September 16, 2025 • 37 mins
Dr. Nicole Saphier and Dr. Monique Yohanan take a deep dive into today’s vaccine debates, examining whether it’s time to reevaluate the vaccine schedule. They explore the balance between community responsibility and individual freedom, the role of aluminum in vaccines, and the real-world impact of mandates. With public trust in health authorities at a crossroads, this conversation highlights the importance of informed decision-making, transparency, and collaboration in shaping public health policy. Wellness Unmasked is part of the Clay Travis & Buck Sexton Podcast Network - new episodes debut every Tuesday & Friday.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Wellness on MASS. I'm doctor Nicole Saffire. Today
we are going to take a closer look at the
childhood vaccine schedule. It's a topic that's becoming increasingly complex
in recent years. When I was in medical school, you know,
it's not really something we talked about. We knew it existed,
and that was it kind of settle science. You don't
really talk much about. It just is what it is.
(00:22):
I have learned more about the childhood vaccine schedule over
the last five years than I think I even spent
for the preceding fifteen twenty years of my career. But
here's this situation. Nationally, vaccination rates among children are absolutely slipping.
CDC data shows that kindergarten coverage for Measles moms and
rubella that MMR vaccine has fallen to about ninety three percent.
(00:46):
That's down from over ninety five percent, which is our
target just a few years ago. Now, I know two
percent doesn't really sound like that big of a deal,
but I can tell you that two percent difference it's
of hundreds of thousands of children, and it's enough to
fuel localized outbreaks, and that's a problem. At the same time, also,
(01:08):
vaccination exemptions for kindergarteners have reached the highest levels ever
recorded in the United States. Now, there are many reasons
behind this, the lingering fallout of the COVID nineteen mandates,
which is we all know are a complete disaster and
uncalled for, increased online misinformation, and just the growing political movement,
(01:29):
and maybe it's not even political, just the growing movement
questioning whether mandates belong in schools at all. Florida recently
announced its intent to remove all vaccine requirements for students,
this fueling and sparking the national debate about the balance
between individual choice and community safety. I'll share something personal
(01:50):
here because I'm an open book. I've always tried to
be that way as I've entered the public space. My
own one of my own kiddos, I have three sons,
you know, one of my own kids in middle school,
when it came to whooping cough, was fully vaccinated and
even had been recently boosted. Well, he got whooping cough.
(02:11):
I mean, it was kind of shocking to us, but
he got whooping cough. We only knew it because he
had this characteristic cough that I read about, I heard
about all throughout my career, but I had actually never
heard the cough myself. But as soon as I heard
it in him, my husband and also a doctor, and
I we looked at each other were like, no, could
it be sure? Was took him to the pediatrician.
Speaker 2 (02:35):
And it was.
Speaker 1 (02:37):
But that's what it had me thinking that night. You know,
I was a little bit panicked because when you hear
about whooping cough, you're concerned about it. I mean, we
get vaccinated, we don't talk much about whooping cough anymore.
So I found myself going into a deep literature dive
all about protessis, which is, you know what causes whooping cough?
(02:57):
And you know, is it dangerous? In my middle school son,
why did he get this right after he had just
been boosted for whooping cough? And it really kind of
pushed me to look just more critically at how effective
some of the vaccines still recommended for children really are,
especially as we know immunity from these vaccines and boosters
(03:18):
can weigh over time. So when it comes to whooping cough,
the CDC surveillance data shows about about one percent of
reported cases in adolescents like those eight eleven to eighteen
years old, actually required hospitalization. Now, in contrast, fifty percent
of infants less than six months were hospitalized, So one
(03:41):
percent of teens adolescents being hospitalized with whooping cough fifty percent.
Half of the kiddo's, the little ones who are infected
are in the hospital. Obviously, there's different risks with these populations.
So whooping cough also nicknamed one hundred day cough, it's
certainly curate. Let me tell you, my son coughed for
(04:02):
a very long time. This cough can last like six
to ten weeks, but really without any long term, long
lasting effects, just this annoying cough, which by the way,
is not contagious. It's just an annoying cough. And in
the US, death and adolescence are extremely rare, with CDC
data showing no deaths in adolescents. And it's really all
(04:26):
in just these young kiddos too young to be vaccinated.
So I was able to sleep soundly that night because
I'm like, oh, okay, well my son has whooping cough,
but he's going to be just fine. That was a
really good thing for me to feel. I didn't have
to be like, oh my gosh, thankfully my son is vaccinated.
(04:46):
He's going to be fine. Just my son with this
infection is going to be fine. That certainly gives comfort
to a parent. So, but my research really underscore is
kind of an important truth. Obviously, vaccines are not one
size fits all, because when you look at some of
the other illnesses that we vaccinate for, like measles or
(05:09):
even chicken pox or flu, there's a much higher rate
of hospitalization in teens than say whooping cough. So I
wanted to have a conversation with someone who, like me,
questions the vaccine schedule. And by the way, questioning the
vaccine schedule, that doesn't mean you're anti vacs. In fact,
(05:29):
your pro vaccine. You can recognize the importance of vaccines,
but you can also look at them critically, especially as
we're facing a crisis within our country of declining vaccine rates.
We have to figure out what's causing this and what
can we do to move forward so that people can
actually trust the public health process all over again. So
to unpack all of this, I sat down with doctor
(05:51):
Monique Johannan, senior fellow at Independent Women and author of
the newly published Rethinking Vaccine Policy, A Case for Humility,
Vision and parental partnerships door Johannon, I have to admit
I went through your entire Rethinking Vaccine Policy report, and
(06:12):
I'll be honest, I thought it was very well written.
I work in academics myself, so obviously I appreach. I
really appreciate when people bring forth the data they link
to all their references instead of speaking in hyperbole, and
that is exactly what you did with this report. Can
you kind of just talk a little bit about why
(06:32):
you felt compelled to put this together? Sure?
Speaker 2 (06:35):
First of all, Nicole, thank you so much for having
me here today. My background really is I've spent twenty
years writing evidence based medicine guidelines for a variety of organizations,
and the last place I did that was Change Healthcare,
where I wrote the guidelines for COVID in twenty twenty
and I really saw a disconnect that in the literature
(06:57):
versus what I was hearing health authorities saying at that time.
That's what led to my initial specific interest in them.
But the other piece is that I'm currently the CMO
for an AI healthcare company, and when I look at
our healthcare system and vaccines in particular, I don't think
we're optimizing technology and I do think that a lot
(07:18):
of the challenges we have with vaccines in the vaccine
schedule would be addressed with technology. So it's a combination
of my background, that experience, and frankly an administration with
a will that I thought was actually going to be
willing to consider looking at this with threshold.
Speaker 1 (07:35):
Well, and you know right now, a lot of the conversation,
you know, I like to talk about the pendulum swinging
from one side to the other side. Some people are
all in, meaning you have to get every single vaccine,
and if you say anything about any of the recommended
vaccines on the CDC Childhood schedule, then that makes you
a Charlotte, and that makes you a conspiracy anti vax
(07:56):
whatever word they're using that day. You have to be
all in. But on the other side, you have to
be all in there it's all or nothing, it seems.
And so you're coming at this with a very thoughtful approach,
one that you know, you hear Senator Rampaul talk about
I've talked about myself, whether it's on TV or the podcast,
saying we have to reevaluate the vaccine schedule. So what
(08:20):
we're seeing in Florida with the Florida surch in general
taking away all vaccine mandates. I mean, that's a whole
different conversation, but again it kind of gives us that
whole all or nothing mantra, that mindset, And so what
you are talking about in your report is not necessarily
the all or nothing, But maybe we need to have
conversations about the individual vaccines. Absolutely and cool.
