June 16, 2025 • 33 mins
The viral measles outbreak that began in West Texas has taken the lives of two children and one adult, and has reached over eight hundred cases, with thousands potentially exposed to the disease. This episode serves as a deep dive into the outbreak, when it started, how it spread, and will set the stage for the remaining four episodes.
Sources:
https://publichealth.jhu.edu/2025/the-measles-outbreak-in-west-texas-and-beyond
https://www.verywellhealth.com/measles-outbreak-texas-11682808
https://www.cdc.gov/measles/data-research/index.html
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8828106/
https://www.latimes.com/newsletters/la-me-ln-essential-california-20190507-story.html
https://slate.com/technology/2025/04/measles-cases-epidemic-worst-case-vaccine.html
https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-news/rfk-jr-plandemic-funding-1235173801/
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Cool Zone Media.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
I'm Stephen Monchelli. I'm a journalist in Dallas and an
occasional Cool Zone Media contributor. You may have seen in
the news lately that there's a major measles outbreak centered
in Texas. It started back in January of this year
in the West Texas County of Gaines, and it has
since spread to at least two other states. As of
(00:26):
this recording, Texas has reported over seven hundred cases associated
with the measles outbreak. New Mexico has reported over sixty,
Oklahoma has reported over fifteen, and there are other states
that have also reported measles cases that may or may
not be linked to this outbreak. It's the first major
measles outbreak in a decade, and it's already taken three lives,
(00:50):
two unvaccinated children, the first of such deaths in more
than twenty years, and one adult. All were unvaccinated at
the res of the outbreak are low vaccination rates, which
took a sharp downturn after the twenty twenty COVID nineteen
pandemic as dubious vaccine skepticism and opposition to vaccines, both
(01:11):
mandatory and in general, became a partisan political issue. It
is no coincidence that the low vaccination rate in Gaines County,
where the outbreak first began, corresponds with deep red Republican politics.
Measles is a sort of canary in the coal mine.
It's one of the most highly communicable diseases and consequently
(01:32):
is among the first to appear in communities with low
vaccination rates. An outbreak in California about a decade ago
was eventually stemmed when the state legislature banned vaccine exemptions
for school aged children. This action spurred response and gave
a shot in the arm to a nascon coalition of
vaccine skeptics and outright anti vaccination groups that had previously
(01:54):
struggled to get political traction. By twenty twenty, such groups
had gained meaningful amounts of infolruents in red states like
Texas and Oklahoma. Then came COVID nineteen, and suddenly a
disparate set of groups big pharma skeptics, wellness influencers, health
freedom libertarians, and conservative religious groups, to name a few,
(02:15):
coalesced in a formidable political force under the banner of
the Republican Party, whose politicization of the COVID nineteen pandemics
served as a sort of ideological cement to unite them.
The logical conclusion of this development is represented in the
avatar of RFK Junior, a long time vaccine misinformation peddler
who now sits atop the highest federal government health bureaucracy,
(02:38):
a perch from which he continues to spread debunked anti
vaccination tropes like a proverbial fox in the henhouse. RFK
Junior has repeatedly downplayed the importance of vaccines in the
battle against measles, and has refused to distance himself from
long debunked anti vaccination arguments such as that vaccines cause autism.
His influence and the influence of the vaccine Skins movement,
(03:00):
of which he is a central figure, can be seen
in responses from local West Texans who have opted for
junk palliatives like vitamin A or measles exposure parties over vaccination.
The viral spread of anti vax ideology threatens to pitch
us back one hundred years in time, when thousands of
children and adults either died or disabled every year from
(03:21):
diseases like measles, polio, and smallpox. Research into the side
effects of vaccines has repeatedly shown that the risks associated
with vaccination are far lower than the risks of an infection,
particularly for vulnerable populations like young children, the elderly, and
people with suppressed immune systems. Some people genuinely cannot get vaccines,
(03:44):
such as certain new board babies, and thus are at
higher risk should an outbreak of a deadly disease occur.
When ninety five percent of a population is vaccinated in
an area, diseases can be entirely removed from circulation, and
that's indeed what happened to smallpox and for a time, measles.
But the downward trend in vaccination rates, supercharged by the
(04:06):
marriage of right wing politics with anti vaccination beliefs of
all stripes, means that our collective immunity is at risk.
This week, I will be your host on It Could
Happen Here As I take you through a five episode
mini series called Anti vax America, three interviews with public
health officials, vaccine scientists, medical professionals, and historians. I will
(04:29):
explore the ongoing measles outbreak and how it serves as
a microcosm for where we are, how we got here,
and where we could go if anti vaxx beliefs continue
to become mainstream in the United States. In the first episode,
I will cover the origin of the measles outbreak in Texas,
it's deadly consequences, the varying responses from public health officials
(04:50):
at different levels of government, and the consequence of misinformation
being spread at the national and local level. In the
second episode, I will on earth the deep roots of
anti vaccination belief in the United States, how it's changed
over time, and why it's basically become synonymous with right
wing politics in our current day. In the third episode,
(05:12):
I will explore the overlap between anti vaxx beliefs and
the belief in supernatural healing and miracles that is common
among a particular movement of conservative Christianity that has tied
itself closely to President Donald Trump. In the fourth episode,
I will untangle the twisted history of eugenics and how
it's influenced public health and vaccination attitudes, as well as
(05:34):
the historical echo of eugenics that can be found in
RFK Juniors Make America Healthy Again agenda. And in the
last episode, I'll consider what could happen in the United States,
What could happen here if vaccination rates continue to plummet
and vaccine skeptics like RFK Junior continue to dictate public
health policy. But before we get there, a quick ad break.
(06:09):
Gaines County, the epicenter of the West Texas outbreak, is
a largely rural place home to oil field workers, farmers, ranchers,
and several Mennonite communities. Politically, it's very conservative. It sits
on the Texas New Mexico border, about three hundred and
sixty miles west of Dallas, where I live. The largest
(06:31):
city in the region, Lubbock, is two counties over. Lubbock
is home to two hundred and sixty thousand plus people
and has the largest hospitals in the area. It was
at one of those hospitals that the first child died
of measles in over two decades. As the number of
cases in the region began to increase, Lubbock became a
central hub for both treatment and the dissemination of public
(06:53):
health information. Weeks before RFK Junior or Texas Governor Abbot
spoke on the issue, local pub health officials and medical
institutions were on the front lines in Lubbock.
Speaker 3 (07:07):
So my name's Catherine Wells, and I am the director
for Lubbock Public Health and Lubbock Public Health is the
city and county health department in both the city and
county of Lubbock, Texas. I've been in this role for
about ten years now. We're about seventy five miles from
(07:30):
Gaines County, which is where kind of the epicenter of
this measles outbreak is.
