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January 9, 2025 
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 | By Neel V. Patel Staff Editor, Opinion |
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Measles has always posed a serious threat to infants and small children. Historically, most who are infected survive, but dangerous fever and inflammation of the brain can strike and lead to serious complications. The development of a measles vaccine in 1963 ushered in an era that virtually eradicated the disease from the face of the earth.
At least, that has been the dream public health experts still cling to. Though rare, measles outbreaks still occur, especially abroad. And the people who suffer most are, once again, children.
In 2019, Josh Green, then the lieutenant governor of Hawaii, witnessed this firsthand when he formed an emergency group of health care workers to descend on Samoa to contain the spread of its measles outbreak. In a guest essay, Green, who is also a physician, recounts meeting a family whose toddler died from infection mere minutes before he and his team arrived at their house. The parents, like many across Samoa, did not vaccinate their daughter after anti-vaccine advocates like Robert Kennedy Jr. spent over a year casting doubt on the safety and efficacy of the shot.
The image of this fragile little girl and her lifeless body has stuck with Green ever since — it is emblematic of the devastation that can arise when anti-vaccine messaging takes a hold in communities. In the past few weeks as I edited his piece, the same imagery and story have been at the forefront of my mind as well.
Kennedy has never been held accountable for this role in Samoa's measles crisis. He has continued to spout anti-vaccine messaging in the last several years, especially during the Covid-19 pandemic. And now President-elect Donald Trump has nominated him to be secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services — the institution that wields enormous power in guiding American vaccination policies and recommendations.
This is an unimaginable outcome for Green. Now the governor of Hawaii, he makes an urgent plea to senators on Capitol Hill to reject Kennedy's nomination and support a leader that will work to prevent the same public health crises like what the people of Samoa endured.
Read the full essay.
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Keep a civil tongue.