In early December 2019, I referred to as Faimalotoa Kika Stowers, the well being minister of Samoa. The measles outbreak that started earlier that fall on her small Pacific island nation had unfold uncontrolled and turn into an epidemic that threatened to overwhelm the nation. The deep bond Hawaii shares with Samoa meant this was a shared disaster. Because the lieutenant governor of Hawaii on the time and a practising doctor, I knew we would have liked to behave shortly to avoid wasting lives.
Nearly 20 years earlier, I arrived on Hawaii’s Huge Island as a part of the Nationwide Well being Service Corps to follow drugs at a small clinic in a distant neighborhood. I realized the worth of preventive well being take care of rural, low-income sufferers, and the important proven fact that vaccines are one of the vital efficient instruments now we have to forestall sickness and save lives, particularly these of kids. As a rule, conserving vaccination charges above 95 percent can shield a whole inhabitants from infectious illnesses like measles.
However when vaccination charges fall, preventable illnesses can regain a foothold and pose a brand new hazard. And that’s exactly what occurred in Samoa, after misinformation unfold by anti-vaccine activists eroded belief in vaccines and led to the 2019 outbreak. Hundreds of preventable instances of measles sprang up, resulting in the deaths of 83 folks, largely kids. Some of the outstanding voices behind the anti-vaccine marketing campaign was Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
Vaccines and public well being vaccination applications will not be simply medical interventions; they’re additionally ethical imperatives. They embody our dedication to saving lives, ending illness and defending the well being and well-being of future generations. If Mr. Kennedy is confirmed as secretary of the Division of Well being and Human Providers underneath Donald Trump and serves as our nation’s chief well being care officer, there’s a actual hazard that he’ll proceed to unfold doubt and misinformation, probably inflicting vaccination charges to fall and resulting in extra preventable deaths. America can’t enable that to occur.
The tragedy in Samoa 5 years in the past reveals not simply how decrease vaccination charges can result in a public well being disaster but in addition how renewed vaccination campaigns can finish such crises. I recall providing Ms. Stowers our quick help, pledging 5 medical doctors from Hawaii and 5,000 doses of the measles vaccine. She requested if we may do extra.
Inside 48 hours, we assembled a unprecedented emergency medical group of about 75 volunteer nurses and medical doctors to fly to Samoa. Organizations comparable to UNICEF and the Well being Care Affiliation of Hawaii offered important medical provides, together with vaccines. The group’s willingness to drop every little thing to assist a neighboring Pacific nation was nothing in need of extraordinary.
Our airplane landed in Samoa on Dec. 4, 2019, very first thing within the morning. Over the subsequent day and a half, alongside just a few hundred Samoan well being care staff, our group traveled from village to village and vaccinated tens of hundreds of individuals. By the point our airplane took off for Hawaii the subsequent afternoon, we had helped curb the measles epidemic. Well being knowledge launched later that month confirmed a major decline in instances, the results of Samoa’s vaccination price reaching 95 %.
However we additionally witnessed the lethal penalties of the anti-vaccine marketing campaign. We arrived at one house simply minutes after a toddler woman had died from measles, her mom bursting into tears as we approached. The kid was mendacity on a makeshift mattress in the course of the household’s one-room home, her face nonetheless purple from fever. I put my arms on her face and will really feel the heat in her pores and skin, however her eyes have been mounted and glazed over. My stethoscope confirmed she was now not respiratory.
Despite her extreme case of measles, her household was caring for her at house as a result of the hospital was stuffed past capability and there weren’t sufficient medical doctors, nurses or beds to accommodate her. We shared a second of mourning for her along with her dad and mom after which proceeded to vaccinate her members of the family on the dad and mom’ request earlier than we needed to transfer on to proceed our mission.
The measles epidemic in Samoa was a heartbreaking instance of how shortly issues can go flawed when vaccination charges are allowed to fall. A tragic human error in 2018 involving improperly ready vaccines led to the deaths of two local infants, shaking public confidence. Although the vaccine was confirmed to be protected, many dad and mom grew to become hesitant to immunize their kids.
Mr. Kennedy and others fanned the flames of this worry with misinformation. The folks of Samoa shared with me that they received little or no information from exterior their neighborhood however that within the months earlier than the 2019 epidemic they have been bombarded with social media posts claiming that vaccinations have been unsafe and would hurt and even kill their kids. Activists from different nations, together with Mr. Kennedy, claimed vaccines have been harmful. Many Samoans have been afraid to vaccinate their kids, and by late 2019, the epidemic was raging, overwhelming Samoa’s nationwide well being care system.
The expertise in Samoa was recent in my thoughts when the Covid-19 pandemic reached Hawaii in early 2020. As lieutenant governor, I took on the duty of conserving our folks knowledgeable with fixed updates and factual data. That steadfast method continued when the Covid-19 vaccine grew to become obtainable and anti-vaccine propaganda continued to unfold quickly on-line. Hawaii’s vaccination price was among the many nation’s highest and its mortality price among the many lowest, saving hundreds of lives in our state. Like our emergency medical mission to Samoa, Hawaii’s Covid response was a testomony to what we will obtain when our public well being efforts are bold and primarily based in scientific reality.
Vaccination applications are one of many best public well being achievements in human historical past. Vaccines have saved more than 150 million lives over the past 50 years and reduce toddler mortality by 40 % worldwide. Due to worldwide vaccination applications, now we have eradicated smallpox and diminished polio instances by greater than 99 %. The measles vaccine alone has saved an estimated 94 million lives globally since 1974, nearly eliminating the illness in the USA since 2000.
But, regardless of the overwhelming proof for his or her security and the file of their lifesaving energy over the previous 50 years, figures comparable to Mr. Kennedy proceed to unfold misinformation about vaccines. In a podcast appearance in 2023, he claimed that “there’s no vaccine that’s protected and efficient.” That is false. Such discuss is reckless and harmful. I noticed this in Samoa.
As we glance to the longer term, the potential of his being confirmed because the secretary of well being and human companies is trigger for grave concern. I fear he would jeopardize half a century of progress and success gained by the USA on account of vaccination applications. An excessive amount of relies on our dedication to reality and the lifesaving energy of vaccines to entrust Mr. Kennedy with the path of those applications. Our youngsters’s lives depend upon it.
