The Coming Plagues: What Happens if the Anti-Vaccine People Have Their Way?
As vaccine rates drop, we’re going to see more sick and injured children. So much for “Make America Healthy Again.”
My specialty as a doctor of public health has always been infectious diseases. During my DrPH studies, I focused on the social determinants of health, and on using the tools of the outbreak epidemiologist on “outbreaks” of other conditions affecting human health. For example, my dissertation was on firearm homicides in Baltimore. I used the tools of infectious disease outbreak investigations to better understand and address the epidemic of gun violence that affected the city from 2015 to 2023.
That interest is what led me to work on different vaccine-related projects with colleagues. I’ve made many connections through those projects, and I get some interesting emails from time to time. The following email is from a colleague in Europe. They saw a spike in diphtheria cases last year, and they emailed me to talk about the first case they saw at their facility.
While most cases in Europe have been unvaccinated or under-vaccinated migrants, cases in children are on the rise as parents refuse vaccination. Spain, for example, went from 1986 to 2015 without a single case of…
