I've never treated a patient for measles. Now I'm afraid that may change. | Opinion
As Americans, we should unite to safeguard our future by following sound public health guidance. Otherwise, we may have more diseases from the past that will haunt and ravage our communities.
A few years ago, a man walked into our emergency room after a week of high fevers, coughing and feeling miserable. Strikingly, he had a widespread splotchy red rash across his body and white spots in his mouth. He was also unvaccinated.
My mind went back years to what I had only learned about in medical school, and I questioned: Is this measles? Once the question was raised, we immediately quarantined our patient, alerted local and county infectious disease specialists, and prayed that his tests were negative. They were, thankfully.
In my 10 years as an attending physician, three years of internal medicine residency and four years of medical school before that, I have never once seen measles in real life. Measles is a disease that should be a relic of the past with vaccination.
But this incredibly contagious disease is again back in the community, with outbreaks of nearly 160 cases in Texas since late January. And now a child is dead. Dead from a disease that is entirely preventable.
I am concerned that the politicization of public health and the growing distrust in sound and proven science is threatening to make diseases of the past come alive again. And with that, we risk more dying children and grieving parents.
Vaccine skepticism isn't new, but its terrifying place in politics is
How did we get here? Skepticism around vaccines is not entirely new, but the COVID-19 pandemic kicked this into high gear.
For many, the incredible speed of development of the mRNA vaccines was not seen as an amazing feat of human ingenuity to combat a virus that had at the time taken hundreds of thousands of American lives, but rather a complex conspiracy to inoculate an untested money-making product to a desperate country.
These misgivings amplified the misgivings to all vaccines and to our public health officials to the point that Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is now the head of Health and Human Services, despite having no medical background and having anti-vaccine tendencies with spreading misinformation (despite what he said at his Senate confirmation hearing).
But the recommended vaccines, including the measles-mumps-rubella vaccine, are indeed safe ‒ as mountains of evidence, clinical trials and recommendations from the World Health Organization and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention make clear.
Over and over again, it has been shown there is no definitive link between these vaccines and autism. The initial studies that had stated that have been retracted, having shown to be factually incorrect and actually funded by those in a lawsuit with the vaccine makers (talk about an actual conspiracy).
The MMR vaccine is safe, effective and prevents 97% of measles cases. But 97% is not 100%, and there are those too immunocompromised to get vaccinated.
So contagious is this virus, it’s theorized that one infected person could spread the disease to 18 others. About 1 out of 5 unvaccinated people who contract measles will be hospitalized. And some, like that poor child in Texas, will die.
We need to protect our young, elderly and vulnerable by listening to the consensus of public health experts and be vaccinated.
Measles won't be the last consequence of denying medical science
Hopefully these outbreaks become contained, but this is a symptom of a larger issue. This distrust in established science and medicine is growing.
I myself have been accused of being in the pockets of big pharma when I advocated for the use of COVID-19 vaccinations and against the misinformation of ivermectin as an effective treatment for the virus. Believe me, no one is offering me millions of dollars to push their medications. And no one is offering the 99% of the public health experts who concur this amount of money.
A substantial, consensus-driven body of scientific opinion is not the result of corporate interests. It is built on years of rigorous research, experimentation and ethical scrutiny.
While it is important to challenge scientific assumptions, this skepticism should be rooted in credible evidence. Yes, science can be imperfect with mistakes made, but it is an evolving process. The scientific community learns, adapts and improves from testing and retesting its data and arriving at sound conclusions. But this is rooted in evidence, not the false accusations peddled by conspiracy theorists.
In the end, diseases and suffering have no political ideology and can affect any American. Similarly, we should refrain from viewing public health and medicine through a red or blue lens. Science is not owned by Republicans or Democrats, and we need to stop perceiving it that way.
Evidence-based, consensus-driven public health recommendations are derived from the best and most compassionate knowledge available to us as Americans – not from political party talking points.
We have a duty to advocate for policies that prioritize the well-being of our children and society as a whole. We owe it to the children suffering and dying of measles. As Americans, we should unite to safeguard their future by following sound public health guidance. Otherwise, we may have more diseases from the past that will haunt and ravage our communities.
Dr. Thomas K. Lew is an assistant clinical professor of Medicine at the Stanford University School of Medicine and an attending physician of Hospital Medicine at Stanford Health Care Tri-Valley. All expressed opinions are his own. Follow him on X: @ThomasLewMD