{"id":5139,"date":"2024-03-11T10:52:21","date_gmt":"2024-03-11T02:52:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tingchao.xyz\/?p=5139"},"modified":"2024-03-11T10:52:25","modified_gmt":"2024-03-11T02:52:25","slug":"trumps-vaccine-rhetoric-sends-chills-through-public-health-circles","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tingchao.xyz\/?p=5139","title":{"rendered":"Trump\u2019s vaccine rhetoric sends chills through public health circles"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Public health advocates are watching in growing alarm as former President Trump increasingly embraces the anti-vaccine movement.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u201cI will not give one penny to any school that has a vaccine mandate or a mask mandate,\u201d Trump said in a recent campaign rally in Richmond, Va.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s a line Trump has repeated, and his campaign said he is only referring to school COVID-19 vaccine mandates \u2014 but that hasn\u2019t eased fears that the GOP leader could accelerate already worrying trends of declining child vaccination.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Trump \u201cis an important voice. He has a big platform. And he uses that platform, in this case, to do harm. Because he\u2019s implying by saying that we shouldn\u2019t mandate vaccines, vaccines are in some ways ineffective or unsafe,\u201d said Paul Offit, a pediatrician and vaccine expert at the Children\u2019s Hospital of Philadelphia.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The ironic part, Offit noted, is that the Trump administration kickstarted Operation Warp Speed, which helped drug companies use a relatively new technology to make two very effective and safe COVID-19 vaccines in less than a year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Throughout the campaign, Trump has performed a complicated tap dance regarding COVID vaccines. He simultaneously wants to take credit for their speedy development but has also criticized their use and knocked his now former rivals for being too pro-vaccine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In a post on Truth Social reacting to Biden\u2019s State of the Union speech on Thursday, Trump again claimed credit for the COVID-19 shots.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou\u2019re welcome, Joe, nine month approval time vs. 12 years that it would have taken you!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Every state and the District of Columbia requires children to get vaccinated against certain diseases before they start school, including measles, mumps, polio, tetanus, whooping cough and chickenpox. A plan to withhold federal funding would have widespread impact.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cLike most states, Virginia requires MMR vaccine, chickenpox vaccine, polio, etc. So Trump would take millions in federal funds away from all Virginia public schools,\u201d former GOP Rep. Barbara Comstock (Va.) wrote in response to his campaign threat on X, formerly Twitter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since the public health emergency ended last May, no state requires students to get the COVID-19 vaccine, while 21 states have laws specifically banning schools from requiring COVID-19 shots.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Trump\u2019s campaign says his comments only apply to states that mandate COVID-19 vaccines \u2014 making it essentially an empty threat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIf you actually listen to the entire section, and also if you\u2019ve been following his speeches for the past year, he\u2019s talking about COVID vaccines in addition to masks in the same breath. This isn\u2019t anything new,\u201d Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung said in an email.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Experts say the politicization of vaccines has led to an increase in hesitancy and is sparking more outbreaks of preventable diseases like measles.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

There have been measles outbreaks in 15 states this year, most recently in Florida, where state Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo did not recommend parents vaccinate their children or keep unvaccinated students home from school as a precaution.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Instead, he sent a letter to parents advising them to make their own decisions about school attendance.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ladapo was appointed by Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) in 2021 and has since aligned himself with anti-vaccine sentiments, primarily about the COVID-19 shots.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ladapo told people not to get the most recent shot and has drawn sharp rebukes from the medical community \u2014 as well as federal health agencies \u2014 for claims that the shots alter human DNA, can potentially cause cancer, and are generally unsafe.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Georges Benjamin, executive director of the American Public Health Association, said he worries that Trump is signaling he will empower more people like Ladapo if he wins reelection.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI worry about any administration that doesn\u2019t follow good evidence and good science, that they will put more and more people like them in their administration,\u201d Benjamin said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe know that Trump had some extraordinarily competent people [in his first term]. But we also know that he had some extraordinarily incompetent people, and that in many situations, some of the really incompetent people carried the day because they aligned with his philosophy,\u201d Benjamin added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Robert Blendon, a professor emeritus of health politics at the Harvard School of Public Health, said the experience in Florida and the comments from Trump are part of a much broader Republican backlash against public health expertise and government mandates that can be traced to anti-COVID policies.   <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt isn\u2019t that he\u2019s just going after these anti-vaccine votes,\u201d Blendon said of Trump.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Trust in public health authorities has dropped precipitously among Republicans since 2021, and Blendon said Trump is a symbol of that. The anti-vaccine movement has never been associated with one particular political party, whereas the public health backlash is strongly Republican-centric.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThat\u2019s made it very, very powerful,\u201d Blendon said. \u201cThere are Republicans in the House and Senate, who when they\u2019re not investigating public health, want to cut back the budget \u2026 so it has caught on within the Republican base very widely.\u201d  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Whether it\u2019s anti-vaccine specifically or anti-public health more broadly, the sentiment is growing.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the percentage of kindergartners whose parents opted them out of school-required vaccinations rose to the highest level yet during the 2022-2023 school year.    <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a well-known vaccine skeptic who is running for president as an independent, has gained a major platform to spread misinformation and widely debunked claims about vaccines.   <\/p>\n\n\n\n

He has falsely claimed vaccines cause autism, falsely declared the coronavirus shot is the world\u2019s deadliest vaccine and questioned the safety of shots\u2019 ingredients.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Offit, the vaccine expert, said he thinks public health officials could have done a better messaging job on the COVID-19 shots, and that by mandating vaccines they \u201cinadvertently leaned into a Libertarian left hook.\u201d  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Still, Offit said he is concerned about the increasing anti-science rhetoric from politicians like Trump.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI feel like we\u2019re on the edge of a precipice here \u2026 you have the most contagious of the vaccine preventable diseases coming back to some extent, and with Donald Trump basically casting aspersions on vaccines, that\u2019s only going to worsen.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Public health advocates are watching in growing alarm as former President Trump increasingly embraces the anti-vaccine movement.   \u201cI will not give one penny to any school that has a vaccine mandate or a mask mandate,\u201d Trump said in a recent campaign rally in Richmond, Va. It\u2019s a line Trump has repeated, and his campaign […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":5140,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[61],"class_list":["post-5139","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-usa","tag-usa"],"yoast_head":"\nTrump\u2019s vaccine rhetoric sends chills through public health circles - LISTEN WORLD<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/tingchao.xyz\/?p=5139\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Trump\u2019s vaccine rhetoric sends chills through public health circles - LISTEN WORLD\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Public health advocates are watching in growing alarm as former President Trump increasingly embraces the anti-vaccine movement.   \u201cI will not give one penny to any school that has a vaccine mandate or a mask mandate,\u201d Trump said in a recent campaign rally in Richmond, Va. 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