Speaker 2 (07:35):
Let's maybe go back all the way to the day
that you know it sort of began. The first case
came out in January, So can you take us a
little back to that day and what was going on
in your world and you know, what were you doing,
and how did you hear about this first case and
what your reaction was.
Speaker 3 (07:53):
And we'll actually need to take a couple of days
kind of before the announcement. I first found out out
the possibility of measles that Friday, the twenty eighth. I
have all my dates messed up, but it's that Friday
before the first case was announced. One of my staff
(08:14):
came and told me that we had two children that
had been admitted to our local hospital. So we have
the children's hospital for this whole region. People come, you know,
over two hundred miles to come to the children's hospital
in Luppock, and she mentioned that there was two children.
The physician thought it might be measles that they were
(08:36):
going to send for testing. So in public health, measles
is so rare that even sending somebody for testing is
required to be reported to public health. That physician thought
it was measles. We kind of waited over the weekend,
and then that Monday and Tuesday, I started hearing some
(08:57):
rumors that there were measles cases down on the ground
in Gaines County, which was interesting. People were calling and saying,
you know, I heard this rumor, have you heard this?
And I'm like nope. And then all of a sudden,
those two cases or those two cases both tested positive.
(09:18):
And then when we went and started talking to the
families and learning more, we realized that those rumors about
measles circulating and Gaines County was true, and there were
reports of you know, multiple individuals that had been sick
and measles had probably been there or at least a
little bit of time. And then when we got the
confirmed cases, that really just put everything into really you know,
(09:40):
moving very quickly trying to really figure out what was
going on for measles.
Speaker 2 (09:46):
So at that time, it was it was flu season,
and so were you all was your office preparing, you know,
or working on anything else at that time when you
had first heard about this first testing and you know,
started hearing about these rumors.
Speaker 3 (10:01):
Yeah, I mean, we had increases in flu, we had
increases in COVID. We actually had some birds that had
died that had tested positive with the new Avian flu.
You know, just that's a busy time of the year
for public health with lots of different reports coming in,
lots of multiple reports of pertussis, and it's not unusual
(10:24):
that we have a physician wanting to test for measles
ruling out I mean, it happens a couple of times
a year, but in my entire career, every time that happened,
it had always been negative. So I was kind of
thinking that it was one of those cases, especially that
Friday afternoon, like, oh, this is just a doctor, you know,
you know, just wanting to rule something out. You know,
(10:45):
it's probably flu or something else going on with those children.
Speaker 2 (10:49):
And so when you had gotten that confirmation, it was
verified that those cases had indeed been measles. I mean,
what was going through your mind at that time.
Speaker 3 (11:00):
I mean that was like, you know, people have always
talked about we're kind of on the edge of seeing
more measles outbreaks in the United States, and it was
really kind of a no, no crab moment of Wow,
this is in our backyard, is our department you know,
ready to take this on? And then also reaching out
(11:21):
to Gaines County, which has a much smaller health department,
and being like, what can we help you with? Do
you guys know what you need next? You know, they
don't have a communications person, so it was like my
staff writing the press release for Gaines County to send
out to make the notifications about the first measles cases.
So it was just really what can we do to
(11:42):
help them immediately and figure out what the next steps
would be with that.
Speaker 2 (11:46):
So since January, cases have been on the rise, and
so we're in a different place now than just two cases.
Can you just tell us a little bit about where
things are now in Lubbock and how medical forties have
responded to the outbreak.
Speaker 3 (12:03):
So initially, you know, all of the cases were in
Gaines County. The only exposures we were seeing outside of
Gaines County was when somebody was seeking medical care and
was sitting in like say, a waiting room at a
physician's office, and then they were exposing other individuals. But
after a couple of weeks, we started seeing spread outside
(12:26):
of Gaines County, so we were seeing more and more
cases in those surrounding counties, and then we started getting
cases in Lubbock, that's seventy five miles away. Over the
last three weeks, we've really seen the cases in Lubbock increase.
You know, we originally just had a handful. Now we're
up to forty one or forty two, and that number
(12:47):
will be updated again tomorrow. So just seeing more and
more spread of measles, and the concern is that public
Health can't necessarily trace those back to a specific case.
So people that have got out to the store or
gone to a public place have now contracted measles.
Speaker 2 (13:06):
So tell me a little bit more about what efforts
have taken place and what sort of initiatives have been
put into place as measles has spread. You know, what
does that look like from love at Public Health or
any of your partners.
Speaker 3 (13:22):
Yeah, so ours is really the first one was getting
testing set up Originally when this started, all of our
testing samples had to go to Austin, which is about
a five and a half hour drive, So working with
the state Health Department to get testing capability up here
in Lubbock so we could quickly identify people. The next
(13:43):
one is really about education, providing information to the physicians'
offices the hospitals about measles because we hadn't seen it
in twenty one years here. So just think about how
many physicians have been trained over the last twenty one
years never saw a measles case in their residency. So
(14:04):
getting them to feel comfortable about what the signs and
symptoms are, and really making sure that we were notifying
or that they were notifying public health and getting people
tested and then doing that contact tracing, and then the
other big ones vaccinations. You know, there's two ways to
prevent measles. You know, one is the vaccination that's going
to protect you, and then the other one is avoiding
(14:26):
being exposed to measles. So really getting more and more
people vaccinated with pop up clinics and then running a
measles vaccination clinic here at our Health department.
Speaker 2 (14:37):
Can you tell me a little bit about what the
response in particular too. You know, the vaccination clinics being
set up has been you know, I have a lot
of people shown up for that. Has it drawn a
lot of you know, new people that are trying to
get their children vaccinated.
Speaker 3 (14:53):
It's a mix. I feel that our vaccination clinic here
at our health department's been pretty successful in that we're
getting people every day coming in to get vaccinated, and
we're seeing people that were hesitant prior, that had chosen
not to vaccinate their children kind of with the idea, well,
(15:13):
I've never seen measles or moms or rebella, so why
give my child a vaccine if that doesn't exist. Now
that measles are circulating in the community, they're changing that
thought process and are coming forward to get vaccinated. Some
of the rural clinics have been a lot harder to
get people to come in. I mean, they've stood up
clinics and only a handful of people have come in
(15:36):
to that clinic that day. So real mixed response. But
I think is public health, it's important for us to
be offering the MMR vaccine with as few barriers as possible.
Speaker 2 (15:48):
So you were in this position during the COVID pandemic
and when that began and all throughout it. So can
you tell me a little bit what it was like
working in your role as a public health official ads
that time, and then also maybe whether things are any
different today, has anything changed?
