Gareth O'Callaghan: Why I rely on vaccines despite rising misinformation from RFK Jr
America’s health secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr this week directed his health agency, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, to change its website’s long-term guidance to contradict the scientific conclusion that vaccines do not cause autism. Picture: AP/Mark Schiefelbein
It’s that time of year again — known in our house as vaccine versus virus. Like a great Latin expression, as though a reminder of the mighty clash between Julius Caesar and Pompey the Great near Pharsalus in Greece in 48BC. Inevitably — like Caesar did — the vaccine wins out.
It’s also time for my six-monthly medical NCT, which I can’t say I look forward to. Maybe it’s an age thing where you look back this time every year and remind yourself of the friends you once shared a pint with who have been felled in battle.
This is also the vaccines appointment, to safeguard against covid and flu. Years ago, my immune system just got on with doing what it excelled at, and I just got on with life. But that all changes. The human immune system doesn’t have the stamina of a Stradivari violin.
Last winter, for the first time since the arrival of covid in 2020, flu soared back to the top of the list of viruses that can ruin a good Christmas. This year sees the emergence of the H3N2 subclade K strain (for any flu anoraks reading this), which by all accounts is one serious mother of a shellacking.
Sometimes it takes a good dose of hypochondria to make you realise you’re no longer the Julius Caesar you once believed you were. Nor am I too impressed by vaccine sceptic Robert F Kennedy Jr’s theory that germs don’t pose a major threat to those who take their health seriously.
America’s health secretary — who is responsible for the wellbeing of 343 million people — questions whether germs actually make us sick. In his 2021 book, , Kennedy falsely claims vaccination was largely pointless and unnecessary over the last hundred years and more.
He also claimed that by “fortifying the immune system”, and taking charge of our own health, we could ride out the storm of viruses and infections that gang up on us at this time of year. Kennedy is right when he says we would all benefit from improvements to our diet and exercise regimes — but for many people, that would need a magic wand.
Chronic illness also affects the immune system — the body’s suit of armour, which in healthier times is not unlike Caesar’s army. But armies — no matter how big or how strong — aren’t effective at fighting invisible viruses. If thousands of immune systems aren’t familiar with an all-at-once pathogen, then it spreads like wildfire.
Thousands of Irish people live with conditions that compromise their natural immunity. Lift the roof on any household and there’s a story waiting to be told.
Either the condition itself or the medication required for these illnesses can often leave your immune system shot.
I was diagnosed a few years ago with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) — a progressive condition that can cause an obstruction of airflow due to damage to the lungs. The consultant told me it was caused by years of smoking, which I hugely regret. I stopped 25 years ago, but that timebomb started ticking the day I took a drag from my first cigarette.
You’re a sitting duck for viruses and infections like covid and flu. When you live with an illness that requires immune-awareness all the time, RFK Jr’s ‘Just be healthy’ theory of immunity is nothing more than a cliche.
Obesity and diabetes raise the risk of severe covid and flu, while bad diet and malnutrition leave us exposed to measles and tuberculosis. These are proven scientific facts.
Only this week, Kennedy personally directed his health agency, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, to change its website’s long-term guidance to contradict the scientific conclusion that vaccines do not cause autism.
In an interview with the last week, Kennedy said: “The whole thing about ‘vaccines have been tested and there’s been this determination made’ is just a lie.” His main claim is that there are gaps in the vaccine safety science.
He’s wrong.
Research has been ongoing worldwide for more than 25 years to examine whether vaccines cause autism. Responding to Kennedy’s comment’s, the Los Angeles County health department said, “Over 40 high-quality studies involving more than 5.6 million children have found no link between any routine childhood vaccine and autism.”
The reason there’s been an increase in autism diagnoses is the result of better screening, a broader diagnostic criteria, an increased awareness, and education.
A vaccine is like a coach — it teaches the immune system how to fight off a disease if it ever comes into contact with it. The vaccine starts a process by which the body makes parts of the virus in its own cells, which then causes a protection response in preparation for a full battle against the real virus when it arrives.
In April 1955, when questioned about the safety of the polio vaccine he had spent seven years developing, American virologist Jonas Salk said: “It is safe, and you can't get safer than that.”.
It’s rewarding that we now have two generations that have never known polio.
As a result of Salk’s vaccine, the poliovirus is endemic in only two of the world’s countries — Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Covid emphasised more than ever the importance of vaccination. There was the before and after — those long terrifying months before a vaccine could be rolled out, followed by a realisation the vaccine saved lives.
I spent a week in a covid ward. It was a terrifying experience. There were six of us — of whom I was the least affected by what the full-blown virus was capable of. The others weren’t so fortunate. The man in the bed next to me also had pneumonia. He spent the nights crying.
The elderly man opposite me spent his time reciting the Rosary, his pyjamas often caked in vomit and urine. The staff couldn’t cope. They were shocking times and they could — virologists say will — come back in the shape of a more virulent attacker. So far, there have been more than 10,000 deaths linked to covid here in Ireland.
The measure of any society is how it cares for its children. Parents who won’t vaccinate their children because of fears like those perpetuated by RFK Jr are putting their health at risk.
The MMR vaccine not only protects against measles, mumps, and rubella, it also prevents the complications caused by these diseases. Potential complications of measles include pneumonia and brain inflammation.
The measure of a society is also how it cares for its elderly. This week five years ago, research from University of Cambridge showed that due to the large number of nursing home deaths in Ireland, the burden of covid mortality hit older people here greater than almost anywhere else.
Covid is here to stay. So is flu. Vaccines are a gift to my immune system, to keep it safe. It’s the least I can do for all the years it has pulled me through thick and thin. In Jonas Silk’s words, you can’t get safer than that.
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