Speaker 1: Cool Zone Media.
Speaker 2: I'm Stephen Monchelli. I'm a journalist in Dallas and an
Speaker 2: occasional Cool Zone Media contributor. You may have seen in
Speaker 2: the news lately that there's a major measles outbreak centered
Speaker 2: in Texas. It started back in January of this year
Speaker 2: in the West Texas County of Gaines, and it has
Speaker 2: since spread to at least two other states. As of
Speaker 2: this recording, Texas has reported over seven hundred cases associated
Speaker 2: with the measles outbreak. New Mexico has reported over sixty,
Speaker 2: Oklahoma has reported over fifteen, and there are other states
Speaker 2: that have also reported measles cases that may or may
Speaker 2: not be linked to this outbreak. It's the first major
Speaker 2: measles outbreak in a decade, and it's already taken three lives,
Speaker 2: two unvaccinated children, the first of such deaths in more
Speaker 2: than twenty years, and one adult. All were unvaccinated at
Speaker 2: the res of the outbreak are low vaccination rates, which
Speaker 2: took a sharp downturn after the twenty twenty COVID nineteen
Speaker 2: pandemic as dubious vaccine skepticism and opposition to vaccines, both
Speaker 2: mandatory and in general, became a partisan political issue. It
Speaker 2: is no coincidence that the low vaccination rate in Gaines County,
Speaker 2: where the outbreak first began, corresponds with deep red Republican politics.
Speaker 2: Measles is a sort of canary in the coal mine.
Speaker 2: It's one of the most highly communicable diseases and consequently
Speaker 2: is among the first to appear in communities with low
Speaker 2: vaccination rates. An outbreak in California about a decade ago
Speaker 2: was eventually stemmed when the state legislature banned vaccine exemptions
Speaker 2: for school aged children. This action spurred response and gave
Speaker 2: a shot in the arm to a nascon coalition of
Speaker 2: vaccine skeptics and outright anti vaccination groups that had previously
Speaker 2: struggled to get political traction. By twenty twenty, such groups
Speaker 2: had gained meaningful amounts of infolruents in red states like
Speaker 2: Texas and Oklahoma. Then came COVID nineteen, and suddenly a
Speaker 2: disparate set of groups big pharma skeptics, wellness influencers, health
Speaker 2: freedom libertarians, and conservative religious groups, to name a few,
Speaker 2: coalesced in a formidable political force under the banner of
Speaker 2: the Republican Party, whose politicization of the COVID nineteen pandemics
Speaker 2: served as a sort of ideological cement to unite them.
Speaker 2: The logical conclusion of this development is represented in the
Speaker 2: avatar of RFK Junior, a long time vaccine misinformation peddler
Speaker 2: who now sits atop the highest federal government health bureaucracy,
Speaker 2: a perch from which he continues to spread debunked anti
Speaker 2: vaccination tropes like a proverbial fox in the henhouse. RFK
Speaker 2: Junior has repeatedly downplayed the importance of vaccines in the
Speaker 2: battle against measles, and has refused to distance himself from
Speaker 2: long debunked anti vaccination arguments such as that vaccines cause autism.
Speaker 2: His influence and the influence of the vaccine Skins movement,
Speaker 2: of which he is a central figure, can be seen
Speaker 2: in responses from local West Texans who have opted for
Speaker 2: junk palliatives like vitamin A or measles exposure parties over vaccination.
Speaker 2: The viral spread of anti vax ideology threatens to pitch
Speaker 2: us back one hundred years in time, when thousands of
Speaker 2: children and adults either died or disabled every year from
Speaker 2: diseases like measles, polio, and smallpox. Research into the side
Speaker 2: effects of vaccines has repeatedly shown that the risks associated
Speaker 2: with vaccination are far lower than the risks of an infection,
Speaker 2: particularly for vulnerable populations like young children, the elderly, and
Speaker 2: people with suppressed immune systems. Some people genuinely cannot get vaccines,
Speaker 2: such as certain new board babies, and thus are at
Speaker 2: higher risk should an outbreak of a deadly disease occur.
