What do you get when you put an anti-vax conspiracy theorist in charge of the U.S. Health Department? A dangerous crackpot who scares the public into thinking that the measles vaccination causes blindness.
"It does cause deaths every year," Robert F. Kennedy Jr. told Sean Hannity, explaining why he would not push the vaccine. "It causes all the illnesses that measles itself causes — encephalitis and blindness, etc." (See video below, posted by Aaron Rupar.)
What Kennedy failed to mention, however, is that globally, measles — not the vaccine — causes up to one million deaths a year, and between "15,000 to 60,000 cases of blindness per year," according to the National Healths Institute. And most victims never regain their sight. Meanwhile, there is no credible evidence (QAnon doesn't count) that the vaccine has caused blindness, except for a few isolated incidents in which the patients fully recovered.
As for encephalitis, 1 in 1,000 people who contract measles comes down with "acute encephalitis, which often results in permanent brain damage," reports the CDC. But there has been only three published cases ever of a person coming down with the illness months after receiving the MMR vaccination, and in just one of these cases, "the measles vaccine strain was identified as the cause."
Finally, regarding vaccine-related deaths, "[t]here have been no deaths shown to be related to the MMR vaccine in healthy people," according to the Infectious Diseases Society of America.
Those who are immune-compromised, on the other hand, do face a small risk of dangerous side effects, including death, reports IDSA, which is why at-risk people do not get vaccinated — an even more important reason that everyone else should. "That's why it is so important that everyone who can get vaccinated does so, to protect those who can't."
Previously: Texas measles outbreak claims first child as anti-vaxxers blame the vaccine