Speaker 3 (16:06):
I mean, I think our community did fairly well throughout COVID,
given you know, everything that went on. I've always believed
in just being honest and talking about what I do
know what I don't know, what the science is showing,
and I think that helped our community get vaccinated and
take some of the precautions during COVID. And I'm kind
(16:29):
of taking that same you know, thought process and that
same you know, leadership style as we're dealing with measles
out here. You know, with measles, it's a challenge. I
think people are paying attention to it because it's really
impacting children, whereas we didn't see, you know, that same
impact with COVID. It's frustrating because we know what the
(16:52):
solution is. When COVID showed up, you know, nobody in
public health and the medical community, you know, knew exactly
what COVID is. With measles, we know what we're dealing
with and We also have a known solution, which is
a vaccine, so it is frustrating that people are choosing
not to vaccinate. Still, the other challenges is during COVID,
(17:13):
all of our other work for public health got put
on hold. Here with measles, our health Department's still expected
to do all of our other jobs and respond to
a measle's outbreak, which is really stressful on staff.
Speaker 2 (17:26):
I can completely understand that in terms of some stressful things.
I understand that just from doing some background research and
reading up that your office or maybe even you yourself,
were subject to some threats or some sort of pretty
extreme reactions during COVID. Is that the case and is
(17:46):
that still happening?
Speaker 3 (17:48):
Thankfully, it's not happening. During COVID, we did have some
very strong opinions and some threats, mostly around when the
children's vaccine was released and why we were promoting that.
We have not seen that with measles, which is very good.
I don't want any of my staff to be threatened.
I mean, you always got these random posters on people
(18:10):
that post on social media, but they're not even individuals
from our community.
Speaker 2 (18:15):
Got it okay? Well, I'm glad to hear that genuinely
that that is a positive change. I suppose that is
something that's a good difference.
Speaker 3 (18:24):
And also good support from our pediatricians and the medical
community has been very good and outspoken about the importance
of getting vaccinated, which has helped us.
Speaker 2 (18:34):
So where do you see things going from here? I mean,
do you think we'll continue to see more cases? I
know that they're on the rise, but do you think
that will continue? Or do you have other concerns about
potentially other outbreaks of diseases that had been kind of
pushed out of circulation coming back.
Speaker 3 (18:55):
Yeah, all of the above. I think in Gains count
in particular, we don't have a good understanding of where
we are in the epidemic, like how many vulnerable individuals
in that community are still remaining, so we don't know
how long that initial epicenter outbreaks going to last. We're
(19:18):
also seeing, you know, as measles gets into a community,
it is so infectious that it is going to find
all of those little pockets of people that are unvaccinated.
And that's what we're seeing here in Lubbott County is
you know, measles taking hold and finding little pockets and
(19:39):
public health trying to go put out you know, little fires,
trying to make sure that we've figured out who's been
exposed and who's at risk.
Speaker 2 (19:47):
You described, you know, how this is an incredibly infectious
disease and it is you know, finding all the pockets
people that are vulnerable or not vaccinated. And so I'm
wondering if you can, you know, if they're any examples
or specifics that you could share about how the outbreak
is impacting communities or particular communities. Has it resulted in
(20:10):
disruptions in school for children, Has it caused any other
sort of notable breakdowns or sort of pauses in day
to day regular activity in Lubbic.
Speaker 3 (20:22):
You know, those breakdowns have been more minor that a child,
say that's unvaccinated's been exposed and that's requiring that child
to sit out from school. So there is that, you know,
element that they're missing those important days of education. Our
bigger impacts here have been around daycares. We had a
(20:46):
large outbreak, or large in the sense that we've had
now eight children or eight individuals associated with one daycare
all test positive with measles. So that's meant that you know,
children have had to be sent home from daycare, which
then impacts parents' ability to work and also impacts you know,
(21:07):
you know, daycare along with you know, the number of
students there children having to go home that have been
exposed working a lot to get additional doses of vaccine
into a daycare. So it both impacts the public health system,
our healthcare system because kids need health, but then it
also impacts parents because if your child's not in daycare,
(21:28):
a parent can't go to work. Those have been the
bigger disruptions and then disruptions in our healthcare system that
we're now having to do a lot of screen Like
you call to make an appointment for the doctor, and
it's kind of like COVID, have you been exposed to measles?
Are you vaccinated? They're asking all those screening questions before
people enter our healthcare facilities.
Speaker 2 (21:50):
In terms of sort of interactions with the state and
their response to this, can you tell me a little
bit more about how the State of Texas has responded
and partnered with local authorities.
Speaker 3 (22:02):
So we have a good working relationship with the State
of Texas. Texas has to do everything differently, so we
kind of have this decentralized system where the state and
locals both kind of have their own authority, very independent
at the county level, but the state is offered support
(22:23):
to us. They've helped me bring in temp nurses to
be able to assist with vaccine clinics. They're paying for
some additional staff d answer phones, so we're getting that
kind of support. And then I meet with the state,
you know, regularly about what's going on in Lubbock, how
Lubbock fits in the context of the rest of this outbreak,
(22:43):
and you know, how we're going to work together to
move forward. We always thought of measles as an airplane
ride away, so we would see, you know, somebody travel
to a foreign country, come back to the United States
and maybe pass measles to a couple of people in
their household. This outbreak is not that we're seeing transmission
(23:08):
within a community, and it's making measles more of a
car ride away. And that's concerning because we have individuals
that are susceptible to measles, either through to young to
be vaccinated, not vaccinated, or some other immune compromised state.
So just concerning that we're going to see more outbreaks
(23:30):
spreading out into the United States, especially as we're moving
into spring and summer where people are traveling and driving
through communities that we could just see kind of explode everywhere,
which is my biggest fear. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (23:44):
Absolutely.
Speaker 2 (23:45):
I mean, given that vaccinations and to some degree, public
health in general has kind of become a politicized issue,
I can only imagine that it can make it quite
difficult for you to convey these messages to people for
them to understand them.
Speaker 3 (24:02):
Yeah, and I'm talking. I mean I've talked to many
health department directors across the country, and you know, one
of the values of local public health is that you know,
all of us local health department directors and those staff
were coming from these individuals, communities and our goals to
keep our community safe. And it really doesn't matter what's
happening at the federal level. It's about your community, your connections,
(24:27):
watching out for this diseases, and then convincing your community
to do the right thing. And luckily we have you know,
twenty five hundred health departments across the US, and that
is their goals, and hopefully people will continue to trust
their local directors.