Speaker 2: When ninety five percent of a population is vaccinated in
Speaker 2: an area, diseases can be entirely removed from circulation, and
Speaker 2: that's indeed what happened to smallpox and for a time, measles.
Speaker 2: But the downward trend in vaccination rates, supercharged by the
Speaker 2: marriage of right wing politics with anti vaccination beliefs of
Speaker 2: all stripes, means that our collective immunity is at risk.
Speaker 2: This week, I will be your host on It Could
Speaker 2: Happen Here As I take you through a five episode
Speaker 2: mini series called Anti vax America, three interviews with public
Speaker 2: health officials, vaccine scientists, medical professionals, and historians. I will
Speaker 2: explore the ongoing measles outbreak and how it serves as
Speaker 2: a microcosm for where we are, how we got here,
Speaker 2: and where we could go if anti vaxx beliefs continue
Speaker 2: to become mainstream in the United States. In the first episode,
Speaker 2: I will cover the origin of the measles outbreak in Texas,
Speaker 2: it's deadly consequences, the varying responses from public health officials
Speaker 2: at different levels of government, and the consequence of misinformation
Speaker 2: being spread at the national and local level. In the
Speaker 2: second episode, I will on earth the deep roots of
Speaker 2: anti vaccination belief in the United States, how it's changed
Speaker 2: over time, and why it's basically become synonymous with right
Speaker 2: wing politics in our current day. In the third episode,
Speaker 2: I will explore the overlap between anti vaxx beliefs and
Speaker 2: the belief in supernatural healing and miracles that is common
Speaker 2: among a particular movement of conservative Christianity that has tied
Speaker 2: itself closely to President Donald Trump. In the fourth episode,
Speaker 2: I will untangle the twisted history of eugenics and how
Speaker 2: it's influenced public health and vaccination attitudes, as well as
Speaker 2: the historical echo of eugenics that can be found in
Speaker 2: RFK Juniors Make America Healthy Again agenda. And in the
Speaker 2: last episode, I'll consider what could happen in the United States,
Speaker 2: What could happen here if vaccination rates continue to plummet
Speaker 2: and vaccine skeptics like RFK Junior continue to dictate public
Speaker 2: health policy. But before we get there, a quick ad break.
Speaker 2: Gaines County, the epicenter of the West Texas outbreak, is
Speaker 2: a largely rural place home to oil field workers, farmers, ranchers,
Speaker 2: and several Mennonite communities. Politically, it's very conservative. It sits
Speaker 2: on the Texas New Mexico border, about three hundred and
Speaker 2: sixty miles west of Dallas, where I live. The largest
Speaker 2: city in the region, Lubbock, is two counties over. Lubbock
Speaker 2: is home to two hundred and sixty thousand plus people
Speaker 2: and has the largest hospitals in the area. It was
Speaker 2: at one of those hospitals that the first child died
Speaker 2: of measles in over two decades. As the number of
Speaker 2: cases in the region began to increase, Lubbock became a
Speaker 2: central hub for both treatment and the dissemination of public
Speaker 2: health information. Weeks before RFK Junior or Texas Governor Abbot
Speaker 2: spoke on the issue, local pub health officials and medical
Speaker 2: institutions were on the front lines in Lubbock.
Speaker 3: So my name's Catherine Wells, and I am the director
Speaker 3: for Lubbock Public Health and Lubbock Public Health is the
Speaker 3: city and county health department in both the city and
Speaker 3: county of Lubbock, Texas. I've been in this role for
Speaker 3: about ten years now. We're about seventy five miles from
Speaker 3: Gaines County, which is where kind of the epicenter of
Speaker 3: this measles outbreak is.
Speaker 2: Let's maybe go back all the way to the day
Speaker 2: that you know it sort of began. The first case
Speaker 2: came out in January, So can you take us a
Speaker 2: little back to that day and what was going on
Speaker 2: in your world and you know, what were you doing,
Speaker 2: and how did you hear about this first case and
Speaker 2: what your reaction was.
