Public health's stupidity will lead to more damage & more measles outbreaks

Many 'experts' have learned nothing

With a measles outbreak, it is important to encourage vaccination among children who have not gotten vaccination in and around outbreak settings. This can be tricky in regions with low trust in health care providers and public health. In such settings, one should tread lightly, and work to build community trust. One should focus on the key issue: kids who are unvaccinated. That’s priority #1 through 10.

Do you know what would be a silly thing to do: recommend that adults born between 67 and 89 who DO NOT LIVE IN OUTBREAK regions, check their vax card and get an MMR booster. Yet, this is precisely what Slate suggests:

And if you aren’t in a outbreak region, you don’t have to run, but you still ought to do it. Side note: that appears more aggressive than even the current CDC’s website.

CDC

Sweet Jesus, this is a stupid thing to say— especially in this moment. First of all, I fit this demographic perfectly, and off the top of my head, I can’t recall how many doses I received, but I won’t be seeking a medical consultation for this.

The ACIP recommendation to give a 2nd dose to those who have 1 in outbreak settings already is based on lower levels of evidence, but just going out and getting another dose if you live in Manhattan or SF is completely batshit stupid. It’s bad public health advice because it makes the public think public health people are zealots.

The lesson that public health seems unwilling to learn is you have to pick your battles and focus on the interventions with the greatest risk/ benefit ratio. Giving an unvaccinated kid a single dose of MMR near an outbreak region is high yield, scaring Suzie in San Francisco to get her 2nd or possible 3rd dose because she doesn’t want to be antivax is completely pointless.

It alienates people from health care. It leads vaccines to be further polarized. It is the same thing as when liberals saw that Trump did not wear a mask and decided to forcibly mask their 2 year olds, even in speech therapy, because that would show him. Nothing shows anti-vaxers are wrong like recommending unnecessary vaccines to people who have already gotten a lot of unnecessary vaccines (See COVID), the logic goes.

Sometimes, I worry that the core problem in public health is that when you take a field and pay a low wage for decade after decade, anyone with intelligence goes elsewhere. You somehow have selected for a pool of the dumbest people in the country. Toss in political polarization— because the very low wage also selects for far left individuals. (studies in medicine show higher income is associated with higher fractions of Republican voting individuals), and you have ticking time bomb.

When an issue arises, and you need a very smart, shrewd, pragmatic leader, you have dummies talking out their ass trying to ram one size fits all policy down the throat of the public.

The greatest anti-vax tool ever created was allowing public health to be run by idiots.