Speaker 2 (24:41):
That is a great point. And I'm wondering if is
there anything else that you can speak to on how
the distrust that is there can potentially be bridged, or
you know, the specific things that y'all have done to
try to sort of rebuild that trust or establish that trust.
Speaker 3 (24:58):
I mean with us locally, it's making sure that we're
talking to our local news and our local reporters and
answering the phone call when a concerned parent calls, and
going through the information we know, and utilizing our local
physicians to tell them the story, because I think if
you can still see it at the local level, you know,
(25:20):
people can really understand that this is a risk and
really make that right choice to get the vaccine or
if they've been exposed, to stay home.
Speaker 2 (25:29):
We'll hear more from Catherine in just a moment at first,
as we are obligated to do. Here's some ads. So
I do understand there's quite a bit of skepticism towards vaccination,
(25:52):
and that's certainly going to be a subject that we're
exploring in this podcast. And at least by the numbers,
it shows that in places like West Texas and particularly
more rural areas even more than a place like Lobbick,
that there's pretty low vaccination rates. Several counties are below
the I guess, was it ninety five percent threshold that
(26:14):
really helps bring diesels out of circulation And so, you know,
I'm kind of curious. You've been there for over a decade.
Do you have a sense sort of what the key
drivers of vaccine hesitancy are and why so many West
Texans choose not to get their children vaccinated. You already mentioned,
you know, the fact that it's it hasn't been seen
(26:35):
for so long, so sort of out of sight, out
of mind maybe, But are there other other drivers that
come to mind for you?
Speaker 3 (26:42):
Yeah, I mean I don't think. You know, West Texas
is unique from many other communities in the United States.
You know, people are very much influenced by social media
and some of our media outlets, and there's a lot
of you know, scare tactics or misinformation around vaccines and
(27:05):
you know, anything from autism that's been debunked so many
times about vaccines causing autism, other misinformation about what's in
vaccines and the risks of vaccines. I mean, every medical intervention,
every medication has some type you know, of risk. But
vaccines have been long studied, and especially when you're looking
(27:27):
at the MMR vaccine we've been using this for fifty
years and that's why we don't have measles cases or
hadn't had measles cases. But people have really bought into
a lot of that information out there, and it's really
hard to combat that. I've gone and read the stories
and I can see how people feel miss and pick
up on this, but I just don't know from public
(27:47):
health standpoint how we combat it.
Speaker 2 (27:49):
Right right, It's a very difficult problem, the challenge that
has a long history and has a lot of different factors.
Speaker 3 (27:57):
And things are so complex. It's not a it's not
a one for one. It's just it's been a challenge.
But I think out here I always felt like we
hadn't been impacted as much from some of these anti
vaccine movements. I think post COVID people you know, have
a mistrust in government or wanting to listen to mandates
(28:19):
or recommendations or whatever we call them. We're just seeing
that more and more, and that hesitancy you know, to
come through and trust both government trust the medical system
are all concerns and that all contributes to these lower
vaccination rates.
Speaker 2 (28:36):
In a media environment rife with misinformation about vaccines and
public health, Catherine's perspective is refreshing and a bit hardening.
Local public health officials like her have done great work
to raise the alarm around viral outbreaks, but they're up
against a problem that is much bigger than what they
can address on their own, and that's the widespread belief
(28:58):
in bogus theories, be they scientific or religious, that undercut
the proven science around vaccines. Much of this misinformation comes
from places far from West Texas, like the anti vaccination
group Children's Health Defense, which RFK Junior previously led. It
is widely recognized as a major source of online vaccine misinformation,
(29:21):
including the debunk allegation that vaccines cause autism. After the
death of a six year old child of measles in March,
Children's Health Defense released a video interview with the parents,
who said they still would not take the vaccine and
wouldn't recommend it to other parents. Here's a clip from
that interview in which the Mennonite parents speak in their
(29:44):
Lowland German dialect.
Speaker 4 (29:45):
So when you see the fairmong gring in the quest,
which is what we once stop, We want to get
the truth that what do you say to the parents
that are rushing out Hannah Kang to get the EMMA
for a six months or failure beca think that that
child is gonna die of measles from this appartment to
your daughter, and it would sign is only sous so bad.
(30:09):
Like there's doctors with the whometown.
Speaker 5 (30:12):
She says, they would still say don't do the shots.
There's doctors that can help with measles. They're not as
bad as they're making it out to be.
Speaker 4 (30:20):
Yeah, and also the measles.
Speaker 6 (30:25):
Are good for the body for the people because the
measles are then give the what is it.
Speaker 4 (30:37):
What can and synem contraction but infection, yeah, did you
get infection out?
Speaker 5 (30:45):
And he's immune system. Yeah, they're trying to say that
the measles actually help build the immune system in the
long run. If they get the measles, now you don't
achieve in the long run, and were in the salation
like okay, So in the long run, he said, they
(31:07):
wouldn't get cancer as easily, and like it pipes off
a lot of a lot of stuff, the immunity that
they get from the from the measles.
Speaker 2 (31:20):
But some of what public officials like Catherine have been
trying to combat is coming from other medical professionals much
closer to home, such as doctor Ben Edwards, who appeared
in a Children's Health Defense video and has promoted anti
vaccination misinformation on his own podcasts, including the recommendation to
take vitamin A to treat measles, an approach that has
(31:42):
resulted in several cases of vitamin A toxicity among children
diagnosed with measles in West Texas. During their interview with
Children's Health Defense, the Mennonite parents of the first child
to die of measles actually said they were working with
doctor Ben Edwards for their treatment. One video that went
viral online showed Edwards visibly infected with measles at the time,
(32:07):
treating patients with measles and inhabiting spaces where individuals who
were not infected with measles were present, and this elicited
widespread condemnation from the medical community, quite unsurprisingly. Nevertheless, it
demonstrates the sort of attitude of certain medical professionals in
the area who have used their platforms and their credentials
(32:29):
to sow doubt about the importance of the vaccine, making
matters worse. Rfka Junior praised doctor Edwards as a quote
extraordinary healer just one week after Edwards was seen in
that video treating patients while himself infected with measles. While
anti vaccination beliefs have certainly gone viral in the aftermath
(32:50):
of the COVID pandemic, they are by no means new.
Practitioners like Edwards and advocacy groups like Children's Health Defense
have been peddling their snake oil for decades, But the
roots of anti vaccination belief around even deeper than that.
In the next episode of Anti vaxx America, I'll do
a deep dive into the history of anti vaccination beliefs
(33:11):
to understand the origins of them, how they've changed over time,
and why they've become embraced in mainstream right wing politics,
which is a change from the sort of bipartisan and
even sometimes progressive nature of some anti vaccination skepticism. But
until then, thanks for listening. I'm Stephen Manschllei for cool
(33:33):
Zone Media and this is Anti vaxx America.