Speaker 3: And we'll actually need to take a couple of days
Speaker 3: kind of before the announcement. I first found out out
Speaker 3: the possibility of measles that Friday, the twenty eighth. I
Speaker 3: have all my dates messed up, but it's that Friday
Speaker 3: before the first case was announced. One of my staff
Speaker 3: came and told me that we had two children that
Speaker 3: had been admitted to our local hospital. So we have
Speaker 3: the children's hospital for this whole region. People come, you know,
Speaker 3: over two hundred miles to come to the children's hospital
Speaker 3: in Luppock, and she mentioned that there was two children.
Speaker 3: The physician thought it might be measles that they were
Speaker 3: going to send for testing. So in public health, measles
Speaker 3: is so rare that even sending somebody for testing is
Speaker 3: required to be reported to public health. That physician thought
Speaker 3: it was measles. We kind of waited over the weekend,
Speaker 3: and then that Monday and Tuesday, I started hearing some
Speaker 3: rumors that there were measles cases down on the ground
Speaker 3: in Gaines County, which was interesting. People were calling and saying,
Speaker 3: you know, I heard this rumor, have you heard this?
Speaker 3: And I'm like nope. And then all of a sudden,
Speaker 3: those two cases or those two cases both tested positive.
Speaker 3: And then when we went and started talking to the
Speaker 3: families and learning more, we realized that those rumors about
Speaker 3: measles circulating and Gaines County was true, and there were
Speaker 3: reports of you know, multiple individuals that had been sick
Speaker 3: and measles had probably been there or at least a
Speaker 3: little bit of time. And then when we got the
Speaker 3: confirmed cases, that really just put everything into really you know,
Speaker 3: moving very quickly trying to really figure out what was
Speaker 3: going on for measles.
Speaker 2: So at that time, it was it was flu season,
Speaker 2: and so were you all was your office preparing, you know,
Speaker 2: or working on anything else at that time when you
Speaker 2: had first heard about this first testing and you know,
Speaker 2: started hearing about these rumors.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, we had increases in flu, we had
Speaker 3: increases in COVID. We actually had some birds that had
Speaker 3: died that had tested positive with the new Avian flu.
Speaker 3: You know, just that's a busy time of the year
Speaker 3: for public health with lots of different reports coming in,
Speaker 3: lots of multiple reports of pertussis, and it's not unusual
Speaker 3: that we have a physician wanting to test for measles
Speaker 3: ruling out I mean, it happens a couple of times
Speaker 3: a year, but in my entire career, every time that happened,
Speaker 3: it had always been negative. So I was kind of
Speaker 3: thinking that it was one of those cases, especially that
Speaker 3: Friday afternoon, like, oh, this is just a doctor, you know,
Speaker 3: you know, just wanting to rule something out. You know,
Speaker 3: it's probably flu or something else going on with those children.
Speaker 2: And so when you had gotten that confirmation, it was
Speaker 2: verified that those cases had indeed been measles. I mean,
Speaker 2: what was going through your mind at that time.
Speaker 3: I mean that was like, you know, people have always
Speaker 3: talked about we're kind of on the edge of seeing
Speaker 3: more measles outbreaks in the United States, and it was
Speaker 3: really kind of a no, no crab moment of Wow,
Speaker 3: this is in our backyard, is our department you know,
Speaker 3: ready to take this on? And then also reaching out
Speaker 3: to Gaines County, which has a much smaller health department,
Speaker 3: and being like, what can we help you with? Do
Speaker 3: you guys know what you need next? You know, they
Speaker 3: don't have a communications person, so it was like my
Speaker 3: staff writing the press release for Gaines County to send
Speaker 3: out to make the notifications about the first measles cases.
Speaker 3: So it was just really what can we do to
Speaker 3: help them immediately and figure out what the next steps
Speaker 3: would be with that.
Speaker 2: So since January, cases have been on the rise, and
Speaker 2: so we're in a different place now than just two cases.
Speaker 2: Can you just tell us a little bit about where
Speaker 2: things are now in Lubbock and how medical forties have
Speaker 2: responded to the outbreak.