Speaker 2 (08:43):
So when I look at vaccines, I think they're about
five of them that I feel like are what I
would consider community obligation vaccines. And of those five, maybe
one that I would consider the most important, so measles
and then months rebella diphtheria protests. That's it in terms
of vaccines for diseases that are really easy to spread
(09:05):
that if most people don't get them, it's hard for
people who are at risks to be protected. So, for example,
with measles, if we don't get to hurd immunity for measles,
a six month old can't be protected. They're too young
to get the vaccine and they really depend on herd immunity.
I cannot make the same case for hepatitis B. And
(09:26):
when you look at the Florida mandates as they had
been yes, they required diesels vaccination, but they also required
hepatities to be vaccination. It's your point about the all
or nothing depriving school for a disease that isn't actually communicable,
not in any way questioning the effectiveness of the vaccine.
I am saying that basically for the community protective vaccines
(09:48):
to this extent that we consider them if they don't
think the math for mandates work Settymore, that's sort of
another issue that I have with them. But to the
extent that we even think about they need to be
for the disease is what that really depend on? Community
protection for diseases for individual protection, and I would put
hepatitis B in that. I think that's a parent's decision.
Speaker 1 (10:12):
Well, and you know the hepatitis B vaccine that to
me is the most glaringly obvious one that we certainly
should have a conversation about and why it is on
any sort of school mandates for kids going to school,
especially school aged children. That's hard for me to wrap
my head around. As you said, it's not like a
respiratory transmitted virus. It's not highly contagious as like a
(10:33):
measles or even a chicken pox. It's really risk base,
and so that doesn't make sense other than you know,
the knee jerk reflexes when we have an available vaccine,
all of a sudden it gets put on the CDC recommendation,
and those recommendations. The CDC loves to say, we're not
making the mandates, we're not saying they're required, but they
(10:53):
very well know that when they put that on their
recommended schedule, that then turns into mandates and requirements and
so and so forth. And obviously this became the most
glaringly obvious during COVID. You brought up something which I
found very interesting in your vaccine report. You talked about
like the whole constitutional foundation of vaccine mandates, and it
was really interesting. It was a really interesting read in
(11:16):
the sense that it was from I think nineteen oh
five where they compared vaccination to the whole military giraft,
saying that, well, you send individuals into harm's way for
the collective good, acknowledging that some will be injured or
killed in the process. And so the fact that they
quoted that in you know, legal paperwork when it comes
(11:38):
to vaccines, I mean, that's really hard, you know, a
hard pill to swallow.
Speaker 2 (11:44):
And I think that's a history that we lose. So
the case that you're talking about is Jacobson versus Massachusetts.
That vaccine was for an adult mandate and the penalty
was a fine, so it didn't keep you out of
public life.
Speaker 1 (11:56):
Was that for smallpox?
Speaker 2 (11:58):
It was for smallpox exactly. And there was a minister
actually there'd been hard to one of his children in
a small spac scene. He had some clint of conditions.
He didn't won again, then went to the Supreme Court
and they said, yes, you know, the reality is we
have some obligations such that you might be hurt, you
might even be killed by getting a vaccine. But there
(12:18):
are vaccines that we can use the police power of
the state to take away your rights to bodily integrity
in the name of protecting the community. And so again
that was a fine. It wasn't until about almost thirty
years later there was a case called Zuck versus Skiing
in nineteen twenty two that said kids can't go to
(12:38):
school if they don't get a smallpox vaccine. There wasn't
an outbreak or anything at that time, but the Supreme
Court linked to school. So we've had about one hundred
years in which even not having an outbreak, the Supreme
Court had said it's fine to keep kids out of
school if a community wants to have a mandate for
particular diseases. So that is something that we haven't really
(13:03):
completely revisited. There were cases that the Supreme Court danced
around during COVID, but I do think that was also
in a time was very different in terms of the
number of vaccines, and as you pointed out, until nineteen
eighty six we had very few vaccines. We just see
this progressive increase after we have a shield law that
(13:24):
manufacturers manufacturers can't be sued. Every year or two we
get one or two vaccines added into the schedule. So
at this point we've done about seventeen diseases that kids
are getting vaccinated against by age eighteen, So that sort
of volume, and to your point, once it's on the schedule,
it just gets added. So you brought a peptidis speed
(13:45):
forty six states mandated. So from a practical sense, getting
on the schedule is an excellent way to make sure.
It's a way to keep kids out of school if
they don't get it.
Speaker 1 (13:55):
Yeah, you know what I find interesting is you pointed out,
and I mean you had great charts on it showing
that the United States, we well most other countries don't
have mandates for vaccines, but we wreck a quote unquote
recommend vaccines and ultimately mandate them more than any other country.
I mean the amount of boosters and so much and
(14:16):
so forth. And you talk about, you know, the concern
of the aluminum exposure that's in it, the aluminum salts.
I suppose it is, and so you know, talk to
me a little bit about that what you've found in that.
Speaker 2 (14:28):
Sure so aluminum just in case other people don't put
that background. A lot of vaccines don't work particularly well
unless they have a kick start, and they also kind
of need to be doled out over. An aluminum does
those two things. It acts as a kickstarter for a vaccine,
and then it's sort of as a train depot station
that it gradually will doll the dose of vaccine that
(14:51):
individual shot. It is a toxin, and originally when we
had the old schedule, we had serio A tennis and PROTESTERICEM.
We keep adding more and more vaccines that have aluminum
in them, such that when you look at our schedule
compared to Europe. It's basically that we have about double
(15:13):
the amount of most of Europe. Well in England and
Canada are somewhere in the middle. We have a report
from CDC that was done a few years ago that
found on a twenty six percent increase in the risk
of asthma when you had the US dose of aluminum,
and they said, oh, that's interesting. But even though the
CDC had designed this study themselves and it was a
(15:34):
huge study, they decided that they were just going to
keep things exactly the same. The issue with aluminum is
that for nerd developmental disease and for asthma and allergies,
that is sort of the canary in the coal mine
for aluminum. When you get to aluminum doses that are
on the higher end, that's when you really worry about
(15:56):
those diseases. And I do want to mention that there
was a study that got done in July of this
year from Denmark and they looked at aluminum and they said, oh,
we didn't find any problems. We didn't find any threshold responses.
Speaker 1 (16:09):
Now I'm kind of a.
Speaker 2 (16:10):
Geek about this stuff, but I will tell you that
they also made a claim that there's no dose response.
That's the equivalent scientifically of saying we found in our
study that the sun rises in the west and it
sets in the east. It's the thing that something only
some people did not understand. Aluminum toxicology would say that
(16:32):
that basically with aluminum, when you get to the kinds
of higher doses that you have in the US, that's
when you start to see harms.
Speaker 1 (16:41):
Again, plum was kind of like fluoride that way, like
an exert amount of fluoride is fine, but it's actually
it's helpful, But as soon as you get up on
that curve, it can be you know, deleterious for you.
Speaker 2 (16:54):
Exactly the doses that we see. When Denmark doesn't see
harm done, they give half the dose that we do.
They don't give it for essential vaccines. You could still
get di you could still get the vaccines for diteria,
for tetanus protestis, you could get it for the pneumonia
vaccine and still be well within what is probably a
(17:16):
safe threshold. It's when you start adding hepatitis B, hepatitis A.
And if I could just mention one other thing, part
of why we give extra doses is we don't type
we don't time our vaccines for immunity, so we start
the diphtheria to protestice vaccine before the kids immune systems
actually can tolerate them. Part of why Denmark gives less
(17:40):
is they wait a little longer to give their vaccines
and therefore they're able to give three shots and we
give bock. So when we look at it, if our
schedule not just had Pewer shots and Pewer diseases, but
if we actually looked at the immunity and the level
of development that kids have, we have fewer shots, but
we have better immunity from the chis we get.
Speaker 1 (18:02):
You know that Denmark study, you know, I looked at
it and obviously a lot of people said, Oh, it
was reassuring. I agree with what you're saying that they
do have a lesser amount. I mean they even talk
about the doses of aluminum that the kids they absorbed
dose essentially that they were able to estimate there were
some on the far extremes that had that higher amount
(18:23):
that would probably equate to the US, but it was
the minority of the kids in their study, not the majority.