Speaker 1 (33:41):
It could Happen Here is a production of cool Zone Media.
For more podcasts from cool Zone Media, visit our website
Coolzonemedia dot com, or check us out on the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts or Wherever you listen to podcasts, you can
now find sources for it could happen here, listed directly
in episode descriptions. Thanks for listening.
Cool Zone Media.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
I'm Stephen Monchelli. I'm a journalist in Dallas and an
occasional Cool Zone Media contributor. You may have seen in
the news lately that there's a major measles outbreak centered
in Texas. It started back in January of this year
in the West Texas County of Gaines, and it has
since spread to at least two other states. As of
(00:26):
this recording, Texas has reported over seven hundred cases associated
with the measles outbreak. New Mexico has reported over sixty,
Oklahoma has reported over fifteen, and there are other states
that have also reported measles cases that may or may
not be linked to this outbreak. It's the first major
measles outbreak in a decade, and it's already taken three lives,
(00:50):
two unvaccinated children, the first of such deaths in more
than twenty years, and one adult. All were unvaccinated at
the res of the outbreak are low vaccination rates, which
took a sharp downturn after the twenty twenty COVID nineteen
pandemic as dubious vaccine skepticism and opposition to vaccines, both
(01:11):
mandatory and in general, became a partisan political issue. It
is no coincidence that the low vaccination rate in Gaines County,
where the outbreak first began, corresponds with deep red Republican politics.
Measles is a sort of canary in the coal mine.
It's one of the most highly communicable diseases and consequently
(01:32):
is among the first to appear in communities with low
vaccination rates. An outbreak in California about a decade ago
was eventually stemmed when the state legislature banned vaccine exemptions
for school aged children. This action spurred response and gave
a shot in the arm to a nascon coalition of
vaccine skeptics and outright anti vaccination groups that had previously
(01:54):
struggled to get political traction. By twenty twenty, such groups
had gained meaningful amounts of infolruents in red states like
Texas and Oklahoma. Then came COVID nineteen, and suddenly a
disparate set of groups big pharma skeptics, wellness influencers, health
freedom libertarians, and conservative religious groups, to name a few,
(02:15):
coalesced in a formidable political force under the banner of
the Republican Party, whose politicization of the COVID nineteen pandemics
served as a sort of ideological cement to unite them.
The logical conclusion of this development is represented in the
avatar of RFK Junior, a long time vaccine misinformation peddler
who now sits atop the highest federal government health bureaucracy,
(02:38):
a perch from which he continues to spread debunked anti
vaccination tropes like a proverbial fox in the henhouse. RFK
Junior has repeatedly downplayed the importance of vaccines in the
battle against measles, and has refused to distance himself from
long debunked anti vaccination arguments such as that vaccines cause autism.
His influence and the influence of the vaccine Skins movement,
(03:00):
of which he is a central figure, can be seen
in responses from local West Texans who have opted for
junk palliatives like vitamin A or measles exposure parties over vaccination.
The viral spread of anti vax ideology threatens to pitch
us back one hundred years in time, when thousands of
children and adults either died or disabled every year from
(03:21):
diseases like measles, polio, and smallpox. Research into the side
effects of vaccines has repeatedly shown that the risks associated
with vaccination are far lower than the risks of an infection,
particularly for vulnerable populations like young children, the elderly, and
people with suppressed immune systems. Some people genuinely cannot get vaccines,
(03:44):
such as certain new board babies, and thus are at
higher risk should an outbreak of a deadly disease occur.
When ninety five percent of a population is vaccinated in
an area, diseases can be entirely removed from circulation, and
that's indeed what happened to smallpox and for a time, measles.
But the downward trend in vaccination rates, supercharged by the
(04:06):
marriage of right wing politics with anti vaccination beliefs of
all stripes, means that our collective immunity is at risk.
This week, I will be your host on It Could
Happen Here As I take you through a five episode
mini series called Anti vax America, three interviews with public
health officials, vaccine scientists, medical professionals, and historians. I will
(04:29):
explore the ongoing measles outbreak and how it serves as
a microcosm for where we are, how we got here,
and where we could go if anti vaxx beliefs continue
to become mainstream in the United States. In the first episode,
I will cover the origin of the measles outbreak in Texas,
it's deadly consequences, the varying responses from public health officials
(04:50):
at different levels of government, and the consequence of misinformation
being spread at the national and local level. In the
second episode, I will on earth the deep roots of
anti vaccination belief in the United States, how it's changed
over time, and why it's basically become synonymous with right
wing politics in our current day. In the third episode,
(05:12):
I will explore the overlap between anti vaxx beliefs and
the belief in supernatural healing and miracles that is common
among a particular movement of conservative Christianity that has tied
itself closely to President Donald Trump. In the fourth episode,
I will untangle the twisted history of eugenics and how
it's influenced public health and vaccination attitudes, as well as
(05:34):
the historical echo of eugenics that can be found in
RFK Juniors Make America Healthy Again agenda. And in the
last episode, I'll consider what could happen in the United States,
What could happen here if vaccination rates continue to plummet
and vaccine skeptics like RFK Junior continue to dictate public
health policy. But before we get there, a quick ad break.
(06:09):
Gaines County, the epicenter of the West Texas outbreak, is
a largely rural place home to oil field workers, farmers, ranchers,
and several Mennonite communities. Politically, it's very conservative. It sits
on the Texas New Mexico border, about three hundred and
sixty miles west of Dallas, where I live. The largest
(06:31):
city in the region, Lubbock, is two counties over. Lubbock
is home to two hundred and sixty thousand plus people
and has the largest hospitals in the area. It was
at one of those hospitals that the first child died
of measles in over two decades. As the number of
cases in the region began to increase, Lubbock became a
central hub for both treatment and the dissemination of public
(06:53):
health information. Weeks before RFK Junior or Texas Governor Abbot
spoke on the issue, local pub health officials and medical
institutions were on the front lines in Lubbock.
Speaker 3 (07:07):
So my name's Catherine Wells, and I am the director
for Lubbock Public Health and Lubbock Public Health is the
city and county health department in both the city and
county of Lubbock, Texas. I've been in this role for
about ten years now. We're about seventy five miles from
(07:30):
Gaines County, which is where kind of the epicenter of
this measles outbreak is.
Speaker 2 (07:35):
Let's maybe go back all the way to the day
that you know it sort of began. The first case
came out in January, So can you take us a
little back to that day and what was going on
in your world and you know, what were you doing,
and how did you hear about this first case and
what your reaction was.
