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Trump Leads, and His Party Follows, on Vaccine Skepticism

Trump Leads, and His Party Follows, on Vaccine Skepticism

Former President Donald Trump greets Robert F. Kennedy Jr. 鈥 one of the nation's most prominent vaccine skeptics 鈥 on stage at a campaign event in Glendale, Arizona, on Aug. 23. (Tom Brenner for The Washington Post via Getty Images)

More than four years ago, former President Donald Trump’s administration accelerated the development and rollout of the covid-19 vaccine. The project, dubbed Operation Warp Speed, likely saved millions of lives. But a substantial number of Republican voters now identify as vaccine skeptics 鈥 and Trump rarely mentions what鈥檚 considered one of the great public health accomplishments in recent memory.

鈥淭he Republicans don’t want to claim it,鈥 Trump in late September.

Instead, on at least 17 occasions this year, Trump has promised to cut funding to schools that mandate vaccines. Campaign spokespeople that pledge would apply only to schools with covid mandates. But speeches reviewed by 国产麻豆精品Health News included no such distinction 鈥 raising the possibility Trump would also target vaccination rules for common, potentially lethal childhood diseases like polio and measles.

The Trump campaign did not respond to requests for comment on this article.

Trump has presided over a landslide shift in his party鈥檚 views on vaccines, reflected this campaign season in false claims by Republican candidates during the primaries and puzzling conspiracies from prominent conservative voices. Republicans increasingly express worry about the risks of vaccines. from Politico and Morning Consult showed a narrow majority of those voters cared more about the risks than the benefits of getting inoculated.

A surge in anti-vaccine policy in statehouses has followed the rhetoric. Boston University political scientist Matt Motta, who tracks public health policy, said preliminary data shows that states enacted at least 42 anti-vaccine bills in 2023 鈥 nearly a ninefold surge since 2019.

In some states, it has the look of a crusade: The 2024 Texas GOP platform, for example, proposes a ban on mRNA technology, the innovation behind some covid-19 vaccines that scientists believe could have significant applications for cancer care.

Last month, Trump made an appeal to anti-vaccine voters by landing the endorsement of Robert F. Kennedy Jr., one of the nation鈥檚 most prominent vaccine skeptics 鈥 and appointing him to his transition team. In a recent tour with former Fox News broadcaster Tucker Carlson, Kennedy said he was 鈥済oing to be deeply involved in helping to choose the people who run FDA, NIH, and CDC.鈥

Trump鈥檚 outreach can be more discreet: He recently met with a delegation of vaccine-skeptical activists 鈥 including one group pushing an end to mandates and certain types of vaccines 鈥 at his New Jersey golf club; the discussion was publicized by the conservative blog 鈥淕ateway Pundit.鈥

Trump has options in advancing anti-vaccine goals as president, such as by sowing further doubt and undermining the federal government鈥檚 ability to make vaccine recommendations. He , along with 鈥渢op experts,鈥 to a panel exploring chronic diseases, some of which Kennedy鈥檚 nonprofit has linked to inoculations. 鈥淣obody’s done more鈥 to advocate for 鈥渢he health of our families and our children,鈥 Trump declared at a rally accepting Kennedy鈥檚 endorsement.

Still, it鈥檚 hard to tell how Trump鈥檚 most frequently made proposal 鈥 defunding schools that mandate vaccinations 鈥 would translate into action, said Judith Winston, former general counsel of the Department of Education during the Obama administration.

Currently, the Department of Education lacks the power to turn off public school funding all at once, she said 鈥 meaning a second Trump administration would have to take away money program by program.

And the legal basis for such a move isn鈥檛 clear. 鈥淚 am unaware of any federal law that mandates school districts either provide or not provide a vaccine,鈥 Winston said, adding it would probably require congressional action.

have a vaccine requirement tied to school attendance.

Trump鈥檚 outreach to anti-vaccine constituencies comes as vaccine hesitancy increases and preventable disease surges. This summer, its worst outbreak of measles since 1991.

The situation could get worse, said Tom Frieden, a former director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention: In the Nineties, during a time when vaccine skepticism also proliferated, the U.S. saw thousands of measles cases. , we haven鈥檛 yet returned to those bad old days 鈥 but the number of measles cases recorded this year is already quadruple that of last year.

鈥淚t was highly disruptive,鈥 he said. 鈥淢any children who had measles ended up with hearing problems or cognitive problems that were lifelong. A small number died in this country.鈥

Worldwide, the disease killed over 100,000 in 2022, mostly among children under age 5, .