But what you touched on earlier was that I think
it's twenty twenty two study put out by people funded
by the CDC or the NIEIGHT, which essentially said that
there was a correlation of these the aluminum doses of vaccination,
(18:44):
specifically in kids who already had exzema, meaning that they're
hypersensitive as is. And as you're saying, I think it
was like twenty four if there was a range even
more these kids had chronic asthma and they likened it
to the aluminum, and then that's a big That study
was a big deal, yet nothing came of it, and
their concluding lines were, well, we need to do more research.
(19:07):
And by the way, the people who say we need
to do more research, that's them saying, well, this is
what we found, but people aren't going to like it,
so we'll just say we need to do more research,
just to bias more time. But what happened was in
the United States they didn't do any more research. And
I think it was the lead author on that paper,
A Cent was part of the ACIP committee of the
(19:29):
CDC recommending the vaccines of COVID vaccines Flew and all
the other ones. So of course he doesn't want the
fact that his data shows that there may be harm
to this vaccine schedule. He's the one who's creating the
vaccine schedule.
Speaker 2 (19:43):
Absolutely. You know again, this is a big study. The
three hundred and twenty seven thousand kids. CDC designed it.
It's a well done study. No research is ever going
to be perfect. When people say, well it's not being replicated, well,
if you don't do any more research on this, say
not only look when I When you're looking at the evidence,
(20:04):
it sort of tells you a story, and part of
it is the story of what's in the literature. But
when you see absent literature, when you see people stop
doing studies when you get findings that they are inconvenient,
and that's the way I would describe aluminum. There have
been a lot of inconvenient things that people just don't
want to realize, and so there's unfortunately far too little literature.
(20:26):
The other part that bugs me about this Danish study
is it was published in an American medical journal, and
it was absolutely intended to reassure in American audience. The
core aluminum studies, the core aluminum toxicology literature. They don't
even cite.
Speaker 1 (20:43):
There is author I think the author of the US
study from the CDC on the ASET Committee. He commented
on it. I saw it in an interview or something somewhere.
He's like, Oh, it's it's great to see the study.
It's so reassuring. I'm like, so, are you admitting that
your data was flawed because you're our data actually seemed
pretty on point for someone who loves to criticize data.
(21:03):
So it was that it's hard to not feel that
people's personal opinions and the push for the mandates, which,
by the way, listen, you know, I guess I can
ask you this question, but when it comes to vaccine mandates,
you know, do you think that these mandates serve and
an effective tool in achieving herd immunity or do they
(21:23):
actually they more risk infringing on personal freedoms? Like what
is your take on these mandates, especially like measles, Like
we're talking about we've already kind of agreed we need
to revisit the vaccine schedule because we think we're overdoing
it for many reasons. But what about the school mandates
and some of the other things, I mean, the fact
that Florida is trying to eradicate them entirely.
Speaker 2 (21:44):
Sure, some of the best things you can make for
mandates is they give us an infrastructure. There are some
logistics to my kids going to school and I have
to do my vaccine, so I'm going to set up
my well child visit. I'm going to get this shot.
There are logistics. Most parents who do not get vaccinated,
for example, who homeschool are not homeschooling because there are mantles.
(22:07):
They are homeschooling because they want more control over their
kids schooling. But the reality is if you look after
COVID at the number of kids who left formal in
person school, you basically read to us about nine percent
of kids, you know, kind of depending on the numbers
are in homeschools or micro schools or schools or online charter.
(22:33):
Basically you need ninety five percent of all kids. But
right now we don't even have ninety five percent of
kids in school. So literally the math for mandates does
not work for measles. It is impossible, even if you
get rid of all exemptions, to actually get to a
national measles herd immunity based on the number of kids
who left school. Because public health authorities that it was
(22:55):
fine to shut down schools for more than a year,
those kids didn't go back to school. And that's a
reality that I think our public health infrastructure and for
example AAP, I don't think they've really caught up with
the math of this. When you only have ninety three
to ninety four percent or so of kids who are
in for some school, depending on the state, you cannot
(23:18):
get to hurt immunity with for measles, with a man
the mass just doesn't work. So I do think you
recommend just doing.
Speaker 1 (23:27):
Away with them, because I would say I would argue
that I guess that they have heard immunity at least
in the classroom, which is a place for measles to
spread very quickly.
Speaker 2 (23:36):
Yeah, So the problem I have and the challenge I
think what happened in Florida is they do sort of
a purpose. So if we're going to take something away,
we have to offer something else in instead. So Florida,
for example, could have changed their ability to tech outreach.
They could have changed the ability to opt. You know
that texting could be better. They could offer other different strategies.
(23:59):
They could a more liberal strategy in terms of allowing
kids to get vaccinated later. There are a variety of
other strategies that have been tried internationally to increase uptake
of measeless vaccination. So the problem I have with what
Florida did is not that you know, I can conceptually
understand what they're getting at, and I think to do
(24:21):
it for everything without something to substitute what is a mistake.
From my perspective, I do think, for example, pulling them
for preakfast at a steam would have made a lot
of sense. And then working to what can we do
to fill the gap we're talking about measles, that's me
or even allowing more liberal exemption policies, because the reality
(24:42):
is even with exemption policies, kids will actually stay in school.
You know, when California made their exemptions so so tight
and d of all exemptence, It's true the vaccinations did
go up among the kids who stayed in school. The
number of kids who have left formal school double them.
So the reality is every single state tightened up. Basically,
(25:08):
I will increased in medical and increasing kings.
Speaker 1 (25:13):
Do you think I mean this place? I feel like
we are in such a you know, a place where
public trust is I felt it was an all time
low at COVID, but I didn't realize that we could
even get lower than that, and I think, you know,
RFK Junior at the HHS Secretary is doing a lot
of great things in the sense that he's looking and
(25:33):
talking about things that no one has in decades, and
they're very important things. But my concern is that it's
affecting public trust even more.
Speaker 2 (25:44):
Your thoughts.
Speaker 1 (25:47):
Beendulum. We were over here, now we've gone this way,
like where's the center?
Speaker 2 (25:52):
Right? So I do think RFP. Junior really there's a
lot of important revisiting. You know, I read through the
MAHA report on kids that came out this week, so
talking about food, talking about exercise and stress for kids,
looking at over medicalization for kids. I think all of
these are really important topics. I also think his advisor
on vaccines is Martin Poltz, who is somebody who's publicly
(26:16):
talked about being in favor of measles vaccination. So whatever
people are saying about his opinions and scenes, I do
think he has people who are not a no vaccines
And when I listened to him and I've read his books,
he's not all out against every single vaccine. He just
(26:37):
I think more than anything, he has a discussion that
says probably there are some things we are crediting to
vaccines that when you look at the big Star sanitation,
we've played a role that there's some other So I
do think that there's a lot more nuanced. But I
also think some of this is frankly anti administration. I
think that there are very logicalhatory administrations. Yeah, I think
(27:02):
that when you look at the evidence for the lack
of evidence for COVID vaccination and people, including kids who
are healthy, that evidence is at best week And I
do actually from a scientific standpoint, from an evidentiary standpoint,
I agree with the decisions for that the FDA took.
I think that they are evidence based decisions. But I
(27:23):
think that, let me just say this, some of this
is definitional. Definitional. So during the Biden administration, the definition
of what a vaccine was was changed. So anything that
causes an immune response is a vaccine. Now that's not
the way it used to be. You used to actually
have to show that it was something that showed a
benefit in preventing disease, for preventing harm. That's not the
(27:47):
case anymore. So when these agencies say these are evidence based,
all COVID vaccine does, it increases an immune response for
people who are healthy. That is what the evidence shows.