Speaker 3 (07:53):
And we'll actually need to take a couple of days
kind of before the announcement. I first found out out
the possibility of measles that Friday, the twenty eighth. I
have all my dates messed up, but it's that Friday
before the first case was announced. One of my staff
(08:14):
came and told me that we had two children that
had been admitted to our local hospital. So we have
the children's hospital for this whole region. People come, you know,
over two hundred miles to come to the children's hospital
in Luppock, and she mentioned that there was two children.
The physician thought it might be measles that they were
(08:36):
going to send for testing. So in public health, measles
is so rare that even sending somebody for testing is
required to be reported to public health. That physician thought
it was measles. We kind of waited over the weekend,
and then that Monday and Tuesday, I started hearing some
(08:57):
rumors that there were measles cases down on the ground
in Gaines County, which was interesting. People were calling and saying,
you know, I heard this rumor, have you heard this?
And I'm like nope. And then all of a sudden,
those two cases or those two cases both tested positive.
(09:18):
And then when we went and started talking to the
families and learning more, we realized that those rumors about
measles circulating and Gaines County was true, and there were
reports of you know, multiple individuals that had been sick
and measles had probably been there or at least a
little bit of time. And then when we got the
confirmed cases, that really just put everything into really you know,
(09:40):
moving very quickly trying to really figure out what was
going on for measles.
Speaker 2 (09:46):
So at that time, it was it was flu season,
and so were you all was your office preparing, you know,
or working on anything else at that time when you
had first heard about this first testing and you know,
started hearing about these rumors.
Speaker 3 (10:01):
Yeah, I mean, we had increases in flu, we had
increases in COVID. We actually had some birds that had
died that had tested positive with the new Avian flu.
You know, just that's a busy time of the year
for public health with lots of different reports coming in,
lots of multiple reports of pertussis, and it's not unusual
(10:24):
that we have a physician wanting to test for measles
ruling out I mean, it happens a couple of times
a year, but in my entire career, every time that happened,
it had always been negative. So I was kind of
thinking that it was one of those cases, especially that
Friday afternoon, like, oh, this is just a doctor, you know,
you know, just wanting to rule something out. You know,
(10:45):
it's probably flu or something else going on with those children.
Speaker 2 (10:49):
And so when you had gotten that confirmation, it was
verified that those cases had indeed been measles. I mean,
what was going through your mind at that time.
Speaker 3 (11:00):
I mean that was like, you know, people have always
talked about we're kind of on the edge of seeing
more measles outbreaks in the United States, and it was
really kind of a no, no crab moment of Wow,
this is in our backyard, is our department you know,
ready to take this on? And then also reaching out
(11:21):
to Gaines County, which has a much smaller health department,
and being like, what can we help you with? Do
you guys know what you need next? You know, they
don't have a communications person, so it was like my
staff writing the press release for Gaines County to send
out to make the notifications about the first measles cases.
So it was just really what can we do to
(11:42):
help them immediately and figure out what the next steps
would be with that.
Speaker 2 (11:46):
So since January, cases have been on the rise, and
so we're in a different place now than just two cases.
Can you just tell us a little bit about where
things are now in Lubbock and how medical forties have
responded to the outbreak.
Speaker 3 (12:03):
So initially, you know, all of the cases were in
Gaines County. The only exposures we were seeing outside of
Gaines County was when somebody was seeking medical care and
was sitting in like say, a waiting room at a
physician's office, and then they were exposing other individuals. But
after a couple of weeks, we started seeing spread outside
(12:26):
of Gaines County, so we were seeing more and more
cases in those surrounding counties, and then we started getting
cases in Lubbock, that's seventy five miles away. Over the
last three weeks, we've really seen the cases in Lubbock increase.
You know, we originally just had a handful. Now we're
up to forty one or forty two, and that number
(12:47):
will be updated again tomorrow. So just seeing more and
more spread of measles, and the concern is that public
Health can't necessarily trace those back to a specific case.
So people that have got out to the store or
gone to a public place have now contracted measles.
Speaker 2 (13:06):
So tell me a little bit more about what efforts
have taken place and what sort of initiatives have been
put into place as measles has spread. You know, what
does that look like from love at Public Health or
any of your partners.
Speaker 3 (13:22):
Yeah, so ours is really the first one was getting
testing set up Originally when this started, all of our
testing samples had to go to Austin, which is about
a five and a half hour drive, So working with
the state Health Department to get testing capability up here
in Lubbock so we could quickly identify people. The next
(13:43):
one is really about education, providing information to the physicians'
offices the hospitals about measles because we hadn't seen it
in twenty one years here. So just think about how
many physicians have been trained over the last twenty one
years never saw a measles case in their residency. So
(14:04):
getting them to feel comfortable about what the signs and
symptoms are, and really making sure that we were notifying
or that they were notifying public health and getting people
tested and then doing that contact tracing, and then the
other big ones vaccinations. You know, there's two ways to
prevent measles. You know, one is the vaccination that's going
to protect you, and then the other one is avoiding
(14:26):
being exposed to measles. So really getting more and more
people vaccinated with pop up clinics and then running a
measles vaccination clinic here at our Health department.
Speaker 2 (14:37):
Can you tell me a little bit about what the
response in particular too. You know, the vaccination clinics being
set up has been you know, I have a lot
of people shown up for that. Has it drawn a
lot of you know, new people that are trying to
get their children vaccinated.
Speaker 3 (14:53):
It's a mix. I feel that our vaccination clinic here
at our health department's been pretty successful in that we're
getting people every day coming in to get vaccinated, and
we're seeing people that were hesitant prior, that had chosen
not to vaccinate their children kind of with the idea, well,
(15:13):
I've never seen measles or moms or rebella, so why
give my child a vaccine if that doesn't exist. Now
that measles are circulating in the community, they're changing that
thought process and are coming forward to get vaccinated. Some
of the rural clinics have been a lot harder to
get people to come in. I mean, they've stood up
clinics and only a handful of people have come in
(15:36):
to that clinic that day. So real mixed response. But
I think is public health, it's important for us to
be offering the MMR vaccine with as few barriers as possible.
Speaker 2 (15:48):
So you were in this position during the COVID pandemic
and when that began and all throughout it. So can
you tell me a little bit what it was like
working in your role as a public health official ads
that time, and then also maybe whether things are any
different today, has anything changed?
