Going Wild: What Would Camus Say About Measles and Misinformation?

Books predicting the next big pandemic have always been a popular subject for writers. I have read a bunch of them — from imagining airborne Ebola to the implications of a new influenza outbreak or what happens if zoonotic threats like swine or bird flu jump species.

There is another genre of historical plague studies on how epidemics upended world history, from "Justinian's flea," which contributed to the fall of the Roman Empire, to the Black Plague, which killed off the feudal power of the knight class.

These books remind us of the folly of humans who couldn't comprehend the evidence of what was before their very eyes.

My personal favourite is The Plague by Albert Camus.

Growing up in a world of penicillin and vaccines, many in my generation read The Plague as a metaphor for politics. During COVID, I realized it was a guide for what happens when people become complacent about public health.

Camus’ insights ring truer than ever in the face of preventable epidemics:

"Everybody knows that pestilences have a way of recurring in the world, yet somehow we find it hard to believe in ones that crash down on our heads from a blue sky. There have been as many plagues as wars in history, yet always plagues and wars take people equally by surprise."

But nothing is surprising about the entirely preventable return of measles.

This virulent childhood predator was done in by the creation of the measles vaccine in 1963. In 1971, the MMR vaccine was developed to handle measles, mumps, and rubella.

Thanks to strong public health policies, measles was finally eradicated in the 1990s. It should have been a hopeful milestone charting our advance as a species. After centuries of causing nightmare and pain, diseases like measles and whooping cough disappeared from our hospital wards.

I thought they were little more than folk warnings I had heard from my grandmother reminding me to be thankful for the times I was living in. But then a friend of mine's child became deathly ill from whooping cough.

My friend, like me, thought the world was free of medical nightmares. She didn't think it was a big deal if she decided to skip the vaccinations for her children. It was about lifestyle choices and personal health.

She let her guard down.

Our society became complacent and then combative as the issue of vaccinations was twisted into a fight between individual freedom and science.

We left the door wide open for the return of the monsters.

In reading Adam Ratner's new book Booster Shots, you get a sense of what is at stake. The subtitle brings the point home: The Urgent Lessons of Measles and the Uncertain Future of Children's Health.

Measles was the most obvious monster to return.

Measles is an RNA genome perfectly primed for attacking the human body. The virus only targets humans and spreads in the most efficient way possible – through the air. When people breathe it in, the virus moves quickly into the lungs.

There, it confronts cells that are supposed to keep predators out, but measles has the power to act like a bogus key, unlocking access to the protective cells. These cells are taken over and turned into predator drones.

At this point, there are no outward symptoms of the measles infection. It’s stealthy. The virus keeps itself hidden until day nine or ten. That's when the first sniffles, fever and runny noses become apparent.

And yet, measles hides in its subterfuge mode. Doctors can easily mistake the symptoms for a host of unrelated sicknesses, from colds to allergies.

But the sick person has already become a dangerous super spreader.

By the time the tell-tale red rash appears, the virus has replicated billions of times through every part of the child's body and is expelled through every breath.

Ratner writes:

"If a schoolteacher notices a measles rash on a student on Friday, the virus has likely been spreading within the classroom since Tuesday."

In an unvaccinated cohort, 27 out of 30 students will be infected and will also become measles carriers. This is a staggeringly high level of contagion and reminds us why measles is so dangerous and so potentially deadly.

The death rate for children is between one and three per thousand, but this doesn't factor in the other frightening health impact of measles — its ability to erase the body's immune memory.

For years after a child suffers from measles, they remain dangerously susceptible to other infectious illnesses, like pneumonia, due to what is known as the "measles shadow." It's little wonder that doctors have worked so hard to find a way to eradicate this threat.

But all that work is now up in the air thanks to Donald Trump and the arrival of Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s "Team of Renegades."