So I do think unfortunately there's a lot things. Maybe
stylistically in terms of HIHS, you know that people are
(28:11):
latching onto. But I think in terms of the evidence
just going to say for vaccines, consistently they agreement with
what he's been saying.
Speaker 1 (28:21):
So your take home if they could just do what
could they do to try and get us on the
right step from a public health standpoint, but also a
public perception stampoint sure?
Speaker 2 (28:31):
I think so from back for vaccines, I think we
need to step I think we need to focus on
the vaccines that are for community protection. And again, if
I'm going to pick one, it's musles. I think the
potential risk of really getting to endemic musles it's a
disaster if we would ever get back. We have a
lot of outbreaks. Now, this is something that I think
(28:53):
is really important.
Speaker 1 (28:54):
You know, part of the folio in that too, seeing
is polio has been found in more water and like
you're have been.
Speaker 2 (29:02):
Is an interesting one. So it is interesting because the
fact we have given for polio for the last twenty
five years does nothing to stop an individual from getting polio.
It does nothing to stop transmission.
Speaker 1 (29:14):
But neurological effects absolutely that this is a big deal.
Speaker 2 (29:19):
Well it is so nicole. But here's the question you
would ask you, and again I'm not being cavalier about polio.
If you look at the exposure rates that we have
in the United States, you know when people come in
because we only see it when there's you know, there's
some strains that can be imported. Literally, the risk of
getting polio neurolytic polio in the United States if you're
(29:40):
exposed is one in ten million, so, which is actually
that's the math for the risk of the vaccine. So
I'm going to make the case that you're probably putting
your kid at greater risk if you're driving your kid
to school of having a neurologic problem, then you're by
not getting the polio vaccine. And let me say this
(30:00):
my opinion.
Speaker 1 (30:01):
That's a great analogy because I use that all the
time speaking about the COVID vaccine. I'm like, if you're
able to drive your kid to school and you're not
worried about that, you know, they're probably going to be
okay if they get COVID and they're healthy, you know,
whereas the vaccine has a higher risk.
Speaker 2 (30:18):
I just think that parents make them and should make, frankly,
a lot of decisions about their kids. And while I understand, yeah,
I have an MPH, I understand the instinct to want
to be protective and paternalistic about the way we protect
our kids. But the reality is this is not a
disease that kids are at high risk of having complications for.
(30:40):
I do not think that kids shouldn't get it. Maybe
just be very much on record, I think kids should
get the inactivated polio vaccine, but I think any case
that you are going to make you but a person
might make that the polio vaccine we give now is
protecting other kids. I disagree with them in terms of
the kinds of risks that we let parents make and
(31:02):
the way they raise their kids. I think we let
them have from believes, we let them drive their kids
to school. There are certain risks that I think taking
away parents' rights to make medical decisions for their kids
if there's not a community benefit, I chafe it them.
Speaker 1 (31:21):
If you can make very strong, valid arguments, and like
I said, I read through your whole report and it's
very fact based and which I appreciate. You're not hyperbolic
and you're what you say at all. I just I
wish that we could put it together so something like
for me to read it. I mean, I actually you
wrote it in a way that anyone could read it,
like you don't have to be a physician or an academic.
(31:45):
But I wish that we could all kind of come
together and aghs. They could really put something concise out
and that could be, you know, the start, instead of
we keep having these conversations back and forth and these
little things keep happening, and all it's doing is creating
a sense of chaos and it's just not helping us
move forward as a nation. And so I wish that
they could kind of like what you did, but then
(32:07):
just take that and say, these are our recommendations, these
are the risks. Give it to the parents, give it
to the pediatricians, and say you all need to work
together and let's figure it out. I guess that's but
I also think it's dangerous to let like measles go
completely unchecked.
Speaker 2 (32:24):
I think the part of where we are is it's
so polarized right now. I actually don't think it's an if.
I do think we're we're headed towards getting regional pandemic disease.
I do worry that in the Southeast we're going to
have a situation in which measles becomes the reality for
some kids in some parts of the country, and a reminder,
(32:45):
they tend twenty years to claw before before the vaccine,
almost four million kids got measles every year, and hundreds
of them died. And the kids who died were babies
who really they cannot get vaccinated. When we think about this,
I am very much for parents' rights to make medical
decisions about their kids. But the kids who are going
(33:07):
to suffer if we get back to endemic measles are
going to be kids who cannot get vaccinated. This is
something that again, well I am a libertarian at heart,
there are things that we have moral obligations to each
other as members of society. We cannot get back to
a disease that will affect four million kids, and frankly,
(33:27):
measels parties back to nine year olds and that works
because it's not usually a severe disease, and the kids
who were old enough to go to a party, the
kids who died, the kids who had complications with babies
who depended like older siblings actually getting vaccinated. That's the
reality that I feel like we're missing with this.
Speaker 1 (33:49):
Well. I truly appreciate you coming on Wellness Unmasked talking
about this. It's an important conversation, and you know, voices
like yours who've really done research know what they're talking about.
Not one size fits all all. That's exactly the voices
we need in the room right now. So thank you.
I love to report and I'm going to tell people
about it.
Speaker 2 (34:07):
Thank you so much, Nicaule. Thanks for having me on.
Speaker 1 (34:09):
You're listening to Wellness and mass We'll be right back
with more. Well, that was a jam packed conversation, a
lot of information. Honestly that to have a real conversation
about the vaccine schedule, it would go on for days,
not just a short podcast episode, but you kind of
understand the gist of what we're talking about. Vaccines have
(34:30):
been one of medicine's greatest success stories, nearly eradicating diseases
like polioned measles, specifically here in the United States. Yet
the reality today it's obviously more complicated. CDC data showing
the exemptions are on the rise, vaccination rates are on
the decline, and so we're also starting to see resurgence
of illnesses once considered under control. We're seeing a lot
(34:53):
of outbreaks of measles, obviously, we are seeing some flu.
We're seeing a lot more whooping cough as well, my
son being one of them. So when we look closely
at the data, one of the biggest questions that comes
up is if certain vaccines aren't actually preventing transmission, do
they really need to be routinely given in lower risk
(35:14):
populations like whooping call vaccine and healthy adolescents. By continuing
to recommend every vaccine across every age group, regardless of
the risk level, we may be actually undermining public trust.
We saw this with COVID. What happened with covid. They
kept pushing COVID vaccines in every age group, including healthy adolescents,
(35:38):
even when they were about the lowest risk population, and
on top of it, they were one of the more
higher risk populations for side effects. Well what happened, Well,
all of a sudden you have parents saying, forget it,
I'm not giving my kids the COVID vaccine. And you
know what they also stopped doing. They stopped giving them
flu shots too. Now, maybe in teens flu shots aren't
(35:58):
as necessary as school age kids. But I can tell
you school age kids have about a three times hospitalization
rate from flu, then they do COVID. But because they
pushed COVID just like it was as good and as
beneficial as like measles and flu, all of a sudden,
parents are like, forget it, you're pushing. You push that
(36:19):
COVID vaccine on us. Now the data is showing they
probably didn't even need it. Now I'm just going to
stop doing the vaccines in total. So if we just
could narrow the schedule to prioritize vaccines with maximum proven
benefits like decreasing transmission and focusing on the high risk groups,
we could restore confidence in the system and help people
(36:40):
take the most critical vaccines more seriously. Each one has
a different level of effectiveness, durability, and just overall impact
on community health, and in an era of growing skepticism
and declining uptake, we have to be especially careful because
every recommendation should be rooted in maximum demonstrateable benefit, otherwise
(37:01):
we risk further eroding the trust. My conversation with doctor
Monique Jonahan was a reminder that while we can debate
policies like forlerda's decision to remove mandates. What matters most
is that families receive clear, honest information to make decisions
that balance both individual health and public safety. That's what
(37:22):
I'm trying to do in my own household, and so
I want to make sure that everyone has the information
to make the best choices for their own family. Thanks
for listening to Wellness on Mass on America's number one
podcast network, iHeart. Follow Wellness on Mass with doctor Nicole
Saffire and start listening on the free iHeartRadio app or
wherever you get your podcasts, and we will see you
(37:45):
next time.