Speaker 3 (16:06):
I mean, I think our community did fairly well throughout COVID,
given you know, everything that went on. I've always believed
in just being honest and talking about what I do
know what I don't know, what the science is showing,
and I think that helped our community get vaccinated and
take some of the precautions during COVID. And I'm kind
(16:29):
of taking that same you know, thought process and that
same you know, leadership style as we're dealing with measles
out here. You know, with measles, it's a challenge. I
think people are paying attention to it because it's really
impacting children, whereas we didn't see, you know, that same
impact with COVID. It's frustrating because we know what the
(16:52):
solution is. When COVID showed up, you know, nobody in
public health and the medical community, you know, knew exactly
what COVID is. With measles, we know what we're dealing
with and We also have a known solution, which is
a vaccine, so it is frustrating that people are choosing
not to vaccinate. Still, the other challenges is during COVID,
(17:13):
all of our other work for public health got put
on hold. Here with measles, our health Department's still expected
to do all of our other jobs and respond to
a measle's outbreak, which is really stressful on staff.
Speaker 2 (17:26):
I can completely understand that in terms of some stressful things.
I understand that just from doing some background research and
reading up that your office or maybe even you yourself,
were subject to some threats or some sort of pretty
extreme reactions during COVID. Is that the case and is
(17:46):
that still happening?
Speaker 3 (17:48):
Thankfully, it's not happening. During COVID, we did have some
very strong opinions and some threats, mostly around when the
children's vaccine was released and why we were promoting that.
We have not seen that with measles, which is very good.
I don't want any of my staff to be threatened.
I mean, you always got these random posters on people
(18:10):
that post on social media, but they're not even individuals
from our community.
Speaker 2 (18:15):
Got it okay? Well, I'm glad to hear that genuinely
that that is a positive change. I suppose that is
something that's a good difference.
Speaker 3 (18:24):
And also good support from our pediatricians and the medical
community has been very good and outspoken about the importance
of getting vaccinated, which has helped us.
Speaker 2 (18:34):
So where do you see things going from here? I mean,
do you think we'll continue to see more cases? I
know that they're on the rise, but do you think
that will continue? Or do you have other concerns about
potentially other outbreaks of diseases that had been kind of
pushed out of circulation coming back.
Speaker 3 (18:55):
Yeah, all of the above. I think in Gains count
in particular, we don't have a good understanding of where
we are in the epidemic, like how many vulnerable individuals
in that community are still remaining, so we don't know
how long that initial epicenter outbreaks going to last. We're
(19:18):
also seeing, you know, as measles gets into a community,
it is so infectious that it is going to find
all of those little pockets of people that are unvaccinated.
And that's what we're seeing here in Lubbott County is
you know, measles taking hold and finding little pockets and
(19:39):
public health trying to go put out you know, little fires,
trying to make sure that we've figured out who's been
exposed and who's at risk.
Speaker 2 (19:47):
You described, you know, how this is an incredibly infectious
disease and it is you know, finding all the pockets
people that are vulnerable or not vaccinated. And so I'm
wondering if you can, you know, if they're any examples
or specifics that you could share about how the outbreak
is impacting communities or particular communities. Has it resulted in
(20:10):
disruptions in school for children, Has it caused any other
sort of notable breakdowns or sort of pauses in day
to day regular activity in Lubbic.
Speaker 3 (20:22):
You know, those breakdowns have been more minor that a child,
say that's unvaccinated's been exposed and that's requiring that child
to sit out from school. So there is that, you know,
element that they're missing those important days of education. Our
bigger impacts here have been around daycares. We had a
(20:46):
large outbreak, or large in the sense that we've had
now eight children or eight individuals associated with one daycare
all test positive with measles. So that's meant that you know,
children have had to be sent home from daycare, which
then impacts parents' ability to work and also impacts you know,
(21:07):
you know, daycare along with you know, the number of
students there children having to go home that have been
exposed working a lot to get additional doses of vaccine
into a daycare. So it both impacts the public health system,
our healthcare system because kids need health, but then it
also impacts parents because if your child's not in daycare,
(21:28):
a parent can't go to work. Those have been the
bigger disruptions and then disruptions in our healthcare system that
we're now having to do a lot of screen Like
you call to make an appointment for the doctor, and
it's kind of like COVID, have you been exposed to measles?
Are you vaccinated? They're asking all those screening questions before
people enter our healthcare facilities.
Speaker 2 (21:50):
In terms of sort of interactions with the state and
their response to this, can you tell me a little
bit more about how the State of Texas has responded
and partnered with local authorities.
Speaker 3 (22:02):
So we have a good working relationship with the State
of Texas. Texas has to do everything differently, so we
kind of have this decentralized system where the state and
locals both kind of have their own authority, very independent
at the county level, but the state is offered support
(22:23):
to us. They've helped me bring in temp nurses to
be able to assist with vaccine clinics. They're paying for
some additional staff d answer phones, so we're getting that
kind of support. And then I meet with the state,
you know, regularly about what's going on in Lubbock, how
Lubbock fits in the context of the rest of this outbreak,
(22:43):
and you know, how we're going to work together to
move forward. We always thought of measles as an airplane
ride away, so we would see, you know, somebody travel
to a foreign country, come back to the United States
and maybe pass measles to a couple of people in
their household. This outbreak is not that we're seeing transmission
(23:08):
within a community, and it's making measles more of a
car ride away. And that's concerning because we have individuals
that are susceptible to measles, either through to young to
be vaccinated, not vaccinated, or some other immune compromised state.
So just concerning that we're going to see more outbreaks
(23:30):
spreading out into the United States, especially as we're moving
into spring and summer where people are traveling and driving
through communities that we could just see kind of explode everywhere,
which is my biggest fear. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (23:44):
Absolutely.
Speaker 2 (23:45):
I mean, given that vaccinations and to some degree, public
health in general has kind of become a politicized issue,
I can only imagine that it can make it quite
difficult for you to convey these messages to people for
them to understand them.
Speaker 3 (24:02):
Yeah, and I'm talking. I mean I've talked to many
health department directors across the country, and you know, one
of the values of local public health is that you know,
all of us local health department directors and those staff
were coming from these individuals, communities and our goals to
keep our community safe. And it really doesn't matter what's
happening at the federal level. It's about your community, your connections,
(24:27):
watching out for this diseases, and then convincing your community
to do the right thing. And luckily we have you know,
twenty five hundred health departments across the US, and that
is their goals, and hopefully people will continue to trust
their local directors.
Speaker 2 (24:41):
That is a great point. And I'm wondering if is
there anything else that you can speak to on how
the distrust that is there can potentially be bridged, or
you know, the specific things that y'all have done to
try to sort of rebuild that trust or establish that trust.
Speaker 3 (24:58):
I mean with us locally, it's making sure that we're
talking to our local news and our local reporters and
answering the phone call when a concerned parent calls, and
going through the information we know, and utilizing our local
physicians to tell them the story, because I think if
you can still see it at the local level, you know,
(25:20):
people can really understand that this is a risk and
really make that right choice to get the vaccine or
if they've been exposed, to stay home.