Speaker 3: So initially, you know, all of the cases were in
Speaker 3: Gaines County. The only exposures we were seeing outside of
Speaker 3: Gaines County was when somebody was seeking medical care and
Speaker 3: was sitting in like say, a waiting room at a
Speaker 3: physician's office, and then they were exposing other individuals. But
Speaker 3: after a couple of weeks, we started seeing spread outside
Speaker 3: of Gaines County, so we were seeing more and more
Speaker 3: cases in those surrounding counties, and then we started getting
Speaker 3: cases in Lubbock, that's seventy five miles away. Over the
Speaker 3: last three weeks, we've really seen the cases in Lubbock increase.
Speaker 3: You know, we originally just had a handful. Now we're
Speaker 3: up to forty one or forty two, and that number
Speaker 3: will be updated again tomorrow. So just seeing more and
Speaker 3: more spread of measles, and the concern is that public
Speaker 3: Health can't necessarily trace those back to a specific case.
Speaker 3: So people that have got out to the store or
Speaker 3: gone to a public place have now contracted measles.
Speaker 2: So tell me a little bit more about what efforts
Speaker 2: have taken place and what sort of initiatives have been
Speaker 2: put into place as measles has spread. You know, what
Speaker 2: does that look like from love at Public Health or
Speaker 2: any of your partners.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so ours is really the first one was getting
Speaker 3: testing set up Originally when this started, all of our
Speaker 3: testing samples had to go to Austin, which is about
Speaker 3: a five and a half hour drive, So working with
Speaker 3: the state Health Department to get testing capability up here
Speaker 3: in Lubbock so we could quickly identify people. The next
Speaker 3: one is really about education, providing information to the physicians'
Speaker 3: offices the hospitals about measles because we hadn't seen it
Speaker 3: in twenty one years here. So just think about how
Speaker 3: many physicians have been trained over the last twenty one
Speaker 3: years never saw a measles case in their residency. So
Speaker 3: getting them to feel comfortable about what the signs and
Speaker 3: symptoms are, and really making sure that we were notifying
Speaker 3: or that they were notifying public health and getting people
Speaker 3: tested and then doing that contact tracing, and then the
Speaker 3: other big ones vaccinations. You know, there's two ways to
Speaker 3: prevent measles. You know, one is the vaccination that's going
Speaker 3: to protect you, and then the other one is avoiding
Speaker 3: being exposed to measles. So really getting more and more
Speaker 3: people vaccinated with pop up clinics and then running a
Speaker 3: measles vaccination clinic here at our Health department.
Speaker 2: Can you tell me a little bit about what the
Speaker 2: response in particular too. You know, the vaccination clinics being
Speaker 2: set up has been you know, I have a lot
Speaker 2: of people shown up for that. Has it drawn a
Speaker 2: lot of you know, new people that are trying to
Speaker 2: get their children vaccinated.
Speaker 3: It's a mix. I feel that our vaccination clinic here
Speaker 3: at our health department's been pretty successful in that we're
Speaker 3: getting people every day coming in to get vaccinated, and
Speaker 3: we're seeing people that were hesitant prior, that had chosen
Speaker 3: not to vaccinate their children kind of with the idea, well,
Speaker 3: I've never seen measles or moms or rebella, so why
Speaker 3: give my child a vaccine if that doesn't exist. Now
Speaker 3: that measles are circulating in the community, they're changing that
Speaker 3: thought process and are coming forward to get vaccinated. Some
Speaker 3: of the rural clinics have been a lot harder to
Speaker 3: get people to come in. I mean, they've stood up
Speaker 3: clinics and only a handful of people have come in
Speaker 3: to that clinic that day. So real mixed response. But
Speaker 3: I think is public health, it's important for us to
Speaker 3: be offering the MMR vaccine with as few barriers as possible.
Speaker 2: So you were in this position during the COVID pandemic
Speaker 2: and when that began and all throughout it. So can
Speaker 2: you tell me a little bit what it was like
Speaker 2: working in your role as a public health official ads
Speaker 2: that time, and then also maybe whether things are any
Speaker 2: different today, has anything changed?