Welcome to Wellness on MASS. I'm doctor Nicole Saffire. Today
we are going to take a closer look at the
childhood vaccine schedule. It's a topic that's becoming increasingly complex
in recent years. When I was in medical school, you know,
it's not really something we talked about. We knew it existed,
and that was it kind of settle science. You don't
really talk much about. It just is what it is.
(00:22):
I have learned more about the childhood vaccine schedule over
the last five years than I think I even spent
for the preceding fifteen twenty years of my career. But
here's this situation. Nationally, vaccination rates among children are absolutely slipping.
CDC data shows that kindergarten coverage for Measles moms and
rubella that MMR vaccine has fallen to about ninety three percent.
(00:46):
That's down from over ninety five percent, which is our
target just a few years ago. Now, I know two
percent doesn't really sound like that big of a deal,
but I can tell you that two percent difference it's
of hundreds of thousands of children, and it's enough to
fuel localized outbreaks, and that's a problem. At the same time, also,
(01:08):
vaccination exemptions for kindergarteners have reached the highest levels ever
recorded in the United States. Now, there are many reasons
behind this, the lingering fallout of the COVID nineteen mandates,
which is we all know are a complete disaster and
uncalled for, increased online misinformation, and just the growing political movement,
(01:29):
and maybe it's not even political, just the growing movement
questioning whether mandates belong in schools at all. Florida recently
announced its intent to remove all vaccine requirements for students,
this fueling and sparking the national debate about the balance
between individual choice and community safety. I'll share something personal
(01:50):
here because I'm an open book. I've always tried to
be that way as I've entered the public space. My
own one of my own kiddos, I have three sons,
you know, one of my own kids in middle school,
when it came to whooping cough, was fully vaccinated and
even had been recently boosted. Well, he got whooping cough.
(02:11):
I mean, it was kind of shocking to us, but
he got whooping cough. We only knew it because he
had this characteristic cough that I read about, I heard
about all throughout my career, but I had actually never
heard the cough myself. But as soon as I heard
it in him, my husband and also a doctor, and
I we looked at each other were like, no, could
it be sure? Was took him to the pediatrician.
Speaker 2 (02:35):
And it was.
Speaker 1 (02:37):
But that's what it had me thinking that night. You know,
I was a little bit panicked because when you hear
about whooping cough, you're concerned about it. I mean, we
get vaccinated, we don't talk much about whooping cough anymore.
So I found myself going into a deep literature dive
all about protessis, which is, you know what causes whooping cough?
(02:57):
And you know, is it dangerous? In my middle school son,
why did he get this right after he had just
been boosted for whooping cough? And it really kind of
pushed me to look just more critically at how effective
some of the vaccines still recommended for children really are,
especially as we know immunity from these vaccines and boosters
(03:18):
can weigh over time. So when it comes to whooping cough,
the CDC surveillance data shows about about one percent of
reported cases in adolescents like those eight eleven to eighteen
years old, actually required hospitalization. Now, in contrast, fifty percent
of infants less than six months were hospitalized, So one
(03:41):
percent of teens adolescents being hospitalized with whooping cough fifty percent.
Half of the kiddo's, the little ones who are infected
are in the hospital. Obviously, there's different risks with these populations.
So whooping cough also nicknamed one hundred day cough, it's
certainly curate. Let me tell you, my son coughed for
(04:02):
a very long time. This cough can last like six
to ten weeks, but really without any long term, long
lasting effects, just this annoying cough, which by the way,
is not contagious. It's just an annoying cough. And in
the US, death and adolescence are extremely rare, with CDC
data showing no deaths in adolescents. And it's really all
(04:26):
in just these young kiddos too young to be vaccinated.
So I was able to sleep soundly that night because
I'm like, oh, okay, well my son has whooping cough,
but he's going to be just fine. That was a
really good thing for me to feel. I didn't have
to be like, oh my gosh, thankfully my son is vaccinated.
(04:46):
He's going to be fine. Just my son with this
infection is going to be fine. That certainly gives comfort
to a parent. So, but my research really underscore is
kind of an important truth. Obviously, vaccines are not one
size fits all, because when you look at some of
the other illnesses that we vaccinate for, like measles or
(05:09):
even chicken pox or flu, there's a much higher rate
of hospitalization in teens than say whooping cough. So I
wanted to have a conversation with someone who, like me,
questions the vaccine schedule. And by the way, questioning the
vaccine schedule, that doesn't mean you're anti vacs. In fact,
(05:29):
your pro vaccine. You can recognize the importance of vaccines,
but you can also look at them critically, especially as
we're facing a crisis within our country of declining vaccine rates.
We have to figure out what's causing this and what
can we do to move forward so that people can
actually trust the public health process all over again. So
to unpack all of this, I sat down with doctor
(05:51):
Monique Johannan, senior fellow at Independent Women and author of
the newly published Rethinking Vaccine Policy, A Case for Humility,
Vision and parental partnerships door Johannon, I have to admit
I went through your entire Rethinking Vaccine Policy report, and
(06:12):
I'll be honest, I thought it was very well written.
I work in academics myself, so obviously I appreach. I
really appreciate when people bring forth the data they link
to all their references instead of speaking in hyperbole, and
that is exactly what you did with this report. Can
you kind of just talk a little bit about why
(06:32):
you felt compelled to put this together? Sure?
Speaker 2 (06:35):
First of all, Nicole, thank you so much for having
me here today. My background really is I've spent twenty
years writing evidence based medicine guidelines for a variety of organizations,
and the last place I did that was Change Healthcare,
where I wrote the guidelines for COVID in twenty twenty
and I really saw a disconnect that in the literature
(06:57):
versus what I was hearing health authorities saying at that time.
That's what led to my initial specific interest in them.
But the other piece is that I'm currently the CMO
for an AI healthcare company, and when I look at
our healthcare system and vaccines in particular, I don't think
we're optimizing technology and I do think that a lot
(07:18):
of the challenges we have with vaccines in the vaccine
schedule would be addressed with technology. So it's a combination
of my background, that experience, and frankly an administration with
a will that I thought was actually going to be
willing to consider looking at this with threshold.
Speaker 1 (07:35):
Well, and you know right now, a lot of the conversation,
you know, I like to talk about the pendulum swinging
from one side to the other side. Some people are
all in, meaning you have to get every single vaccine,
and if you say anything about any of the recommended
vaccines on the CDC Childhood schedule, then that makes you
a Charlotte, and that makes you a conspiracy anti vax
(07:56):
whatever word they're using that day. You have to be
all in. But on the other side, you have to
be all in there it's all or nothing, it seems.
And so you're coming at this with a very thoughtful approach,
one that you know, you hear Senator Rampaul talk about
I've talked about myself, whether it's on TV or the podcast,
saying we have to reevaluate the vaccine schedule. So what
(08:20):
we're seeing in Florida with the Florida surch in general
taking away all vaccine mandates. I mean, that's a whole
different conversation, but again it kind of gives us that
whole all or nothing mantra, that mindset, And so what
you are talking about in your report is not necessarily
the all or nothing, But maybe we need to have
conversations about the individual vaccines. Absolutely and cool.
Speaker 2 (08:43):
So when I look at vaccines, I think they're about
five of them that I feel like are what I
would consider community obligation vaccines. And of those five, maybe
one that I would consider the most important, so measles
and then months rebella diphtheria protests. That's it in terms
of vaccines for diseases that are really easy to spread
(09:05):
that if most people don't get them, it's hard for
people who are at risks to be protected. So, for example,
with measles, if we don't get to hurd immunity for measles,
a six month old can't be protected. They're too young
to get the vaccine and they really depend on herd immunity.