Speaker 2 (25:29):
We'll hear more from Catherine in just a moment at first,
as we are obligated to do. Here's some ads. So
I do understand there's quite a bit of skepticism towards vaccination,
(25:52):
and that's certainly going to be a subject that we're
exploring in this podcast. And at least by the numbers,
it shows that in places like West Texas and particularly
more rural areas even more than a place like Lobbick,
that there's pretty low vaccination rates. Several counties are below
the I guess, was it ninety five percent threshold that
(26:14):
really helps bring diesels out of circulation And so, you know,
I'm kind of curious. You've been there for over a decade.
Do you have a sense sort of what the key
drivers of vaccine hesitancy are and why so many West
Texans choose not to get their children vaccinated. You already mentioned,
you know, the fact that it's it hasn't been seen
(26:35):
for so long, so sort of out of sight, out
of mind maybe, But are there other other drivers that
come to mind for you?
Speaker 3 (26:42):
Yeah, I mean I don't think. You know, West Texas
is unique from many other communities in the United States.
You know, people are very much influenced by social media
and some of our media outlets, and there's a lot
of you know, scare tactics or misinformation around vaccines and
(27:05):
you know, anything from autism that's been debunked so many
times about vaccines causing autism, other misinformation about what's in
vaccines and the risks of vaccines. I mean, every medical intervention,
every medication has some type you know, of risk. But
vaccines have been long studied, and especially when you're looking
(27:27):
at the MMR vaccine we've been using this for fifty
years and that's why we don't have measles cases or
hadn't had measles cases. But people have really bought into
a lot of that information out there, and it's really
hard to combat that. I've gone and read the stories
and I can see how people feel miss and pick
up on this, but I just don't know from public
(27:47):
health standpoint how we combat it.
Speaker 2 (27:49):
Right right, It's a very difficult problem, the challenge that
has a long history and has a lot of different factors.
Speaker 3 (27:57):
And things are so complex. It's not a it's not
a one for one. It's just it's been a challenge.
But I think out here I always felt like we
hadn't been impacted as much from some of these anti
vaccine movements. I think post COVID people you know, have
a mistrust in government or wanting to listen to mandates
(28:19):
or recommendations or whatever we call them. We're just seeing
that more and more, and that hesitancy you know, to
come through and trust both government trust the medical system
are all concerns and that all contributes to these lower
vaccination rates.
Speaker 2 (28:36):
In a media environment rife with misinformation about vaccines and
public health, Catherine's perspective is refreshing and a bit hardening.
Local public health officials like her have done great work
to raise the alarm around viral outbreaks, but they're up
against a problem that is much bigger than what they
can address on their own, and that's the widespread belief
(28:58):
in bogus theories, be they scientific or religious, that undercut
the proven science around vaccines. Much of this misinformation comes
from places far from West Texas, like the anti vaccination
group Children's Health Defense, which RFK Junior previously led. It
is widely recognized as a major source of online vaccine misinformation,
(29:21):
including the debunk allegation that vaccines cause autism. After the
death of a six year old child of measles in March,
Children's Health Defense released a video interview with the parents,
who said they still would not take the vaccine and
wouldn't recommend it to other parents. Here's a clip from
that interview in which the Mennonite parents speak in their
(29:44):
Lowland German dialect.
Speaker 4 (29:45):
So when you see the fairmong gring in the quest,
which is what we once stop, We want to get
the truth that what do you say to the parents
that are rushing out Hannah Kang to get the EMMA
for a six months or failure beca think that that
child is gonna die of measles from this appartment to
your daughter, and it would sign is only sous so bad.
(30:09):
Like there's doctors with the whometown.
Speaker 5 (30:12):
She says, they would still say don't do the shots.
There's doctors that can help with measles. They're not as
bad as they're making it out to be.
Speaker 4 (30:20):
Yeah, and also the measles.
Speaker 6 (30:25):
Are good for the body for the people because the
measles are then give the what is it.
Speaker 4 (30:37):
What can and synem contraction but infection, yeah, did you
get infection out?
Speaker 5 (30:45):
And he's immune system. Yeah, they're trying to say that
the measles actually help build the immune system in the
long run. If they get the measles, now you don't
achieve in the long run, and were in the salation
like okay, So in the long run, he said, they
(31:07):
wouldn't get cancer as easily, and like it pipes off
a lot of a lot of stuff, the immunity that
they get from the from the measles.
Speaker 2 (31:20):
But some of what public officials like Catherine have been
trying to combat is coming from other medical professionals much
closer to home, such as doctor Ben Edwards, who appeared
in a Children's Health Defense video and has promoted anti
vaccination misinformation on his own podcasts, including the recommendation to
take vitamin A to treat measles, an approach that has
(31:42):
resulted in several cases of vitamin A toxicity among children
diagnosed with measles in West Texas. During their interview with
Children's Health Defense, the Mennonite parents of the first child
to die of measles actually said they were working with
doctor Ben Edwards for their treatment. One video that went
viral online showed Edwards visibly infected with measles at the time,
(32:07):
treating patients with measles and inhabiting spaces where individuals who
were not infected with measles were present, and this elicited
widespread condemnation from the medical community, quite unsurprisingly. Nevertheless, it
demonstrates the sort of attitude of certain medical professionals in
the area who have used their platforms and their credentials
(32:29):
to sow doubt about the importance of the vaccine, making
matters worse. Rfka Junior praised doctor Edwards as a quote
extraordinary healer just one week after Edwards was seen in
that video treating patients while himself infected with measles. While
anti vaccination beliefs have certainly gone viral in the aftermath
(32:50):
of the COVID pandemic, they are by no means new.
Practitioners like Edwards and advocacy groups like Children's Health Defense
have been peddling their snake oil for decades, But the
roots of anti vaccination belief around even deeper than that.
In the next episode of Anti vaxx America, I'll do
a deep dive into the history of anti vaccination beliefs
(33:11):
to understand the origins of them, how they've changed over time,
and why they've become embraced in mainstream right wing politics,
which is a change from the sort of bipartisan and
even sometimes progressive nature of some anti vaccination skepticism. But
until then, thanks for listening. I'm Stephen Manschllei for cool
(33:33):
Zone Media and this is Anti vaxx America.
Speaker 1 (33:41):
It could Happen Here is a production of cool Zone Media.
For more podcasts from cool Zone Media, visit our website
Coolzonemedia dot com, or check us out on the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts or Wherever you listen to podcasts, you can
now find sources for it could happen here, listed directly
in episode descriptions. Thanks for listening.
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