Speaker 3: I mean, I think our community did fairly well throughout COVID,
Speaker 3: given you know, everything that went on. I've always believed
Speaker 3: in just being honest and talking about what I do
Speaker 3: know what I don't know, what the science is showing,
Speaker 3: and I think that helped our community get vaccinated and
Speaker 3: take some of the precautions during COVID. And I'm kind
Speaker 3: of taking that same you know, thought process and that
Speaker 3: same you know, leadership style as we're dealing with measles
Speaker 3: out here. You know, with measles, it's a challenge. I
Speaker 3: think people are paying attention to it because it's really
Speaker 3: impacting children, whereas we didn't see, you know, that same
Speaker 3: impact with COVID. It's frustrating because we know what the
Speaker 3: solution is. When COVID showed up, you know, nobody in
Speaker 3: public health and the medical community, you know, knew exactly
Speaker 3: what COVID is. With measles, we know what we're dealing
Speaker 3: with and We also have a known solution, which is
Speaker 3: a vaccine, so it is frustrating that people are choosing
Speaker 3: not to vaccinate. Still, the other challenges is during COVID,
Speaker 3: all of our other work for public health got put
Speaker 3: on hold. Here with measles, our health Department's still expected
Speaker 3: to do all of our other jobs and respond to
Speaker 3: a measle's outbreak, which is really stressful on staff.
Speaker 2: I can completely understand that in terms of some stressful things.
Speaker 2: I understand that just from doing some background research and
Speaker 2: reading up that your office or maybe even you yourself,
Speaker 2: were subject to some threats or some sort of pretty
Speaker 2: extreme reactions during COVID. Is that the case and is
Speaker 2: that still happening?
Speaker 3: Thankfully, it's not happening. During COVID, we did have some
Speaker 3: very strong opinions and some threats, mostly around when the
Speaker 3: children's vaccine was released and why we were promoting that.
Speaker 3: We have not seen that with measles, which is very good.
Speaker 3: I don't want any of my staff to be threatened.
Speaker 3: I mean, you always got these random posters on people
Speaker 3: that post on social media, but they're not even individuals
Speaker 3: from our community.
Speaker 2: Got it okay? Well, I'm glad to hear that genuinely
Speaker 2: that that is a positive change. I suppose that is
Speaker 2: something that's a good difference.
Speaker 3: And also good support from our pediatricians and the medical
Speaker 3: community has been very good and outspoken about the importance
Speaker 3: of getting vaccinated, which has helped us.
Speaker 2: So where do you see things going from here? I mean,
Speaker 2: do you think we'll continue to see more cases? I
Speaker 2: know that they're on the rise, but do you think
Speaker 2: that will continue? Or do you have other concerns about
Speaker 2: potentially other outbreaks of diseases that had been kind of
Speaker 2: pushed out of circulation coming back.
Speaker 3: Yeah, all of the above. I think in Gains count
Speaker 3: in particular, we don't have a good understanding of where
Speaker 3: we are in the epidemic, like how many vulnerable individuals
Speaker 3: in that community are still remaining, so we don't know
Speaker 3: how long that initial epicenter outbreaks going to last. We're
Speaker 3: also seeing, you know, as measles gets into a community,
Speaker 3: it is so infectious that it is going to find
Speaker 3: all of those little pockets of people that are unvaccinated.
Speaker 3: And that's what we're seeing here in Lubbott County is
Speaker 3: you know, measles taking hold and finding little pockets and
Speaker 3: public health trying to go put out you know, little fires,
Speaker 3: trying to make sure that we've figured out who's been
Speaker 3: exposed and who's at risk.
Speaker 2: You described, you know, how this is an incredibly infectious
Speaker 2: disease and it is you know, finding all the pockets
Speaker 2: people that are vulnerable or not vaccinated. And so I'm
Speaker 2: wondering if you can, you know, if they're any examples
Speaker 2: or specifics that you could share about how the outbreak
Speaker 2: is impacting communities or particular communities. Has it resulted in
Speaker 2: disruptions in school for children, Has it caused any other
Speaker 2: sort of notable breakdowns or sort of pauses in day
Speaker 2: to day regular activity in Lubbic.
