Letters to the Editor: ‘Our children do not have to die this way’: A warning for the RFK Jr. era

To the editor: I read with concern the opinions of anti-vaccine activist Robert F. Kennedy Jr., now the U.S. secretary of Health and Human Services. I am 80 and lived through the development of the early polio vaccine. I have a 91-year-old lifelong friend who has shared vivid memories of contracting polio as a child with her twin brother.

My friend was placed in a hospital isolation unit. She remembers that while there, her father would come to her window every day. She would struggle to stand on the bed and wave so her father could see she was still alive. She had no news about her brother.

Finally she recovered enough to go home. She remembers being careful not to stumble. She didn’t want her father to worry about her.

At the car, her father said that her brother could not come home because he died in the iron lung. She says that throughout her childhood, she lived with the weight of her brother’s loss and her parents’ endless grief.

Today, we have effective vaccines. Our children do not have to die this way.

Ann Duran, San Clemente

..

To the editor: In a confirmation hearing for Kennedy, Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.), a physician, expressed grave concerns about RFK Jr.’s long history of spreading vaccine conspiracy theories. That of course didn’t prevent Cassidy from voting to make Kennedy the head of the agency that regulates vaccines.

Now, the senator’s home state has decided to stop promoting mass vaccination in the name of medical freedom. And again, he has grave concerns.

When the inevitable outbreaks of measles, mumps, whooping cough and other diseases we all thought were left in the past occur, I’m sure Cassidy will again express grave concern. But it will be too late then.

Janet Cerswell, Rancho Cucamonga