I cannot make the same case for hepatitis B. And
(09:26):
when you look at the Florida mandates as they had
been yes, they required diesels vaccination, but they also required
hepatities to be vaccination. It's your point about the all
or nothing depriving school for a disease that isn't actually communicable,
not in any way questioning the effectiveness of the vaccine.
I am saying that basically for the community protective vaccines
(09:48):
to this extent that we consider them if they don't
think the math for mandates work Settymore, that's sort of
another issue that I have with them. But to the
extent that we even think about they need to be
for the disease is what that really depend on? Community
protection for diseases for individual protection, and I would put
hepatitis B in that. I think that's a parent's decision.
Speaker 1 (10:12):
Well, and you know the hepatitis B vaccine that to
me is the most glaringly obvious one that we certainly
should have a conversation about and why it is on
any sort of school mandates for kids going to school,
especially school aged children. That's hard for me to wrap
my head around. As you said, it's not like a
respiratory transmitted virus. It's not highly contagious as like a
(10:33):
measles or even a chicken pox. It's really risk base,
and so that doesn't make sense other than you know,
the knee jerk reflexes when we have an available vaccine,
all of a sudden it gets put on the CDC recommendation,
and those recommendations. The CDC loves to say, we're not
making the mandates, we're not saying they're required, but they
(10:53):
very well know that when they put that on their
recommended schedule, that then turns into mandates and requirements and
so and so forth. And obviously this became the most
glaringly obvious during COVID. You brought up something which I
found very interesting in your vaccine report. You talked about
like the whole constitutional foundation of vaccine mandates, and it
was really interesting. It was a really interesting read in
(11:16):
the sense that it was from I think nineteen oh
five where they compared vaccination to the whole military giraft,
saying that, well, you send individuals into harm's way for
the collective good, acknowledging that some will be injured or
killed in the process. And so the fact that they
quoted that in you know, legal paperwork when it comes
(11:38):
to vaccines, I mean, that's really hard, you know, a
hard pill to swallow.
Speaker 2 (11:44):
And I think that's a history that we lose. So
the case that you're talking about is Jacobson versus Massachusetts.
That vaccine was for an adult mandate and the penalty
was a fine, so it didn't keep you out of
public life.
Speaker 1 (11:56):
Was that for smallpox?
Speaker 2 (11:58):
It was for smallpox exactly. And there was a minister
actually there'd been hard to one of his children in
a small spac scene. He had some clint of conditions.
He didn't won again, then went to the Supreme Court
and they said, yes, you know, the reality is we
have some obligations such that you might be hurt, you
might even be killed by getting a vaccine. But there
(12:18):
are vaccines that we can use the police power of
the state to take away your rights to bodily integrity
in the name of protecting the community. And so again
that was a fine. It wasn't until about almost thirty
years later there was a case called Zuck versus Skiing
in nineteen twenty two that said kids can't go to
(12:38):
school if they don't get a smallpox vaccine. There wasn't
an outbreak or anything at that time, but the Supreme
Court linked to school. So we've had about one hundred
years in which even not having an outbreak, the Supreme
Court had said it's fine to keep kids out of
school if a community wants to have a mandate for
particular diseases. So that is something that we haven't really
(13:03):
completely revisited. There were cases that the Supreme Court danced
around during COVID, but I do think that was also
in a time was very different in terms of the
number of vaccines, and as you pointed out, until nineteen
eighty six we had very few vaccines. We just see
this progressive increase after we have a shield law that
(13:24):
manufacturers manufacturers can't be sued. Every year or two we
get one or two vaccines added into the schedule. So
at this point we've done about seventeen diseases that kids
are getting vaccinated against by age eighteen, So that sort
of volume, and to your point, once it's on the schedule,
it just gets added. So you brought a peptidis speed
(13:45):
forty six states mandated. So from a practical sense, getting
on the schedule is an excellent way to make sure.
It's a way to keep kids out of school if
they don't get it.
Speaker 1 (13:55):
Yeah, you know what I find interesting is you pointed out,
and I mean you had great charts on it showing
that the United States, we well most other countries don't
have mandates for vaccines, but we wreck a quote unquote
recommend vaccines and ultimately mandate them more than any other country.
I mean the amount of boosters and so much and
(14:16):
so forth. And you talk about, you know, the concern
of the aluminum exposure that's in it, the aluminum salts.
I suppose it is, and so you know, talk to
me a little bit about that what you've found in that.
Speaker 2 (14:28):
Sure so aluminum just in case other people don't put
that background. A lot of vaccines don't work particularly well
unless they have a kick start, and they also kind
of need to be doled out over. An aluminum does
those two things. It acts as a kickstarter for a vaccine,
and then it's sort of as a train depot station
that it gradually will doll the dose of vaccine that
(14:51):
individual shot. It is a toxin, and originally when we
had the old schedule, we had serio A tennis and PROTESTERICEM.
We keep adding more and more vaccines that have aluminum
in them, such that when you look at our schedule
compared to Europe. It's basically that we have about double
(15:13):
the amount of most of Europe. Well in England and
Canada are somewhere in the middle. We have a report
from CDC that was done a few years ago that
found on a twenty six percent increase in the risk
of asthma when you had the US dose of aluminum,
and they said, oh, that's interesting. But even though the
CDC had designed this study themselves and it was a
(15:34):
huge study, they decided that they were just going to
keep things exactly the same. The issue with aluminum is
that for nerd developmental disease and for asthma and allergies,
that is sort of the canary in the coal mine
for aluminum. When you get to aluminum doses that are
on the higher end, that's when you really worry about
(15:56):
those diseases. And I do want to mention that there
was a study that got done in July of this
year from Denmark and they looked at aluminum and they said, oh,
we didn't find any problems. We didn't find any threshold responses.
Speaker 1 (16:09):
Now I'm kind of a.
Speaker 2 (16:10):
Geek about this stuff, but I will tell you that
they also made a claim that there's no dose response.
That's the equivalent scientifically of saying we found in our
study that the sun rises in the west and it
sets in the east. It's the thing that something only
some people did not understand. Aluminum toxicology would say that
(16:32):
that basically with aluminum, when you get to the kinds
of higher doses that you have in the US, that's
when you start to see harms.
Speaker 1 (16:41):
Again, plum was kind of like fluoride that way, like
an exert amount of fluoride is fine, but it's actually
it's helpful, But as soon as you get up on
that curve, it can be you know, deleterious for you.
Speaker 2 (16:54):
Exactly the doses that we see. When Denmark doesn't see
harm done, they give half the dose that we do.
They don't give it for essential vaccines. You could still
get di you could still get the vaccines for diteria,
for tetanus protestis, you could get it for the pneumonia
vaccine and still be well within what is probably a
(17:16):
safe threshold. It's when you start adding hepatitis B, hepatitis A.
And if I could just mention one other thing, part
of why we give extra doses is we don't type
we don't time our vaccines for immunity, so we start
the diphtheria to protestice vaccine before the kids immune systems
actually can tolerate them. Part of why Denmark gives less
(17:40):
is they wait a little longer to give their vaccines
and therefore they're able to give three shots and we
give bock. So when we look at it, if our
schedule not just had Pewer shots and Pewer diseases, but
if we actually looked at the immunity and the level
of development that kids have, we have fewer shots, but
we have better immunity from the chis we get.
Speaker 1 (18:02):
You know that Denmark study, you know, I looked at
it and obviously a lot of people said, Oh, it
was reassuring. I agree with what you're saying that they
do have a lesser amount. I mean they even talk
about the doses of aluminum that the kids they absorbed
dose essentially that they were able to estimate there were
some on the far extremes that had that higher amount
(18:23):
that would probably equate to the US, but it was
the minority of the kids in their study, not the majority.
