The decline in vaccination in the United States negatively influences the rest of the world – rts.ch

All expert and independent people who advised the US government on vaccination policy were removed from their functions by Robert Kennedy Jr. (RFK Jr.), a notorious vaccino-skeptic. He replaced them with people close to anti -vaccino circles or without any particular expertise in the field.

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Robert Kennedy Jr. carries the questioning of vaccination policies and mistrust with regard to vaccines in general. The alerts of scientists and health organizations are increasing in this regard.

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L’OMS Recently said his concern in the face of vaccination disinformation. A Tribune of health professionals In France also recently pointed out that the decline of vaccination coverage in the United States would have planetary consequences. In addition, the United States has withdrawn its contribution to the vaccine alliance (Read first box).

Doctor Michel Kazatchkine, former director of Global Fund for AIDS, tuberculosis and malariaobserves the actions of the United States Minister of Health: “He has postponed numerous meetings of the expert advisory committees and ended subsidies that the federal state granted to the National Institute of Health for research on vaccination hesitation. He announced a new regulatory framework for vaccines against COVVID and suggested a new vaccination calendar”, he enumerates.

And to specify: “We are therefore in a context of confusion, uncertainty and threat of public health; this happens when measles is raging in the United States”. Highly contagious infectious disease, measles can cause serious complications; However, it is avoidable thanks to the ROR vaccine – for measles, mumps, rubella – administered from early childhood. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), the rate of measles vaccination must reach 95% to ensure collective immunity.

>> Lire : Measles, meningitis, yellow fever: the dangerous return of preventable diseases with vaccination

Measles as a barometer

The resurgence of measles in the United States began before the presidency of Donald Trump, but the situation is still worsening. The return of polio is also to be feared: this very contagious viral disease can cause irreversible paralysis. It had been almost eradicated, which is generally presented as a great victory for modern medicine.

Very concrete and relatively rapid consequences follow the decline in vaccine coverage. Measles can serve as a parameter for measuring this protection, as it is particularly infectious: “An affected person transmits the disease on average to fifteen other people”, notes Michel Kazatchkine in the whole world of RTS.

However, the United States is currently experiencing record figures with “around 1,500 cases, while measles had been officially declared as eliminated from the country in 2000 by the WHO”. For him, the country undergoes “the inconsistency of current national policies”. He recalls that the very influential Democratic senator Chuck Schumer wrote a letter on July 11 to RFK JR. So that he declares a public health emergency concerning the worrying situation of measles. The secretary of the Department of Health and Social Services being the only authority to do it.

Vaccination coverage did not drop solely in the United States, but also in many European countries: “in particular in Ukraine, due to war and the difficulties of setting up public health programs: this is where we have seen concerns about polio and measles,” summarizes the doctor.

>> Read this article from August 2018: Three times more measles in the world since January

An “indolence” period

For Michel Kazatchkine, the situation of public health is worrying: “We have returned to an indolence period: people think it is a benign disease. They have forgotten. They no longer update vaccinations or hesitate and do not vaccinate their children”.

The doctor recalls that the scientific consensus is “unbeatable”: “all major professional, scientific, medical, United States, in Europe has no doubt about the largely proven efficiency of these vaccines that have saved millions of lives in the world, or their safety”.

The Statens Serum Institute in Copenhagen, one of the institutions producing vaccines in Europe, published a study In March that this specialist judges “absolutely remarkable” relating to a million children followed over ten years: “She shows that there is currently no side effect of these vaccinations: no autism, no auto-immune diseases, no hepatitis. This closes the door to certain debates that had been opened on social networks and in certain chronicles” (Read second box).

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Proximity medicine

Restoring confidence in vaccino-sertics is a delicate affair: “We are in a period of distrust of populations in general vis-à-vis public systems. Certain inconsistencies in the management of the Covid epidemic are largely at the source of this distrust in the field of public health”.

One solution would be to rethink the communication, according to him, but also to “retire the link, first of all, of the scientific community with practitioners, general practitioners. And use this primary medicine, that which is in contact with people. Family medicine can enter dialogue and speak with vaccino-skeptics”. In summary, he says, “the best communication tool is the general practitioner”.

Interview radio: Eric Guevara-Frey

Web article: Stéphanie Jaquet