OPINION:
The Senate recently confirmed Susan Monarez to lead the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Hopefully, the new director will be a steady hand within the Department of Health and Human Services as it navigates diminishing confidence in modern medicine because a general distrust of vaccines and other tools used to fight infectious disease is threatening to unravel decades of public health progress.
Healthy skepticism is understandable and reforming the country’s public health institutions is warranted, but conservatives should be careful not to throw the baby out with the bathwater.
The reemergence of measles, a virus that was thought to have been largely eradicated because of childhood shots, emphasizes what is at stake. In July, the federal government reported that cases hit a 33-year high. This outbreak largely began in a poorly vaccinated Texas community but has spread to other parts of the country.
Credible voices in these pages have correctly pointed out how we got here. Missteps made during the COVID-19 emergency — some by an inch, others by a mile — gutted confidence in government health experts. People were misled, and transparency took a back seat to political expediency. As a result, government health advice and the idea of vaccines became part of a red-versus-blue culture war.
Before 2020, 84% of adults believed childhood vaccinations were very important. Fast-forward several years, and that has dropped to 69%. Tellingly, the proportion of Americans who believe vaccines are “more dangerous than the diseases they are designed to prevent” has nearly doubled. Confidence in the CDC as an institution has taken a similar nosedive.
Although the science has been refined over the years, vaccines are nothing new and remain effective. They have been tools deployed to fight America’s most challenging health crises since our founding. Gen. George Washington urged Continental Army troops to get inoculated for smallpox, a disease that had crippled previous military campaigns. Another Founding Father, Benjamin Franklin, also championed the lifesaving power of immunity against deadly disease.
The 20th century brought huge leaps forward on the public health front. For example, after the introduction of the measles vaccine in the 1960s, deaths in the U.S. from the disease plummeted from hundreds annually to nearly zero. The near-eradication of polio in America a decade later marked another major milestone. Today, vaccine innovations continue to help Americans combat deadly diseases, including cancer and severe respiratory viruses.
The triumph of modern medicine makes it easy to forget how much vaccines have improved life in America. We should be careful not to become complacent and fall victim to our own success.
Injecting a dose of transparency and welcoming a wider array of viewpoints to the table at public health institutions are welcome, but the Trump administration should avoid going overboard. Aggressive action, such as firing all 17 members of an advisory board that makes recommendations to the CDC about vaccines, is one example of crossing the line.
After the announcement, ominous stories dominated the mainstream media. The move was labeled as “extremely dangerous” and “far-reaching.” Richard Besser, acting director of the CDC under President Obama, said the firings “should erase any remaining doubt that [Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.] intends to impose his personal anti-vaccine agenda on the American people.”
Working with policymakers to add to the CDC panel members who hold alternative viewpoints would have been a more productive step that avoided unnecessary hysteria. Americans who hold some skepticism could have been confident that diverse perspectives were included in vaccine discussions without undermining the advisory board’s credibility in the eyes of others.
Reform at U.S. public health institutions is needed to restore confidence in modern medicine. Americans want and deserve more transparency after being misled during the COVID-19 emergency, but HHS leaders should use a scalpel rather than a buzz saw to deliver change.
• Jamey Bowers is a partner and owner at Berman and Co.
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