Walt's post is a mix of overstatement, selective quoting, and very few accurate details on recent statements.
Here is a claim-by-claim check of the key points in post #151 (the reply to zymurgy).
“Tens of thousands of children will die because Trump and Kennedy have lied about MMR”
This is not a fact. It is rhetoric.
- Pre-vaccine era (1950s–early 1960s), the U.S. saw an estimated 400–500 measles deaths per year and tens of thousands of hospitalizations. After widespread MMR use, deaths became rare.
- 2025: 3 measles-associated deaths (first in a decade).
- 2026 so far: Pennsylvania reported 2 “measles-associated” deaths in unvaccinated people in Lancaster County (Amish-heavy area). One was a newborn whose immediate cause of death was a lacerated/ruptured spleen. The county coroner said the pathologist did not consider measles the cause; the state health department listed it as associated. CDC has not added them to the official national death count while reviewing.
U.S. cases are high by recent standards (~2,777 reported in 2026 through late August, already exceeding all of 2025), overwhelmingly among the unvaccinated or unknown-status. That is a real resurgence and a public-health problem. It is not tens of thousands of deaths. Even a large worsening would not reach that scale in the U.S. in the near term.
School-entry vaccine requirements, including MMR, are set by the states. The federal government does not impose a nationwide school mandate.
Current exemption rules (as of mid-2026)
- Every state allows medical exemptions.
- 45 states + DC allow religious and/or personal-belief (philosophical) exemptions.
- 5 states do not allow religious or personal-belief exemptions for school: California, Connecticut, Maine, New York, and West Virginia (WV has had recent executive-order and court confusion; its education department has not been honoring broad non-medical exemptions for 2026–27).
Typical split among the 45: roughly 30 states religious-only, about 15 religious + personal/philosophical.
Exemption paperwork, notarization, annual renewal, and whether the school or health department reviews the claim all vary by state.
Kennedy “has come out against the MMR vaccine” and “has been giving false information… including claims that it kills children”
Overstated on current official position.
RFK Jr. as HHS Secretary has:
- Said the department “promotes the MMR,” “we have advised every child to get the MMR,” and that it is ~97% effective.
- Told CNN’s Dana Bash in August 2026 that parents should vaccinate their children against measles.
- Said the MMR is “safe and effective” or “safe for most.”
He has pushed single-antigen options, and disputed the Pennsylvania death count. That is not a clean “against.”
“Trump has made an executive order against the MMR vaccine”
Misleading. Executive Order 14420 (Aug. 10, 2026) lists measles, mumps, and rubella among the core recommended immunizations. It directs that the combined MMR “should be administered in three separate single-disease shots once such products are domestically available” and that shots should be spaced across separate visits where feasible.
The order also instructs the Attorney General to challenge certain state mandate laws on parental-rights/religious-exemption grounds. That is not “against the MMR vaccine”; it is against the current combination schedule and some state requirements.
The Trump quotes (soda-bottle volume, “nuclear weapon”)
At the EO signing and in a follow-up interview he compared the combined shot to pouring a soda-bottle volume into a child and said putting the three antigens together is “sort of like a nuclear weapon, according to some.”
Amish “have absolutely no religious problem with vaccines”
The Amish church has no formal doctrinal prohibition against vaccination. Low uptake is cultural (distrust of outsiders/government, limited contact with conventional medicine, private schools that do not enforce school-entry requirements) plus practical access issues. Past outbreaks (Ohio 2014) saw many Amish accept vaccine during targeted outreach. Current Lancaster estimates put MMR coverage in the Amish community around 25%. “It takes work” is accurate; whether the federal government is responsible for undertaking that work is a policy dispute.
Bottom line:
Measles is back because vaccination coverage has fallen below the ~95% needed for herd immunity in pockets, including religious/cultural communities and areas hit by COVID-era disruptions plus later hesitancy.
The two reported Pennsylvania deaths (whatever the exact contribution of measles) occurred in an unvaccinated population in a known low-coverage area. Kennedy and Trump have issued official statements that promote getting measles vaccine That is not evidence that “tens of thousands of children will die.” The actual numbers so far are a handful of deaths after years of near-zero.
www.pbs.org
