In a move that will ultimately harm ignorant Americans, the head of the Republican-backed Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices said this week that vaccines that fight polio and measles ought to be optional, flying in the face of all documented evidence.
The chair of that panel, Dr. Kirk Milhoan, said the right to refuse vaccines was more important than a mandate to protect public health.
In the case of an infectious disease, a personal choice to decline a vaccine may also affect others, including infants who are too young to be vaccinated or people who are immunocompromised. But a person’s right to reject a vaccine supersedes those risks, Dr. Milhoan said.
“If there is no choice, then informed consent is an illusion,” he said. “Without consent it is medical battery.”
To make sense of the decision, it helps to know more about Milhoan and why he’s on this panel at all. He’s an evangelical Christian pastor with a long history of promoting vaccine misinformation, which is why he was appointed to this vaccine advisory panel by Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.
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