 measles-stricken Mennonite children using aerosolized budesonide and clarithromycin.” Neither of these prevents measles and can only alleviate symptoms in specific instances.
We now live in an age where easily preventable diseases infiltrate American communities while the top U.S. health leader touts the wrong prevention methods on the official Department of Health and Human Services website. We have eliminated measles once in this great country, and I have no doubt we can do it again. The question is how many more children this terrible disease will kill before our elected leaders take this problem seriously. The vaccination rate for many diseases among U.S. children has long been in decline, exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic and a wave of distrust targeted at healthcare officials. How long before we experience the return of diseases not seen since the days of our grandparents? How long before another story like that of Janet Parker appears in the United States?
To lose a child to disease is cause for insurmountable sorrow. But to lose a child to a preventable disease eliminated for decades is not only a cause for sadness; it is a cause for great anger. This wave of measles is only a herald of things to come if we do not take vaccinations seriously. Polio, mumps and tuberculosis are all waiting just around the corner. The first step should be the unanimous rejection of Kennedy and whatever insane treatment plans he has to offer. Additionally, we need to restore trust in medical institutions and renew the global vision of eradicating diseases across the globe. Martin Luther King Jr. once said that “injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” This too is the case with diseases. Sickness anywhere is a threat to well-being everywhere. Let us never forget the billions we have already lost to disease and work towards a world where no child anywhere is lost to a preventable illness.