Speaker 3: You know, those breakdowns have been more minor that a child,
Speaker 3: say that's unvaccinated's been exposed and that's requiring that child
Speaker 3: to sit out from school. So there is that, you know,
Speaker 3: element that they're missing those important days of education. Our
Speaker 3: bigger impacts here have been around daycares. We had a
Speaker 3: large outbreak, or large in the sense that we've had
Speaker 3: now eight children or eight individuals associated with one daycare
Speaker 3: all test positive with measles. So that's meant that you know,
Speaker 3: children have had to be sent home from daycare, which
Speaker 3: then impacts parents' ability to work and also impacts you know,
Speaker 3: you know, daycare along with you know, the number of
Speaker 3: students there children having to go home that have been
Speaker 3: exposed working a lot to get additional doses of vaccine
Speaker 3: into a daycare. So it both impacts the public health system,
Speaker 3: our healthcare system because kids need health, but then it
Speaker 3: also impacts parents because if your child's not in daycare,
Speaker 3: a parent can't go to work. Those have been the
Speaker 3: bigger disruptions and then disruptions in our healthcare system that
Speaker 3: we're now having to do a lot of screen Like
Speaker 3: you call to make an appointment for the doctor, and
Speaker 3: it's kind of like COVID, have you been exposed to measles?
Speaker 3: Are you vaccinated? They're asking all those screening questions before
Speaker 3: people enter our healthcare facilities.
Speaker 2: In terms of sort of interactions with the state and
Speaker 2: their response to this, can you tell me a little
Speaker 2: bit more about how the State of Texas has responded
Speaker 2: and partnered with local authorities.
Speaker 3: So we have a good working relationship with the State
Speaker 3: of Texas. Texas has to do everything differently, so we
Speaker 3: kind of have this decentralized system where the state and
Speaker 3: locals both kind of have their own authority, very independent
Speaker 3: at the county level, but the state is offered support
Speaker 3: to us. They've helped me bring in temp nurses to
Speaker 3: be able to assist with vaccine clinics. They're paying for
Speaker 3: some additional staff d answer phones, so we're getting that
Speaker 3: kind of support. And then I meet with the state,
Speaker 3: you know, regularly about what's going on in Lubbock, how
Speaker 3: Lubbock fits in the context of the rest of this outbreak,
Speaker 3: and you know, how we're going to work together to
Speaker 3: move forward. We always thought of measles as an airplane
Speaker 3: ride away, so we would see, you know, somebody travel
Speaker 3: to a foreign country, come back to the United States
Speaker 3: and maybe pass measles to a couple of people in
Speaker 3: their household. This outbreak is not that we're seeing transmission
Speaker 3: within a community, and it's making measles more of a
Speaker 3: car ride away. And that's concerning because we have individuals
Speaker 3: that are susceptible to measles, either through to young to
Speaker 3: be vaccinated, not vaccinated, or some other immune compromised state.
Speaker 3: So just concerning that we're going to see more outbreaks
Speaker 3: spreading out into the United States, especially as we're moving
Speaker 3: into spring and summer where people are traveling and driving
Speaker 3: through communities that we could just see kind of explode everywhere,
Speaker 3: which is my biggest fear. Yeah.
Speaker 4: Absolutely.
Speaker 2: I mean, given that vaccinations and to some degree, public
Speaker 2: health in general has kind of become a politicized issue,
Speaker 2: I can only imagine that it can make it quite
Speaker 2: difficult for you to convey these messages to people for
Speaker 2: them to understand them.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and I'm talking. I mean I've talked to many
Speaker 3: health department directors across the country, and you know, one
Speaker 3: of the values of local public health is that you know,
Speaker 3: all of us local health department directors and those staff
Speaker 3: were coming from these individuals, communities and our goals to
Speaker 3: keep our community safe. And it really doesn't matter what's
Speaker 3: happening at the federal level. It's about your community, your connections,
Speaker 3: watching out for this diseases, and then convincing your community
Speaker 3: to do the right thing. And luckily we have you know,
Speaker 3: twenty five hundred health departments across the US, and that
Speaker 3: is their goals, and hopefully people will continue to trust
Speaker 3: their local directors.
Speaker 2: That is a great point. And I'm wondering if is
Speaker 2: there anything else that you can speak to on how
Speaker 2: the distrust that is there can potentially be bridged, or
Speaker 2: you know, the specific things that y'all have done to
Speaker 2: try to sort of rebuild that trust or establish that trust.
