Vaccine skeptics like Trump nominees Kennedy, Weldon are threat to public health | Opinion

In April 2020, with the COVID-19 pandemic raging, I wistfully asked Dr. Anthony Fauci, then head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases: "What about a vaccine?"

Fauci, a guest on my radio show on SiriusXM, surprised me: “Yes, we have one in the works. It looks promising.”

That sounded to me like a pipe dream, especially when Fauci said he thought a vaccine might hit the market within a year and could work better than the flu vaccine.

Operation Warp Speed was born soon after. Several branches of government ? including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Food and Drug Administration, the National Institutes of Health and the military ? pulled together with Pfizer, Moderna, Johnson & Johnson, McKenzie and others to work on developing vaccines and planning the logistics of vaccinating hundreds of millions of people.

This level of public-private partnership, led by President Donald Trump, hadn’t been seen since the Manhattan Project developed nuclear weapons in World War II.

Trump was proud of Operation Warp Speed

When I interviewed President Trump at the White House in July 2020, he was very proud of Operation Warp Speed, and he promised to be among the first to take the shots when they came out.

He also said, “Wait until you see the therapeutics.” It was another prophetic statement as both monoclonal antibodies and the antiviral Paxlovid proved to be game changers in treating COVID-19.

Operation Warp Speed ended up being one of the greatest accomplishments in public health history. But now, Trump's choices for key health positions in his second term have a history of vaccine skepticism, at the least.

A common thread among the Trump nominees is a hyper focus on potential vaccine side effects as opposed to the dangers of viruses, which vaccines work to lessen.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., nominated to lead the Department of Health and Human Services, has claimed that the public is not getting full information about potential side effects and that common vaccines have not been well enough studied.

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Trump pick to lead CDC has made false claims

He's not the only vaccine skeptic tapped to serve in the incoming administration. Trump has nominated former Florida congressman and physician Dave Weldon to lead the CDC. Weldon in the past has promoted false claims that vaccines are linked to autism.

Dr. Paul Offit, head of the Vaccine Education Center at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and a member of the FDA Advisory Committee on vaccines, told me the benefits and the risks of commonly available vaccines have been thoroughly studied.

“(Companies) by law present all data regarding vaccines to the FDA," Dr. Offit said. "All those data are available to the public. Nothing is being hidden. Also, systems are in place post-marketing to detect any rear side effects. So there is no hiding.”

When vaccine skeptics play to patient fears and present vaccinations as a personal choice with potential serious risk, fewer people are willing to take them. And that jeopardizes the main purpose of vaccines ? community immunity. The more people take a vaccine, the ability of a virus to spread is reduced and the more lives are saved.

In the case of COVID-19, studies have shown that the vaccines have prevented millions of deaths and hospitalizations.

Unfortunately, vaccine fears are spilling over to tried-and-true immunizations like MMR (against measles, mumps and rubella) and DTaP (diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis), which depend on herd immunity to protect those who aren’t able to take them.

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The MMR vaccination rate is dipping below 93% for the fourth consecutive year, with the herd immunity target at 95%.

A resurgence of pertussis, also known as whooping cough, is now hitting the United States, with a spike in highly contagious measles sure to follow.

It is natural for patients to be nervous about a needle being jabbed into their arm and less afraid of an invisible virus, but it is the job of public health officials to put this in perspective, not exploit patients' fears for political advantage.

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It's certainly reasonable to carefully monitor and study the safety and effectiveness of all vaccines, but it is important to do so responsibly with public well-being in mind.

I remember the cold, rainy day in December 2020 when the first Pfizer COVID-19 vaccines rolled up to New York University Langone Health in cold storage trucks. I recorded on camera the first patient (a nurse) taking it and proudly received it myself a week later.

We cried because the images of body bags over so many months were being replaced by images of lifesaving vaccines. Those images should never be tarnished by our health leaders.

Dr. Marc Siegel is a professor of medicine and medical director of Doctor Radio at New York University Langone Health. His latest book is "COVID: The Politics of Fear and the Power of Science." Follow him on X: @DrMarcSiegel

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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Trump pick of vaccine skeptic RFK Jr. risks public health | Opinion