American Religious People Must Oppose the Nomination of RFK, Jr.

I hate being political on my blog. However, this post is not really as political as much as it is religious. This post is about the importance of medical science. Specifically, my post is about the importance of vaccines and how we need to get the correct message out about how safe they are.

By the way, although this post is for my fellow religious friends, I don’t want atheists to get a break here. My atheist friends are some of the most caring people that I know, but you guys have your problematic people as well when it comes to science.

I don’t know how to make this messaging any more clear. Vaccines work. We have over 200 years of great data. Social media craziness has caused significant damage in this understanding. Postmodernism has its benefits, but the ideas behind everyone being an “expert” on everything topic while not trusting experts is simply tragic.

We have a very difficult personality in Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. who opposes vaccines. Somehow, he has been nominated to be head of the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services. This person is difficult in even more ways if you think about how his influence caused a measles outbreak in Samoa. Also, I think about how he seems to not care about the marginalized when one considers how he has treated the poor in Mexico. I do not know him personally. Perhaps, deep in his heart, he does not want people to die from preventable infectious diseases, but I don’t see this attitude in his actions.

We seem to have a pretty science ignorant person in RFK, Jr. He doesn’t understand poverty, and he has an anti-vaccination belief system not rooted in science.

I don’t know what to say. I have been in medicine since 1991. I have seen how vaccines save lives. I have seen children affected with diseases that are preventable with vaccines. I have worked in a developing country where its citizens want vaccinations because measles, whooping cough, and other terrible diseases exist in nature.

Think about this fact… About 1 in 1000 children infected with measles will get encephalitis. About 10% of these children will then die; 25% will have long-term neurologic injury. This issue is completely preventable with vaccination. It is unreal that we have such terrible misinformation in the world leading to vaccine opposition and subsequent outbreaks. Will it take the recurrence of these worldwide outbreaks with associated death and disability to make this issue more clear to the public, and specifically more clear to my fellow religious people? I do not know. It is so frustrating.

Fellow Christians, what did Jesus teach us? We should love our neighbor as much as we love God (Mark 12:30-31). Jesus taught us that the sick need a doctor, not the healthy. We can prevent people from getting sick.

My Muslim friends, the Hadiths speak about not being able to enter Paradise unless you believe in God and love one another. Your wonderful culture brought forth the ideas of the medical encyclopedism which lead to a worldwide understanding of hygeine and the sharing of medical knowledge.

My Jewish friends, isn’t God quite clear how you should treat the “other” or the “stranger” (Leviticus 19:34)? Your culture brought worth Maimonides, one of the most famous physicians in world history.

I am sure Buddhism, Hinduism, and so many of the world’s wonderful faiths are quite clear about loving God and loving the other. Science, done well, is an example of God participating with our species in co-creation offor the good. Vaccines are, simply put, a gift from God.

As a religous American, what can you do? I would offer up to simply contact the U.S. Senators of your state.

I sent both of my senators a short, non-vitriolic email last week. Vitriol never works. Short, simple facts do work. I simply pointed out that vaccines work. I pointed out that I have seen the benefits of vaccines and that I opposed the nomination of RFK, Jr.

I would ask you to consider the same type of correspondence with your senators.

Do I think the emails to my senators will help? I don’t know. I realize that both of my sentators are very busy and have information collated by my staff. I did receive very nice emails back that basically thanked me for sending their offices information. That response is just fine. In the long term, I feel that I have done something to get the information out that parallels my belief in keeping people safe, loving the other, and loving my God.

Odds and ends:

1. I recommend this book, “The Evidence Liberal Arts Needs” by Richard Detweiler. I am a fan of the liberal arts. A liberal arts education made me a better physician.
2. (Sub)text is a great podcast to subscribe to. I liked this evaluation of the 1970 movie, “M.A.S.H.”