US health czar Robert F Kennedy Jrs vaccine stance is completely at odds with the global public health community and years of vaccine science, ignoring years of research that have found vaccines are safe and effective and which have saved an estimated 154-million lives mostly under the age of 5 over the past 50 years .
In June he accused Gavi , the international vaccine alliance, of distributing a version of DTP the combined diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis whooping cough vaccine that does more harm than good, and halting all US funding to the group.
Public health experts say what could be more dangerous than the funding cuts is the misinformation campaign hes driving, which is fuelling a growing lack of trust in vaccines with global repercussions, including right here in South Africa.
In todays newsletter , Ida Jooste and Tanya Pampalone tells us how RFK Jr is now SAs problem too. Sign up for our newsletter today .
They used to call it the strangling angel .
The grey membrane would take the form of wings at the back of the childs throat, spreading quickly, thickening up like leather. As the diphtheria moved through the body, a toxin would be released, potent enough to stop the heart and paralyse the nervous system. Some of the children who caught it would die within days, their narrow airways blocked by the winged formation.
Before vaccines were widely available, diphtheria was a leading global killer . But after the World Health Organisation WHO rolled out standard immunisation campaigns in 1974, new cases of diphtheria reduced by more than 90 . Today, most people would be hard-pressed to tell you what diphtheria is, never mind what it does to the body of a small child.
But one three-minute video released on social media at the end of June may change all that.