But what you touched on earlier was that I think
it's twenty twenty two study put out by people funded
by the CDC or the NIEIGHT, which essentially said that
there was a correlation of these the aluminum doses of vaccination,
(18:44):
specifically in kids who already had exzema, meaning that they're
hypersensitive as is. And as you're saying, I think it
was like twenty four if there was a range even
more these kids had chronic asthma and they likened it
to the aluminum, and then that's a big That study
was a big deal, yet nothing came of it, and
their concluding lines were, well, we need to do more research.
(19:07):
And by the way, the people who say we need
to do more research, that's them saying, well, this is
what we found, but people aren't going to like it,
so we'll just say we need to do more research,
just to bias more time. But what happened was in
the United States they didn't do any more research. And
I think it was the lead author on that paper,
A Cent was part of the ACIP committee of the
(19:29):
CDC recommending the vaccines of COVID vaccines Flew and all
the other ones. So of course he doesn't want the
fact that his data shows that there may be harm
to this vaccine schedule. He's the one who's creating the
vaccine schedule.
Speaker 2 (19:43):
Absolutely. You know again, this is a big study. The
three hundred and twenty seven thousand kids. CDC designed it.
It's a well done study. No research is ever going
to be perfect. When people say, well it's not being replicated, well,
if you don't do any more research on this, say
not only look when I When you're looking at the evidence,
(20:04):
it sort of tells you a story, and part of
it is the story of what's in the literature. But
when you see absent literature, when you see people stop
doing studies when you get findings that they are inconvenient,
and that's the way I would describe aluminum. There have
been a lot of inconvenient things that people just don't
want to realize, and so there's unfortunately far too little literature.
(20:26):
The other part that bugs me about this Danish study
is it was published in an American medical journal, and
it was absolutely intended to reassure in American audience. The
core aluminum studies, the core aluminum toxicology literature. They don't
even cite.
Speaker 1 (20:43):
There is author I think the author of the US
study from the CDC on the ASET Committee. He commented
on it. I saw it in an interview or something somewhere.
He's like, Oh, it's it's great to see the study.
It's so reassuring. I'm like, so, are you admitting that
your data was flawed because you're our data actually seemed
pretty on point for someone who loves to criticize data.
(21:03):
So it was that it's hard to not feel that
people's personal opinions and the push for the mandates, which,
by the way, listen, you know, I guess I can
ask you this question, but when it comes to vaccine mandates,
you know, do you think that these mandates serve and
an effective tool in achieving herd immunity or do they
(21:23):
actually they more risk infringing on personal freedoms? Like what
is your take on these mandates, especially like measles, Like
we're talking about we've already kind of agreed we need
to revisit the vaccine schedule because we think we're overdoing
it for many reasons. But what about the school mandates
and some of the other things, I mean, the fact
that Florida is trying to eradicate them entirely.
Speaker 2 (21:44):
Sure, some of the best things you can make for
mandates is they give us an infrastructure. There are some
logistics to my kids going to school and I have
to do my vaccine, so I'm going to set up
my well child visit. I'm going to get this shot.
There are logistics. Most parents who do not get vaccinated,
for example, who homeschool are not homeschooling because there are mantles.
(22:07):
They are homeschooling because they want more control over their
kids schooling. But the reality is if you look after
COVID at the number of kids who left formal in
person school, you basically read to us about nine percent
of kids, you know, kind of depending on the numbers
are in homeschools or micro schools or schools or online charter.
(22:33):
Basically you need ninety five percent of all kids. But
right now we don't even have ninety five percent of
kids in school. So literally the math for mandates does
not work for measles. It is impossible, even if you
get rid of all exemptions, to actually get to a
national measles herd immunity based on the number of kids
who left school. Because public health authorities that it was
(22:55):
fine to shut down schools for more than a year,
those kids didn't go back to school. And that's a
reality that I think our public health infrastructure and for
example AAP, I don't think they've really caught up with
the math of this. When you only have ninety three
to ninety four percent or so of kids who are
in for some school, depending on the state, you cannot
(23:18):
get to hurt immunity with for measles, with a man
the mass just doesn't work. So I do think you
recommend just doing.
Speaker 1 (23:27):
Away with them, because I would say I would argue
that I guess that they have heard immunity at least
in the classroom, which is a place for measles to
spread very quickly.
Speaker 2 (23:36):
Yeah, So the problem I have and the challenge I
think what happened in Florida is they do sort of
a purpose. So if we're going to take something away,
we have to offer something else in instead. So Florida,
for example, could have changed their ability to tech outreach.
They could have changed the ability to opt. You know
that texting could be better. They could offer other different strategies.
(23:59):
They could a more liberal strategy in terms of allowing
kids to get vaccinated later. There are a variety of
other strategies that have been tried internationally to increase uptake
of measeless vaccination. So the problem I have with what
Florida did is not that you know, I can conceptually
understand what they're getting at, and I think to do
(24:21):
it for everything without something to substitute what is a mistake.
From my perspective, I do think, for example, pulling them
for preakfast at a steam would have made a lot
of sense. And then working to what can we do
to fill the gap we're talking about measles, that's me
or even allowing more liberal exemption policies, because the reality
(24:42):
is even with exemption policies, kids will actually stay in school.
You know, when California made their exemptions so so tight
and d of all exemptence, It's true the vaccinations did
go up among the kids who stayed in school. The
number of kids who have left formal school double them.
So the reality is every single state tightened up. Basically,
(25:08):
I will increased in medical and increasing kings.
Speaker 1 (25:13):
Do you think I mean this place? I feel like
we are in such a you know, a place where
public trust is I felt it was an all time
low at COVID, but I didn't realize that we could
even get lower than that, and I think, you know,
RFK Junior at the HHS Secretary is doing a lot
of great things in the sense that he's looking and
(25:33):
talking about things that no one has in decades, and
they're very important things. But my concern is that it's
affecting public trust even more.
Speaker 2 (25:44):
Your thoughts.
Speaker 1 (25:47):
Beendulum. We were over here, now we've gone this way,
like where's the center?
Speaker 2 (25:52):
Right? So I do think RFP. Junior really there's a
lot of important revisiting. You know, I read through the
MAHA report on kids that came out this week, so
talking about food, talking about exercise and stress for kids,
looking at over medicalization for kids. I think all of
these are really important topics. I also think his advisor
on vaccines is Martin Poltz, who is somebody who's publicly
(26:16):
talked about being in favor of measles vaccination. So whatever
people are saying about his opinions and scenes, I do
think he has people who are not a no vaccines
And when I listened to him and I've read his books,
he's not all out against every single vaccine. He just
(26:37):
I think more than anything, he has a discussion that
says probably there are some things we are crediting to
vaccines that when you look at the big Star sanitation,
we've played a role that there's some other So I
do think that there's a lot more nuanced. But I
also think some of this is frankly anti administration. I
think that there are very logicalhatory administrations. Yeah, I think
(27:02):
that when you look at the evidence for the lack
of evidence for COVID vaccination and people, including kids who
are healthy, that evidence is at best week And I
do actually from a scientific standpoint, from an evidentiary standpoint,
I agree with the decisions for that the FDA took.
I think that they are evidence based decisions. But I
(27:23):
think that, let me just say this, some of this
is definitional. Definitional. So during the Biden administration, the definition
of what a vaccine was was changed. So anything that
causes an immune response is a vaccine. Now that's not
the way it used to be. You used to actually
have to show that it was something that showed a
benefit in preventing disease, for preventing harm. That's not the
(27:47):
case anymore. So when these agencies say these are evidence based,
all COVID vaccine does, it increases an immune response for
people who are healthy. That is what the evidence shows.
So I do think unfortunately there's a lot things. Maybe
stylistically in terms of HIHS, you know that people are
(28:11):
latching onto. But I think in terms of the evidence
just going to say for vaccines, consistently they agreement with
what he's been saying.
