CDC Waves the White Flag
Two key announcements from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) last week should have dominated media coverage.
On July 14, the agency issued a warning that the measles epidemic in the United States is worse than at any time over the last four decades. The CDC reminded people that “measles is one of the most contagious diseases known” and that it preys on a growing population of unvaccinated people.
The CDC released this statement at the same time they quietly shifted their position on the safety of vaccinations for children.
In a shocking reversal of decades of research, the CDC claimed they couldn’t be sure that vaccines don’t cause autism. The justification for reversing their position was based on polling, which they said showed that many in the public were questioning vaccine safety.
If the public is uncertain about the safety of vaccinations, it is because of Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who now calls the shots at the CDC. He has relentlessly lied, misrepresented and made millions stoking fears over vaccines.
Rather than challenging this disinformation with medical evidence, the CDC has meekly raised the white flag to the man in charge.
What a humiliating moment for the institution that had been the gold standard for global medical research. The reality is they have been kicked to the curb by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and his anti-vaxx mob.
The fact that the CDC shifted their position on the bogus autism connection at the same time that they were expressing concern over measles was perverse in the extreme. RFK Jr. has made his career falsely spreading fear that the measles vaccine is a likely cause of autism.
Measles is the perfect human predator. The speed with which it spreads is only outdone by its ability to mask its presence until it has had maximum impact on a community.
When the measles vaccine was first developed in the early 1960s, it was considered a miracle solution to rid humanity of the perfect predator.
In 1971, the MMRV vaccine was developed to protect against measles and several other childhood viruses. Vaccination programs were going well until the 1998 article by Dr. Andrew Wakefield in the Lancet, which claimed there was a connection between the vaccine and childhood autism rates.
The article had a massive impact. Vaccine hesitancy grew exponentially. Public health campaigns to vaccinate children began to be challenged. In response, medical researchers undertook major studies to determine whether the link was real.
Subsequent investigations found that Dr. Andrew Wakefield’s research was seriously flawed. One report noted that he had used “research that was funded by lawyers acting for parents who were involved in lawsuits against vaccine manufacturers…. [the review of the paper also] found Wakefield had acted unethically and had shown ‘callous disregard for the children in his study, upon whom invasive tests were performed.”
Wakefield lost his license for offences relating to “dishonesty and failing to act in the best interests of vulnerable child patients.” But the damage was done. And it launched RFK Jr.’s career as an anti-vaxx crusader.
This full-out war on the measles vaccine was his first big foray into disinformation.
During a 2015 measles outbreak in California, he claimed that a public health campaign to vaccinate children was similar to the Holocaust.
In 2019, he travelled to Samoa to promote a “natural experiment” to give children a respite from vaccines. RFK Jr. was a big name, and many people followed him. The result was an outbreak with thousands of infections and 83 deaths.
Then in 2022, he doubled down, claiming that vaccine mandates were a modern version of Nazism.
In the face of the Texas measles outbreak in 2025, he blithely told journalists that the measles epidemic that was spreading across the state was getting too much media attention.
“When I was a kid, there were two million cases a year, and nobody wrote about them.”
Yes, in a world of unvaccinated children, there were two million cases a year in the United States. But from that number, 500 children died, 48,000 were hospitalized, and 1,000 were severely impacted by swelling of the brain.
What Kennedy was also ignoring was the “measles shadow” effect that erases the immune system memory in stricken children, leaving them vulnerable for all manner of illnesses in coming years.
To have the CDC issue a statement questioning vaccine safety as they were warning about vaccine hesitancy as measles spreads is the ultimate example of regulatory capture.
In 2021, the Center for Countering Digital Hate released a report called the Disinformation Dozen in which they tracked the majority of online anti-vaxx disinformation to 12 individuals. At the top of the list was RFK Jr.
He has made millions as a legal crusader against vaccines. In addition to his war on the measles vaccines, he has led a virulent fight against the HPV vaccine, which protects people from papillomavirus.
Every year, 340,000 young women die from this brutal disease after it morphs into cervical cancer. The HPV vaccine has proven to be the first vaccine to reduce a cancer death rate to zero. It should be celebrated as a scientific marvel.
But RFK has claimed it is “the most dangerous vaccine ever invented.”
Women who fail to get screened or do not take the vaccine are still dying. In Ontario, it is projected that 670 women will be diagnosed with cervical cancer this year and 170 will die.
RFK Jr’s war with the CDC has been scorched earth since he first launched his online disinformation war. He fired thousands of top-level researchers and gutted major public health programs, including the teams that were in place to track hantavirus, cyclosporiasis, and salmonella. All of those illnesses have returned with a vengeance.
He cut $40 billion from the public health budget. But his biggest war was on the vaccine program. Soon after taking control of the agency, he fired the entire vaccine advisory panel of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
These were the top experts in the world in vaccine science.
His cousin Caroline Kennedy has called him a “predator” and has warned the public not to put any faith in RFK Jr’s word. In a statement released on the eve of his appointment to the post of Secretary of Health, she wrote,
“Bobby [Robert Jr.] is addicted to attention and power. Bobby preys on the desperation of parents of sick children — vaccinating his own kids while building a following by hypocritically discouraging other parents from vaccinating theirs.”
The predator is now in charge, and many, many children will die. They are already dying. Parents who are afraid of medical intervention have been turning down the Vitamin K shot given to newborns.
In babies who developed a vitamin K deficiency, approximately 14% died, about 40% had long-term neurological disabilities such as cognitive impairment, seizures or motor deficits, and about 63% of babies had brain bleeds.
In some birthing centres, the refusal rates among parents were as high as 30%, and of these parents, the vast majority also refused vaccinations for their children.
Having a child die from a refusal to get a simple Vitamin K shot is an act of staggering irresponsibility.
But much more irresponsible was the CDC’s decision to dive into the issue of vaccine safety. This will drive down vaccination rates and drive up sickness and death from illnesses that should long ago have been eradicated – whooping cough, measles, rubella, scarlet fever.
Polio? Perhaps.
The dreaded killer has begun to reappear despite a global effort to eradicate it. RFK Jr. is on record as saying that he believes that the polio vaccine has
“killed many, many, many, many, many, many more people than polio ever did.”
And children will die in Canada and in other countries. The rise in anti-vaxx paranoia has become increasingly problematic in Canada over the last few years. Earlier this year, Alberta became known as the measles capital of North America due to a virulent outbreak in the province.
At one time, 95% of children were vaccinated. The Danielle Smith government has been widely seen as playing to the anti-vaxx conspiracy base, and vaccination rates have dropped below 70%.
Donald Trump promised to let RFK Jr. go “wild” on the public health system in the United States, and Kennedy has lived down to the worst fears. Systems for public safety that have been in place for decades to protect people from parasites and outbreaks have been gutted.
The work of 50-plus years of medical science to protect children from childhood diseases has been trashed. People are increasingly being left on their own, prey to conspiracy, prey to the predators.
A new dark age.
This is so awful, it boggles the mind Charlie. Some of my friends go along with this horse shit and frankly, I wonder what's in it for the RFKs of the world. Saving money on vaccines? A culling of the population? I am truly baffled. It's insanity. Pre-vaccines, I got measles and was hospitalized for weeks, I nearly went blind. My baby brother was hospitalized at the same time, he nearly lost his hearing. We were both very, very sick. A nightmare time for our parents. I was six and he was only a year old. I am enraged at all who fall for this nonsense when science proves that vaccines work. Several of my classmates caught polio, a horrific disease. During the epidemic, my parents isolated us children on an island until the vaccine was made available. I despair.
The cost of ignorance and willful deception is incalculable.