Health policy | Measles warning: attack on the executive branch

The president and his health minister at a campaign event in mid-October Photo: dpa/AP/Chris O’Meara Many serious infectious diseases can be defeated and are considered eliminated in many countries thanks to medical advances. It is often weak health systems, poverty, poor access to vaccines and political conflicts that cause high numbers in some countries in the global south. Measles, for example, was actually defeated in the USA decades ago. The fact that they are now returning with force and claiming the first fatality is, on the one hand, worrying, but on the other hand, anything but surprising.

Especially when an illness is considered to have been conquered, quite a few parents ask themselves why they should require their children to have a double vaccination. In addition, other diseases were neglected during the corona pandemic. Measles is also back in other industrialized countries due to a lack of risk awareness, but the extent of it is particularly large in the USA. The CDC counts 43 outbreaks spread across many states.

In addition, irrational vaccination skepticism, which also gained popularity during Corona, is cited as a reason. But it's not quite that simple: Unlike during the pandemic, potential side effects have to be monitored much more closely, even after a vaccine has been approved. And the results must be transparently available so that people can really rely on the safety of a vaccine.

Of course, you won't get radical opponents of vaccinations by pointing to scientific evidence. If these are a small minority, this can be allowed for most diseases. Even with measles, which is extremely contagious, this would not pose a serious threat if it were widely scattered. However, in the USA they are often found in larger, ultra-conservative religious communities, and an isolated case can then become a local outbreak.

Countering this is primarily a question of political communication. With a president who spreads unsubstantiated claims about serious side effects of the measles vaccines and a Secretary of Health and Human Services who, like Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. If you are generally considered a vaccine skeptic, this obviously cannot succeed. That's what's special in the USA: Warnings from health authorities are a given in other countries, but for the CDC this is now a brave step. Because, at least indirectly, this is nothing less than an attack on the ultra-right executive.

With us, no one has to pay to be informed. Sounds like a bad business model? It is too. But independent journalism and participation for everyone are more important to us than profit. Journalism still costs money: research, printing and all the people who do it. That's why we depend on you. We need 300,000 euros by the end of the year.

Donate once or regularly, every amount counts. So that nd remains.