Speaker 3: I mean with us locally, it's making sure that we're
Speaker 3: talking to our local news and our local reporters and
Speaker 3: answering the phone call when a concerned parent calls, and
Speaker 3: going through the information we know, and utilizing our local
Speaker 3: physicians to tell them the story, because I think if
Speaker 3: you can still see it at the local level, you know,
Speaker 3: people can really understand that this is a risk and
Speaker 3: really make that right choice to get the vaccine or
Speaker 3: if they've been exposed, to stay home.
Speaker 2: We'll hear more from Catherine in just a moment at first,
Speaker 2: as we are obligated to do. Here's some ads. So
Speaker 2: I do understand there's quite a bit of skepticism towards vaccination,
Speaker 2: and that's certainly going to be a subject that we're
Speaker 2: exploring in this podcast. And at least by the numbers,
Speaker 2: it shows that in places like West Texas and particularly
Speaker 2: more rural areas even more than a place like Lobbick,
Speaker 2: that there's pretty low vaccination rates. Several counties are below
Speaker 2: the I guess, was it ninety five percent threshold that
Speaker 2: really helps bring diesels out of circulation And so, you know,
Speaker 2: I'm kind of curious. You've been there for over a decade.
Speaker 2: Do you have a sense sort of what the key
Speaker 2: drivers of vaccine hesitancy are and why so many West
Speaker 2: Texans choose not to get their children vaccinated. You already mentioned,
Speaker 2: you know, the fact that it's it hasn't been seen
Speaker 2: for so long, so sort of out of sight, out
Speaker 2: of mind maybe, But are there other other drivers that
Speaker 2: come to mind for you?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean I don't think. You know, West Texas
Speaker 3: is unique from many other communities in the United States.
Speaker 3: You know, people are very much influenced by social media
Speaker 3: and some of our media outlets, and there's a lot
Speaker 3: of you know, scare tactics or misinformation around vaccines and
Speaker 3: you know, anything from autism that's been debunked so many
Speaker 3: times about vaccines causing autism, other misinformation about what's in
Speaker 3: vaccines and the risks of vaccines. I mean, every medical intervention,
Speaker 3: every medication has some type you know, of risk. But
Speaker 3: vaccines have been long studied, and especially when you're looking
Speaker 3: at the MMR vaccine we've been using this for fifty
Speaker 3: years and that's why we don't have measles cases or
Speaker 3: hadn't had measles cases. But people have really bought into
Speaker 3: a lot of that information out there, and it's really
Speaker 3: hard to combat that. I've gone and read the stories
Speaker 3: and I can see how people feel miss and pick
Speaker 3: up on this, but I just don't know from public
Speaker 3: health standpoint how we combat it.
Speaker 2: Right right, It's a very difficult problem, the challenge that
Speaker 2: has a long history and has a lot of different factors.
Speaker 3: And things are so complex. It's not a it's not
Speaker 3: a one for one. It's just it's been a challenge.
Speaker 3: But I think out here I always felt like we
Speaker 3: hadn't been impacted as much from some of these anti
Speaker 3: vaccine movements. I think post COVID people you know, have
Speaker 3: a mistrust in government or wanting to listen to mandates
Speaker 3: or recommendations or whatever we call them. We're just seeing
Speaker 3: that more and more, and that hesitancy you know, to
Speaker 3: come through and trust both government trust the medical system
Speaker 3: are all concerns and that all contributes to these lower
Speaker 3: vaccination rates.
Speaker 2: In a media environment rife with misinformation about vaccines and
Speaker 2: public health, Catherine's perspective is refreshing and a bit hardening.
Speaker 2: Local public health officials like her have done great work
Speaker 2: to raise the alarm around viral outbreaks, but they're up
Speaker 2: against a problem that is much bigger than what they
Speaker 2: can address on their own, and that's the widespread belief
Speaker 2: in bogus theories, be they scientific or religious, that undercut
Speaker 2: the proven science around vaccines. Much of this misinformation comes
Speaker 2: from places far from West Texas, like the anti vaccination
Speaker 2: group Children's Health Defense, which RFK Junior previously led. It
Speaker 2: is widely recognized as a major source of online vaccine misinformation,
Speaker 2: including the debunk allegation that vaccines cause autism. After the
Speaker 2: death of a six year old child of measles in March,
Speaker 2: Children's Health Defense released a video interview with the parents,
Speaker 2: who said they still would not take the vaccine and
Speaker 2: wouldn't recommend it to other parents. Here's a clip from
Speaker 2: that interview in which the Mennonite parents speak in their
Speaker 2: Lowland German dialect.