Again Camus:

"Our townsfolk were not more to blame than others; they simply forgot to be modest and thought that everything still was possible for them, which presupposed that pestilences were impossible. They went on doing business and arranged for journeys. How should they have given a thought to anything like plague, which rules out any future, cancels journeys, silences the exchange of views. They fancied themselves free, and no one will ever be free so long as the pestilence is present."

---

Renegade Health

One of the driving forces of the MAGA movement has been the full-on attack on what Rush Limbaugh denounced as the four enemies — government, media, academia, and science.

During COVID, the attack on doctors and medicine became the focal point for the conspiracy-driven right.

The convoy ragers rallied around the notion that their freedom was being taken away, not just by politicians, but by the doctors, nurses and paramedics who were on the frontline of the pandemic.

In the MAGAverse, individual "freedom" necessitates putting know-it-all medical experts in their place.

In Canada, Pierre Poilievre fed this rage against medicine for political advantages, putting conspiracy activists on his front bench and bringing forward legislation that would allow people to defy vaccine mandates.

Like measles.

Donald Trump went further, turning over the health budget of the United States to Robert F. Kennedy Jr. — a man denounced by his own family as a predator and is infamous as one of the most notorious "Disinformation Dozen" for his flood of vaccine falsehoods.

"I'm going to let him go wild on health. I'm going to let him go wild on the food. I'm going to let him go wild on medicines." - Donald Trump on appointing Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

During a 2015 measles outbreak among unvaccinated children in California, Kennedy claimed that introducing vaccine mandates to protect school children would be similar to the Holocaust.

In 2019, he travelled to Samoa to propose a "natural experiment" to give children "a respite from vaccines." The result was a new measles epidemic that led to thousands of infections and 83 deaths.

In 2022, he doubled down, claiming that vaccine mandates were similar to Nazism.

With the help of Elon Musk, Kennedy has overseen the firing of thousands of staff and implemented deep cuts to medical research. Many of the world's most highly trained researchers have been pushed out the door.

CNN ran a disturbing profile of Kennedy's team of "renegades" who have taken control of the federal Health portfolio.

These “renegades” are establishing the Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) Institute — a gathering place for cranks and medical dissidents from both the far right and the far left. The political meeting point is their determination to challenge long-established vaccination programs for children.

Under intense scrutiny about his handling of the measles outbreak, Kennedy has made some seemingly reassuring statements about the vaccine. But he’s also been totally dismissive about the importance of containing the spread. During a recent visit to Texas, Kennedy quipped:

"When I was 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.

In the world of MAGA/MAHA, personal freedom and individual choice, such losses seem perfectly acceptable. The callousness of Kennedy's claim echoes a sentiment by Dr. Memhet Oz, who Kennedy has promoted as a key ally of MAHA.

You might remember Oz as the TV personality doctor who made a name for himself promoting hydroxychloroquine as a bogus cure for COVID-19.

At the height of the pandemic, Oz told Americans they needed to get their "mojo back" by reopening the schools. He described putting children back in classrooms, even as the pandemic raged on, as an "appetizing opportunity" that would only kill 2 to 3% more of the population.

Imagine that — an appetizing opportunity. And this is the man who joins Kennedy in watching over children's health.

Oz and Kennedy have gone from medical renegades to having the most appetizing opportunity ever given to cranks — the power to really stick it to the medical establishment. They control the budgets, the hiring, the firing and the messaging about what will keep people safe.

The medical research capacity of the United States is second to none. It has long been the global leader in the fight against infectious diseases and developing new vaccines.

All that is now on the line. And the price will be paid by children around the world.

---

Which brings us back to Camus.

He would remind us that the plague takes root through arrogance and complacency. Standing up to this triumvirate is surprisingly simple:

"There is no question of heroism in this. It's a matter of common decency. That's an idea which may make some people smile, but the only means of fighting a plague is – common decency."

Common decency.

The willingness of people to take responsibility not just for themselves but to help each other. In the age of gangsters and disinformation hacks, it is a powerful message.

This is a story for our time.

---