The U.S. surgeon general in President Donald Trump’s first administration is partly blaming Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. for how vaccine skepticism has eroded the importance of herd immunity amid a measles outbreak in Texas and other parts of the Southwest.
In an editorial published on CNN Thursday, Jerome Adams wrote that the high rate of vaccine declines in the Texas Mennonite community where the measles outbreak began exemplifies how quickly measles can spread through an unvaccinated population, according to The Hill.
“While some may believe that abstaining from vaccination keeps them healthier or more resistant to diseases, the reality is that their ‘immunity’ has, until now, been borrowed from their vaccinated neighbors,” wrote Adams. “This collective shield, known as herd immunity, is not automatic or enduring; it has been built over decades through high vaccination rates.”
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