Call me MAHA!
Oh, you should hear me complaining to family and friends about the harmful dyes and preservatives in food.
Yes, as a Democrat, I celebrate the voices in the “Make America Healthy Again” movement. Let them shout out that the pharmaceutical companies are far too cozy with big government. Only a fool thinks that political donations haven’t bought them a pass on scrutiny of high prices and addictive drugs.
This is no rash conclusion. Does anyone remember Quaaludes or OxyContin? Those drugs had approval from the Food and Drug Administration. It took years for Quaaludes to be yanked from the market after causing widespread harm, while OxyContin remains FDA-approved, though now under much tighter prescribing controls after the devastation it caused.
But also call me self-interested. I’m one of the 79 percent of Americans who might have told a recent Harvard poll that children should be vaccinated against measles, mumps and rubella.
By the way, that trust in vaccines also puts me among the majority of MAHA supporters, 66 percent according to the same poll.
My cursing about prescription drug companies and their high prices is honest aggravation. But if my grandchildren are not vaccinated, they become a big threat to my health. It means I take a risk by holding hands, opening doors, sitting next to young people at dinner or a ballgame. They will threaten everyone by spreading viruses and germs, especially elderly people with weak immune systems.
And we can see a direct line between Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. dismissing the proven success of vaccines and the fading consensus that the government should protect the public’s health.
Kennedy’s baseless questioning of proven vaccines has opened the door to kooky miracle cures. Grifters are able to make big money on conspiracy theories and phony “supplements,” once Americans hear from top officials like Kennedy that it is okay to ignore scientists and doctors.
This madness has led to the mind-blowing proposal by Florida’s surgeon general to end all vaccine mandates. That means no vaccines are required for school-age children or anyone else.
Florida Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo made his proposal with one of the most outrageous claims I’ve ever heard. “All of them. All of them,” Ladapo said of vaccine experts. “Every last one of them is wrong and drips with disdain and slavery. … Who am I as a government or anyone else, who am I as a man standing here now, to tell you what you should put in your body? Who am I to tell you what your child should put in [their] body? I don’t have that right.”
The surgeon general is a Black man. For him to equate a vaccine mandate with slavery is not only historically wrong but also morally offensive. Would he really ask a slave to compare a stolen lifetime of labor, family and money to being told to get a vaccine?
His proposal is also offensive to the 89 percent of Florida parents who feel it is their parental right to get their kindergarten-age children vaccinated, according to federal data. It is offensive to the 75 percent of American parents who support requiring vaccinations for school children. It is offensive to anyone alarmed that the U.S. just had a significant outbreak of measles in decades in West Texas.
And it is offensive to me as I wait for my next COVID vaccine shot.
I survived a bout with COVID-19 in 2020. I vividly remember being locked in a hotel room for days, fearing for my life and worrying if I had infected my family. I am at high risk for death by COVID as a Black man over 70. My wife is a smoker — she, too, is at high risk.
Getting a COVID shot before cases spike in the fall and winter is a necessary precaution for us. Kennedy has also ended recommendations for most people to get a COVID vaccine. Without the government endorsement, insurers would no longer be required to cover these lifesaving shots. Most Americans will have to pay out of pocket or go without. A single dose of the COVID vaccine can cost $200 if not covered by insurance.
Kennedy also fired the entire panel of government experts on vaccines and replaced them with people who have doubted the efficacy of this medicine. He fired CDC Director Susan Monarez for failing to condemn vaccines.
More than 1,000 current and former HHS employees recently signed an open letter calling for Kennedy’s ouster, citing his firing of Monarez.
“We believe health policy should be based in strong, evidence-based principles rather than partisan politics,” the letter reads. “But under Secretary Kennedy’s leadership, HHS policies are placing the health of all Americans at risk, regardless of their politics.”
Nine former CDC directors — who served under presidents of both parties — echoed this sentiment in the New York Times. CDC staff “deserve an H.H.S. secretary who stands up for health, supports science and has their back,” they wrote. “So, too, does our country.”
Instead, Kennedy is leading a war on trust in public health as a government responsibility.
Ranting about the danger of too much sugar and salt is great. It is also true. Undermining America’s trust in honest doctors and scientists is the highway to fast death.
Juan Williams is senior political analyst for Fox News Channel and a prize-winning civil rights historian. He is the author of the new book “New Prize for These Eyes: The Rise of America’s Second Civil Rights Movement.”
