New York – A former top federal health officer warns publicly secretary -Robert F. Kennedy Jr. It hesitates on vaccines and federal programs during a fatal outbreak of measles could unleash the next disaster in public health.
“The federal government can pause, but the measles virus is not pausing. Bacteria and viruses do not pause. They accelerate when we abandoned our watchfulness,” said Tom Frieden, who for eight years of centers for disease control and preventing director, Summit Summit East Obama, Thursday during the Stat Breakte Obama. Frieden is now president and CEO of the non -profit decides to save lives.
His comments come a week after the Trump administration had withdrawn its candidate to lead the CDC, former Congressman Dave Weldon, after concern about his views on vaccines to jeopardize senate voices. Weldon doubted the safety of measles, mumps and rubella vaccines, especially over the years, parallel with some of Kennedy’s theories.
The agency is also in sight of financing and cutbacks led by the US Doge Service, breaks to public meetings of its expert advisers and possibly more control of Kennedy.
Since the Secretary of Health and Human Services, Kennedy has said that measles vaccines “are easily accessible to everyone they want”, but that it is a personal choice. He also said that outbreaks of measles are ‘not unusual’, although this outbreak caused the first fatalities of measles in a decade and suggested that vitamin A could treat sick patients, while it is useful in narrow conditions.
More than 300 cases of measles have been reported in Texas and New Mexico, and there have been at least two deaths, including a non -vaccinated child. A public health official of Texas warned this week that it could take a year to control the outbreak.
The outbreak comes in the midst of a perfect storm of public distrust in vaccines and medical experts that they defend, said Frieden. He said that he started his career as a CDC Epidemic Intelligence Service Officer during a New York -based outbreaks of measles 35 years ago.
“We have seen children seriously ill, children die, children with long -term consequences of neurological problems of measles. So when the head of HHS says:” Oh, it’s a routine teething problems. “Well, it is a common childhood disease that still kills around 100,000 children every year.”
Frieden also mentioned the claims of Kennedy – during his hearing in January – about conflicts of interest among 97% of the federal advisory board members “absolute nonsense” that an audit of 2009 misinterpreted. That report Discovered that there were mistakes on most disclosure forms, but they include filling in the wrong line or forgetting to initiate a section.
“It is very clear that there is an attempt to discredit basic facts,” he said.
But the former CDC director acknowledged that the frustrations of Americans with the CDC and the rising skepticism of experts in the field of public health arise partly from the desks of the agency during the coronavirus popemia.
“You can criticize different things in the Covid response with validity: the CDC error in laboratory tests was terrible … Some guidance was impractical, slow, schools were closed too long. There were certainly mistakes,” he said. “We have to tackle the problems that we now have in a way that resonates with people.”