Don’t let RFK, Jr. mislead you
During a large measles outbreak in Texas last year, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. said it should be parents’ “personal choice” whether to immunize their children. His advice to parents was: “Do your own research.” I mean no disrespect to parents when I say that most people are not qualified to research matters of virology, immunology, and epidemiology. This year the cumulative number of measles cases involving many states is the highest it has been in many years.
In 1976 I was a medical student at St. Mary’s Hospital in Waterbury, Connecticut during a measles epidemic. I saw many children with measles at that time, some of them sick enough to require hospitalization. Immunization was becoming almost universal for American children and over the next 40 years of practice as a pediatrician and internist I never saw another patient with measles.
Subacute sclerosing panencephalitis (SSPE) is now a rare complication that can occur seven to 10 years after measles, especially in children who get the infection before the age of two years. There is no effective treatment for SSPE which presents with decline in school performance and behavioral changes leading to seizures. Death usually occurs between three and 36 months after onset. Remission and long-term survival are rare. According to the American Academy of Pediatrics, “Widespread measles immunization has led to the virtual disappearance of SSPE in the United States.”
I appeal to all parents to follow the immunization recommendations of the American Academy of Pediatrics.
Henry W. Rosenberg, M.D.
Northampton