Speaker 1 (28:21):
So your take home if they could just do what
could they do to try and get us on the
right step from a public health standpoint, but also a
public perception stampoint sure?
Speaker 2 (28:31):
I think so from back for vaccines, I think we
need to step I think we need to focus on
the vaccines that are for community protection. And again, if
I'm going to pick one, it's musles. I think the
potential risk of really getting to endemic musles it's a
disaster if we would ever get back. We have a
lot of outbreaks. Now, this is something that I think
(28:53):
is really important.
Speaker 1 (28:54):
You know, part of the folio in that too, seeing
is polio has been found in more water and like
you're have been.
Speaker 2 (29:02):
Is an interesting one. So it is interesting because the
fact we have given for polio for the last twenty
five years does nothing to stop an individual from getting polio.
It does nothing to stop transmission.
Speaker 1 (29:14):
But neurological effects absolutely that this is a big deal.
Speaker 2 (29:19):
Well it is so nicole. But here's the question you
would ask you, and again I'm not being cavalier about polio.
If you look at the exposure rates that we have
in the United States, you know when people come in
because we only see it when there's you know, there's
some strains that can be imported. Literally, the risk of
getting polio neurolytic polio in the United States if you're
(29:40):
exposed is one in ten million, so, which is actually
that's the math for the risk of the vaccine. So
I'm going to make the case that you're probably putting
your kid at greater risk if you're driving your kid
to school of having a neurologic problem, then you're by
not getting the polio vaccine. And let me say this
(30:00):
my opinion.
Speaker 1 (30:01):
That's a great analogy because I use that all the
time speaking about the COVID vaccine. I'm like, if you're
able to drive your kid to school and you're not
worried about that, you know, they're probably going to be
okay if they get COVID and they're healthy, you know,
whereas the vaccine has a higher risk.
Speaker 2 (30:18):
I just think that parents make them and should make, frankly,
a lot of decisions about their kids. And while I understand, yeah,
I have an MPH, I understand the instinct to want
to be protective and paternalistic about the way we protect
our kids. But the reality is this is not a
disease that kids are at high risk of having complications for.
(30:40):
I do not think that kids shouldn't get it. Maybe
just be very much on record, I think kids should
get the inactivated polio vaccine, but I think any case
that you are going to make you but a person
might make that the polio vaccine we give now is
protecting other kids. I disagree with them in terms of
the kinds of risks that we let parents make and
(31:02):
the way they raise their kids. I think we let
them have from believes, we let them drive their kids
to school. There are certain risks that I think taking
away parents' rights to make medical decisions for their kids
if there's not a community benefit, I chafe it them.
Speaker 1 (31:21):
If you can make very strong, valid arguments, and like
I said, I read through your whole report and it's
very fact based and which I appreciate. You're not hyperbolic
and you're what you say at all. I just I
wish that we could put it together so something like
for me to read it. I mean, I actually you
wrote it in a way that anyone could read it,
like you don't have to be a physician or an academic.
(31:45):
But I wish that we could all kind of come
together and aghs. They could really put something concise out
and that could be, you know, the start, instead of
we keep having these conversations back and forth and these
little things keep happening, and all it's doing is creating
a sense of chaos and it's just not helping us
move forward as a nation. And so I wish that
they could kind of like what you did, but then
(32:07):
just take that and say, these are our recommendations, these
are the risks. Give it to the parents, give it
to the pediatricians, and say you all need to work
together and let's figure it out. I guess that's but
I also think it's dangerous to let like measles go
completely unchecked.
Speaker 2 (32:24):
I think the part of where we are is it's
so polarized right now. I actually don't think it's an if.
I do think we're we're headed towards getting regional pandemic disease.
I do worry that in the Southeast we're going to
have a situation in which measles becomes the reality for
some kids in some parts of the country, and a reminder,
(32:45):
they tend twenty years to claw before before the vaccine,
almost four million kids got measles every year, and hundreds
of them died. And the kids who died were babies
who really they cannot get vaccinated. When we think about this,
I am very much for parents' rights to make medical
decisions about their kids. But the kids who are going
(33:07):
to suffer if we get back to endemic measles are
going to be kids who cannot get vaccinated. This is
something that again, well I am a libertarian at heart,
there are things that we have moral obligations to each
other as members of society. We cannot get back to
a disease that will affect four million kids, and frankly,
(33:27):
measels parties back to nine year olds and that works
because it's not usually a severe disease, and the kids
who were old enough to go to a party, the
kids who died, the kids who had complications with babies
who depended like older siblings actually getting vaccinated. That's the
reality that I feel like we're missing with this.
Speaker 1 (33:49):
Well. I truly appreciate you coming on Wellness Unmasked talking
about this. It's an important conversation, and you know, voices
like yours who've really done research know what they're talking about.
Not one size fits all all. That's exactly the voices
we need in the room right now. So thank you.
I love to report and I'm going to tell people
about it.
Speaker 2 (34:07):
Thank you so much, Nicaule. Thanks for having me on.
Speaker 1 (34:09):
You're listening to Wellness and mass We'll be right back
with more. Well, that was a jam packed conversation, a
lot of information. Honestly that to have a real conversation
about the vaccine schedule, it would go on for days,
not just a short podcast episode, but you kind of
understand the gist of what we're talking about. Vaccines have
(34:30):
been one of medicine's greatest success stories, nearly eradicating diseases
like polioned measles, specifically here in the United States. Yet
the reality today it's obviously more complicated. CDC data showing
the exemptions are on the rise, vaccination rates are on
the decline, and so we're also starting to see resurgence
of illnesses once considered under control. We're seeing a lot
(34:53):
of outbreaks of measles, obviously, we are seeing some flu.
We're seeing a lot more whooping cough as well, my
son being one of them. So when we look closely
at the data, one of the biggest questions that comes
up is if certain vaccines aren't actually preventing transmission, do
they really need to be routinely given in lower risk
(35:14):
populations like whooping call vaccine and healthy adolescents. By continuing
to recommend every vaccine across every age group, regardless of
the risk level, we may be actually undermining public trust.
We saw this with COVID. What happened with covid. They
kept pushing COVID vaccines in every age group, including healthy adolescents,
(35:38):
even when they were about the lowest risk population, and
on top of it, they were one of the more
higher risk populations for side effects. Well what happened, Well,
all of a sudden you have parents saying, forget it,
I'm not giving my kids the COVID vaccine. And you
know what they also stopped doing. They stopped giving them
flu shots too. Now, maybe in teens flu shots aren't
(35:58):
as necessary as school age kids. But I can tell
you school age kids have about a three times hospitalization
rate from flu, then they do COVID. But because they
pushed COVID just like it was as good and as
beneficial as like measles and flu, all of a sudden,
parents are like, forget it, you're pushing. You push that
(36:19):
COVID vaccine on us. Now the data is showing they
probably didn't even need it. Now I'm just going to
stop doing the vaccines in total. So if we just
could narrow the schedule to prioritize vaccines with maximum proven
benefits like decreasing transmission and focusing on the high risk groups,
we could restore confidence in the system and help people
(36:40):
take the most critical vaccines more seriously. Each one has
a different level of effectiveness, durability, and just overall impact
on community health, and in an era of growing skepticism
and declining uptake, we have to be especially careful because
every recommendation should be rooted in maximum demonstrateable benefit, otherwise
(37:01):
we risk further eroding the trust. My conversation with doctor
Monique Jonahan was a reminder that while we can debate
policies like forlerda's decision to remove mandates. What matters most
is that families receive clear, honest information to make decisions
that balance both individual health and public safety. That's what
(37:22):
I'm trying to do in my own household, and so
I want to make sure that everyone has the information
to make the best choices for their own family. Thanks
for listening to Wellness on Mass on America's number one
podcast network, iHeart. Follow Wellness on Mass with doctor Nicole
Saffire and start listening on the free iHeartRadio app or
wherever you get your podcasts, and we will see you
(37:45):
next time.
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