I have been extremely concerned lately about the huge disservice to the American public that Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. has been orchestrating at the Department of Health and Human Services, and specifically at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. I have my own personal story.
Years ago in the 1980s, my husband and I took our young children out to a local restaurant for a Sunday brunch. We practically never ate out, so this was a special occasion. A month later, suddenly, all of us developed jaundice: yellow skin and eyes, nausea, abdominal pain and general wretchedness. A visit to our doctor proved that we had hepatitis A.
It turned out that dozens of people nearby were sickened with hepatitis A all at the same time. This disease is transmitted by direct contact with an infected person or consumption of food handled by a person who had the disease but was not practicing proper handwashing. Public health officials traced the source to a worker at the restaurant where we had eaten.
As a side note, our case was key to their investigation. Unlike most people who had eaten many places the month to six weeks before, this was the only place weโd been out to eat in many months. This is a great example of our public health service at work.
We were lucky. Hepatitis A is generally the least dangerous of the three major types of infectious hepatitis, but thatโs not saying a lot. We were quarantined for weeks as a family. My husband and I lost weeks of work, placing extra burden on our colleagues and staffs. Our kids were miserable, perhaps not as miserable as us adults, but we were hard-pressed to give them the comforting and care they needed. Fortunately, we all made a full recovery. The major regrettable outcome is that both of us had been regular blood donors prior to this, but can no longer give.
The other two major forms of hepatitis, B and C, are far more deadly. Hepatitis B is transmitted through blood or body fluids, including needle sticks or even travel to a high-risk area. Type C is transmitted primarily through blood, with many ways for this to occur. With either of these, a mother may not know she is infected, and can pass it to her unborn child. Either of these forms can give rise to chronic disease, liver failure or cancer.
Hepatitis A and B have highly effective vaccines that have been developed since my
family and I fell ill. They have become a standard preventive measure in primary care,
and they have saved literally thousands of lives and protected millions of people from
infection and chronic disease since they were developed. The hepatitis B vaccine, when
given to newborns and administered as a series, as has been done routinely since the
early 1990s, is more than 98% effective in preventing the disease. Hepatitis C has no
effective vaccine, but treatment for the disease has been developed.
Why, then, is the Secretary of Health and Human Services and his hastily appointed staff at the CDC suddenly upending recommendations on a whole array of vaccines? This includes not only the hepatitis vaccines, but those recommended for whooping cough, measles, influenza, RSV and COVID-19, among others. They each have a long record of proven efficacy and safety in preventing needless suffering or death in children and adults alike.
Why is he doing this? He says it is to restore trust in our health care system. What he is actually doing is sowing distrust, fear and confusion in a system that was functioning far better before he entered the picture. His policies will lead to suffering and death on a scale I shudder to think about.
I am a medically-trained physician myself, but never would have trusted myself to navigate the complex issue of what vaccinations my family and I needed and when. I was able to rely confidently on the recommendations of my primary care physician, backed by the medical academies that studied these issues carefully, and the CDC, which issued trustworthy recommendations regularly. Now, the CDC under RFK, Jr. is no longer a trustworthy source of information. How are parents or adult patients expected to know now what is best for their families or themselves?
We cannot listen to someone who has no medical training and no idea about the consequences of his crusade, one that is peculiar at best and malicious at worst. We must listen to the people who actually gather data, understand what it is telling them, and understand the diseases they are treating. We must listen to our trained health professionals, to the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Academy of Family Physicians and the American Academy of Obstetrics and Gynecology.
We cannot listen to the reckless voices now in positions of power in the federal government. Most importantly, we must vote the administration that is allowing this to happen out of office as soon as we possibly can.
Millie LaFontaine is a retired neurologist who lives in Concord.