Anti-vaccine sentiment is, more or less, as old as vaccines. When Cotton Mather promoted inoculations against smallpox in the 1720s, someone threw a firebomb through his window with a message attached: “Mather, you dog, Damn you, I’ll inoculate you with this.” Today's vaccines are as safe and effective as ever. So why, suddenly, is the anti-vax movement at the height of its power and influence? Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the nominee to be the next secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, is “the king of the anti-vaxxers,” says Atlantic senior editor Daniel Engber. But RFK Jr. isn’t alone. An array of nominees across the fringe-science belief spectrum appears ready to take the reins in Trump’s new administration. In this episode, we discuss this disorienting moment, when anti-vaccine conspiracy theorists may soon be in charge of the agencies that fund, recommend, and research vaccines, with Engber and Arthur Allen, author of Vaccines: The Controversial Story of Medicine’s Greatest Lifesaver. What levers could the anti-vaxxers in charge pull to disrupt vaccine distribution? How could they affect vaccine recommendations and research? And what happens if there is an outbreak? Ultimately, how fragile is the nation’s vaccine infrastructure? --- Share understanding this holiday season. For less than $2 a week, give a year-long Atlantic subscription to someone special. They’ll get unlimited access to Atlantic journalism, including magazine issues, narrated articles, puzzles, and more. Give today at TheAtlantic.com/podgift. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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I'm Karla Lally Music, cookbook author and snack enthusiast. Do you have a sweet tooth? Tune in to Sweets Unwrapped, a new podcast from Ferrero and Atlantic Rethink, the Atlantic's creative marketing studio, where I dive into the stories behind America's favorite treats.
For all the parents listening, I bet you remember this moment. You have this tiny new creature in your life. You feel vulnerable. The new baby seems extra vulnerable. And one of the first things you have to do to this tiny creature is let the doctor inject into her small amounts of disease.
But you almost certainly have to do it for a kid to go to school, which makes vaccines a very real way that people feel the presence of the state in their lives. And so vaccines turn out to be a very excellent way to examine this moment we've landed in, where people who deeply mistrust the government are suddenly in charge of critical parts of it. I'm Hannah Rosen. This is Radio Atlantic.
And today, we're going to talk about vaccines — more specifically, the anti-vaxxers who Trump has nominated to run our health institutions and how they might change our world. One critical dividing line between the two parties right now — maybe the critical dividing line — is trust in expertise, in authority, in institutions.
And this showdown, which in the coming administration will play out over lots of arenas — the military, education, intelligence — it's been brewing in the vaccine world for years, maybe centuries. Let's start in the modern world with Trump's nominees, who they are, what they believe, and what they might do. To help me with that, we have Atlantic science writer and editor Daniel Engber.
Dan, welcome to the show.
Thanks, Anna.
So when Trump announced RFK as his pick to be the next Secretary of Health and Human Services, what was your reaction?
I thought, I can't believe this is really happening.
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