Are anti-vaxxers a horseman of the Apocalypse?

After all, pestilence has been traditionally considered one of the frightful four and they are doing their best to bring that upon us, as if the past century’s medical wonders had never happened.

Don’t get me wrong, modern medicine has its share of problems. Price for one (something the Felon’s administration is making much worse). Scientists willing to fudge their results (I recommend Cynthia Crossen’s Tainted Truth for a look at how statistics and research get manipulated). The simple fact that figuring this stuff out is hard work. And doctors can be really bad about how they treat and care for women, like the lack of knowledge of the clitoris.

Nevertheless I’ve spent my lifetime in a United States where we don’t have to fear smallpox or polio, where we’ve made progress against cancer, where we can usually assume our food is safe to eat. They’re still making progress, like figuring out the cause of lupus. But RFK Jr. and the rest of the Republican Party are busy cutting through that medical safety net, either because they’re grifters who see gold in those anti-vax hills or because they have no idea how much work a healthy nation takes. It’s an American tradition.

I agree with LGM that it’s not the errors and fallibility in science that make suckers fall for Kennedy’s bullshit, it’s that lots of people are easy meat, “vulnerable to manipulation by the most preposterously shameless demagogues, such as for example Robert F. Kennedy Jr., and most of all the man who made him the nation’s top health official.” However I agree with Bonhoeffer: it’s less about intelligence or lack of thought than folly.

Let’s look at some examples.

A paper that confirms Kennedy’s biases but is under scrutiny by the publisher? Who cares?

“Tucker Carlson was roundly condemned this week after pushing the conspiracy theory that Covid-19 was created in a way to make Jews immune to it.”

“More than 420 anti-science bills attacking longstanding public health protections – vaccines, milk safety and fluoride – have been introduced in statehouses across the U.S. this year, part of an organized, politically savvy campaign to enshrine a conspiracy theory-driven agenda into law.”

“The pair argue that finding and studying pathogens that could cause outbreaks, then stockpiling vaccines against them, is a waste of money. Instead, they say, the United States should encourage people to improve their baseline health” Keep in mind one of “the pair” is Jay Bhattacharya is the asshat who thought covid was no big — 40,000 people dead, then we’d get herd immunity.

Naturopathy.

“The uptick in whooping cough, which is especially contagious in children, has coincided with a decline in vaccination rates for the illness, according to disease experts who urge the best way to control the spread is to get vaccinated. The total so far is also 10 times the number of cases for all of 2023.”

That’s Texas. Here’s another whooping cough story: “By late January 2025, two babies had died in Louisiana. But the Louisiana Department of Health waited two months to send out a social media post suggesting people talk to their doctors about getting vaccinated.”

“From failing to publicize a major outbreak [of E. coli] to scaling back safety alert specialists and rules, the Trump administration’s anti-regulatory and cost-cutting push risks unraveling a critical system that helps ensure the safety of the U.S. food supply, according to consumer advocates, researchers and former employees at the FDA and U.S. Department of Agriculture.”

The Necrotic Toddler in the Oval Office claims our evil medical system forces babies to get “massive vaccines that are twice the size of a jar like that, a glass of water like that, into a baby’s body” Is he stupid or lying? I’d say both.

“The Trump administration is making it more difficult for veterans with a rare but deadly cancer to get their health care needs covered by the government”

“A research facility within the US National Institutes of Health that is tasked with studying Ebola and other deadly infectious diseases has been instructed by the Trump administration’s Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to stop research activities.“

“Something that isn’t getting nearly enough attention is the considerable extent to which the whole “if you get sick it’s because you have a bad lifestyle” discourse is a core piece of classic fascist psychology, which was always obsessed with eugenics, social Darwinism, and purity fetishes of every kind, especially those related to beliefs about master races being “contaminated” by contact, literal or metaphorical, with vermin-like untermenschen.”

“Today RFK Jr. both suggested that aluminum adjuvants in vaccines cause peanut allergies and admitted there are no data to support this hypothesis, so he wants to find some. Like if you took the scientific method, turned it backward and inside out and made it puke, you’d get RFK Jr.’s thoughts.” To which came this response: “What rfk jr is doing isn’t science, it’s a lazy discussion that should, at best, be held at the back of a waffle house by a few drunk rednecks.

It’s true that medical experts aren’t perfect. But as Lindsay Beyerstein says, “Nobody can know everything, let alone everything by their own research. We always rely on experts to navigate our complex world. The question is whether we pick credentialed and experienced people or internet demagogues and grifters.”

Comics covers by Rich Buckler (top) and Nick Cardy. All rights to images remain with current holders.