Speaker 4: So when you see the fairmong gring in the quest,
Speaker 4: which is what we once stop, We want to get
Speaker 4: the truth that what do you say to the parents
Speaker 4: that are rushing out Hannah Kang to get the EMMA
Speaker 4: for a six months or failure beca think that that
Speaker 4: child is gonna die of measles from this appartment to
Speaker 4: your daughter, and it would sign is only sous so bad.
Speaker 4: Like there's doctors with the whometown.
Speaker 5: She says, they would still say don't do the shots.
Speaker 5: There's doctors that can help with measles. They're not as
Speaker 5: bad as they're making it out to be.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and also the measles.
Speaker 6: Are good for the body for the people because the
Speaker 6: measles are then give the what is it.
Speaker 4: What can and synem contraction but infection, yeah, did you
Speaker 4: get infection out?
Speaker 5: And he's immune system. Yeah, they're trying to say that
Speaker 5: the measles actually help build the immune system in the
Speaker 5: long run. If they get the measles, now you don't
Speaker 5: achieve in the long run, and were in the salation
Speaker 5: like okay, So in the long run, he said, they
Speaker 5: wouldn't get cancer as easily, and like it pipes off
Speaker 5: a lot of a lot of stuff, the immunity that
Speaker 5: they get from the from the measles.
Speaker 2: But some of what public officials like Catherine have been
Speaker 2: trying to combat is coming from other medical professionals much
Speaker 2: closer to home, such as doctor Ben Edwards, who appeared
Speaker 2: in a Children's Health Defense video and has promoted anti
Speaker 2: vaccination misinformation on his own podcasts, including the recommendation to
Speaker 2: take vitamin A to treat measles, an approach that has
Speaker 2: resulted in several cases of vitamin A toxicity among children
Speaker 2: diagnosed with measles in West Texas. During their interview with
Speaker 2: Children's Health Defense, the Mennonite parents of the first child
Speaker 2: to die of measles actually said they were working with
Speaker 2: doctor Ben Edwards for their treatment. One video that went
Speaker 2: viral online showed Edwards visibly infected with measles at the time,
Speaker 2: treating patients with measles and inhabiting spaces where individuals who
Speaker 2: were not infected with measles were present, and this elicited
Speaker 2: widespread condemnation from the medical community, quite unsurprisingly. Nevertheless, it
Speaker 2: demonstrates the sort of attitude of certain medical professionals in
Speaker 2: the area who have used their platforms and their credentials
Speaker 2: to sow doubt about the importance of the vaccine, making
Speaker 2: matters worse. Rfka Junior praised doctor Edwards as a quote
Speaker 2: extraordinary healer just one week after Edwards was seen in
Speaker 2: that video treating patients while himself infected with measles. While
Speaker 2: anti vaccination beliefs have certainly gone viral in the aftermath
Speaker 2: of the COVID pandemic, they are by no means new.
Speaker 2: Practitioners like Edwards and advocacy groups like Children's Health Defense
Speaker 2: have been peddling their snake oil for decades, But the
Speaker 2: roots of anti vaccination belief around even deeper than that.
Speaker 2: In the next episode of Anti vaxx America, I'll do
Speaker 2: a deep dive into the history of anti vaccination beliefs
Speaker 2: to understand the origins of them, how they've changed over time,
Speaker 2: and why they've become embraced in mainstream right wing politics,
Speaker 2: which is a change from the sort of bipartisan and
Speaker 2: even sometimes progressive nature of some anti vaccination skepticism. But
Speaker 2: until then, thanks for listening. I'm Stephen Manschllei for cool
Speaker 2: Zone Media and this is Anti vaxx America.
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