Polling shows a substantial minority of Americans, concentrated in the Republican Party, hold vaccine-skeptical positions, said Harvard professor and health politics expert Robert Blendon. And skepticism about covid vaccines is blossoming into suspicion of vaccines generally among that group, he said. 鈥淚t follows from this rebellion against the covid vaccine mandates.鈥

Vaccine opposition has divided the GOP. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis made opposition to vaccines a core part of his ill-fated campaign for the GOP presidential nomination. In states such as Wyoming and Missouri, pitched primary campaigns centered on anti-vaccine themes this year.

Bob Onder, a physician and Republican candidate for Congress in Missouri, was accused in Facebook ads placed by his top opponent of taking millions from pharmaceutical companies to test vaccines. 鈥淗e profited from our pain,鈥 one ad said. 鈥淵ou suffered the consequences.鈥

Onder 鈥渉as never done covid vaccine research鈥 and opposes covid vaccine mandates, his campaign manager, Charley Lovett, told 国产麻豆精品Health News. (Lovett said Onder 鈥渃onducted鈥 one study sponsored by AstraZeneca on preventing covid in high-risk patients using monoclonal antibodies, not vaccines.)

Onder won the Republican primary, but his vaccine-disparaging opponent still scored just over 37% of the vote.

Anti-vaccine candidates typically become anti-vaccine policymakers. The impact can be seen in Texas, where vaccine politics were once a bipartisan matter. According to researchers, from 2009 to 2019, 19 pro-vaccine bills, such as a measure allowing pharmacists to administer immunizations.

But that consensus began to shift toward the end of the decade. Small groups, often nurtured on Facebook, made their influence felt. One such group, Texans for Vaccine Choice, spurred testimony before the state legislature in 2021 and targeted pro-immunization legislators, in their GOP primaries.

Misinformation has fueled the anti-vaccine turn in Texas, alongside traditional conservative attitudes about individual autonomy, said Summer Wise, a former executive committee member of the state鈥檚 Republican Party 鈥 particularly misconceptions about the use of fetal cells in vaccine development; falsified research about a link between vaccines and autism; and conspiracy theories about Bill Gates, the billionaire philanthropist who has championed vaccination.

鈥淧oliticians see vaccines as an easy foil to propagate fear among the electorate, which can then be leveraged and directed to control a voting bloc,鈥 Wise said.

In addition to calling for a ban on mRNA technology, the Texas GOP鈥檚 2024 platform features a laundry list of policies that could undermine vaccination, including allowing medical residents and physicians the ability to opt out of administering shots for religious reasons. It also calls for enshrining a patient鈥檚 ability to opt out of vaccine mandates in the state鈥檚 Bill of Rights.

Nationally, anti-immunization policies could take an aggressive turn under a second Trump administration.

Roger Severino, formerly head of the Department of Health and Human Services鈥 Office of Civil Rights and now with the Heritage Foundation, penned the health agency section of Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation-led initiative to plan for a Republican administration.

Among other ideas, the document proposes clipping CDC authority to issue vaccine or quarantine guidance of a 鈥減rescriptive鈥 nature, targeted at schools or elsewhere.

A spokesperson for the Heritage Foundation noted Severino has said the agency鈥檚 credibility has been hurt, and it has a burden to explain 鈥渁ll the vaccines on the schedule being taken in combination.鈥

The proposal misunderstands CDC鈥檚 history and powers, said Lawrence Gostin, a public health law professor at Georgetown University. The agency 鈥渞arely if ever鈥 makes binding recommendations, he said.

鈥淲hen the next pandemic hits, we will look to CDC to offer guidance based on the best-known evidence,鈥 he said. 鈥淲e don’t want a disempowered agency in a public health emergency.鈥

Some Republican intellectuals have spun dystopian visions surrounding vaccines. Take 鈥淒awn鈥檚 Early Light,鈥 a yet-to-be-published book by Heritage president Kevin Roberts. The tome 鈥 which earned a glowing foreword by Republican vice presidential nominee JD Vance 鈥 reserves especially sharp words for vaccines.

In one section of the book, Roberts imagines that the federal government would somehow use alleged new capabilities to 鈥渄eplatform drivers鈥 of cars for 鈥渇ailing to follow the latest vaccine mandate.鈥

鈥淵et another powerful tool of social control falls into place,鈥 he wrote.

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