"Measles thrives on being underestimated," Dr. Adam Ratner says. The highly infectious disease was thought to be a "solved problem," until a 2018 outbreak in New York City. "When we start to see measles, it's evidence of the faltering of our public health systems and of fomenting of distrust of vaccines." Ratner talks about the implications of RFK's Health and Human Services Dept. appointment, National Institute of Health budget cuts, and spreading distrust and skepticism in science. His new book is called Booster Shots.Also, Maureen Corrigan reviews Geraldine Brooks' memoir Memorial Days, about grieving her husband, Tony Horwitz.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy
Chapter 1: Why is the resurgence of measles a public health concern?
This is Fresh Air. I'm Tanya Mosley. Last week, the Senate confirmed Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who has historically been a vaccine skeptic, as President Trump's head of the Department of Health and Human Services. Today, we're going to be talking about the importance of vaccines amid the growing avian bird flu and measles spread with pediatrician and infectious disease expert Dr. Adam Ratner.
Twenty-five years ago, measles was declared eliminated in the United States. It was a long-fought win for pediatricians and researchers and those who work in infectious diseases. Today, however, measles is back, and Dr. Ratner says the resurgence points to a larger, more significant problem for public health. Measles isn't just inconvenient.
It is highly contagious and can lead to serious complications, including pneumonia, brain inflammation, blindness, and even death.
Dr. Ratner's new book, Booster Shots, The Urgent Lessons of Measles and the Uncertain Future of Children's Health, warns that as the number of vaccinations in children decreases and the lack of public trust in science increases, the resurgence of illnesses like measles is a foregone conclusion.
Measles, like many communicable diseases, Ratner says, is a biological agent that preys on human inequity, thriving on conditions of chaos, colonialism, and war. Dr. Adam Ratner is a professor of pediatrics and microbiology at NYU Grossman School of Medicine and the director of the Division of Pediatric Infectious Diseases at Hassenfield Children's Hospital and Bellevue Hospital Center.
We recorded this conversation last week. Dr. Ratner, welcome to Fresh Air.
Thanks so much. Delighted to be here.
Well, your book is very relevant. President Trump has announced significant funding cuts for the NIH, the National Institutes of Health, which will have a direct impact on medical research. The anti-vax movement continues to grow. There is still this disbelief in science and research that we are seeing. And you have made it your life's work to study and treat infectious diseases.
Why did you want to tell the larger implications of what we're seeing through this story of measles?
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Chapter 2: What does Dr. Adam Ratner's book 'Booster Shots' reveal about vaccines?
And it has the potential to have people lose their jobs, to drive scientists out of the field, to have universities shut down labs that they can't afford to run because they haven't budgeted for this abrupt change. And I think that the effects of this may be long-lasting.
Our guest today is Dr. Adam Ratner. We recorded this conversation you're hearing last week about his new book, Booster Shots, The Urgent Lessons of Measles and the Uncertain Future of Children's Health. We'll be right back after this break. I'm Tanya Mosley, and this is Fresh Air.
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One of the things that we also don't talk about a lot is faith. And what I mean by that is faith that the system will actually work for our benefit. So you actually tell a story of how the vaccine trial for polio in 55 was really a high watermark for public enthusiasm. Yes.
Then President Carter came into office and relied on that accumulated goodwill as they tried to eradicate some of these childhood diseases like measles. But as we move through time, I'd also love to just slow down a little bit and talk about some of those moments in the 80s and 90s that really shook our trust in government decision-making as it relates to our health and well-being.
There were a few things. There was the unmasking of the Tuskegee syphilis study in which government scientists had observed as black men with syphilis had gone through the stages of disease and not provided them with medicine. medication that was available and was known to work.
When that came to light, that generated and still does very reasonably a tremendous amount of mistrust in the government and in scientists. There were other smaller scale incidents that also shook people's trust. There were trials of vaccines and trials of other kinds of medication that were carried out in institutions for children, and those were not carried out
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