Federal government health institutions are not perfect. Given the track record of the last several years, Americans have good reason to demand more transparency. But we should be careful not to throw the baby out with the bathwater. In today’s polarized climate, anti-vaccine sentiment threatens to unravel decades of public health progress.
Although the science has been honed over time, vaccines are nothing new. The pursuit of safe and effective vaccines spans centuries. In fact, after recognizing the success of early inoculations, General George Washington insisted that troops joining the Continental Army get inoculated for smallpox, a disease that had devastated previous military campaigns.
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Another Founding Father, Benjamin Franklin, became an early champion for inoculation as well. After losing his son to smallpox, Franklin leveraged his platform to educate the public on the life-saving power of immunity against deadly diseases. Fast-forward to the 1960s and Americans, including myself, received the oral polio vaccine in the form of drops or sugar cubes. Years later, injections became the status quo.
The medical breakthrough has led to remarkable public health achievements.
For example, following the introduction of the measles vaccine in 1963, annual deaths in the U.S. from the disease plummeted from hundreds to nearly zero. The near-eradication of polio in the U.S. by the 1970s marked another major victory. Thanks to immunization efforts, these dangerous diseases have virtually disappeared, saving countless lives.
Today, vaccines continue to play a role in combating deadly diseases, new and old. To ensure their safety and effectiveness, the federal government maintains a strict approval process. The robust oversight administered by the Food and Drug Administration is the gold standard and a model for public health institutions around the world.
Through cutting-edge monitoring and clinical evaluation, the FDA ensures that both approved vaccines and those in development meet the highest safety standards. It’s a reality the public generally understands. That’s why over four-fifths of voters believe it’s crucial for the U.S. to remain a leader in vaccine innovation.
However, we should be careful not to become prisoners of our own success. Vaccines have worked so well that the threat of deadly disease is no longer top of mind in the national consciousness. As a result, small pockets of blanket anti-vaccine sentiment are swelling and threatening to undermine decades of public health progress.
And it’s beginning to cause problems. A reemergence of measles, for example, is being connected to declining vaccination rates. Whooping cough is also spiking in some areas. If trust in vaccines continues to deteriorate, the same pattern could unfold more broadly among a growing group of vaccine-preventable diseases.
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Of course, government mandates or policing speech are not solutions. The heavy-handed approach runs afoul of the Constitution and would fuel more anti-vaccine hysteria. Instead, public health officials should prioritize education, transparency, and trust over coercion. After all, modern medicine has the facts on its side.
Skepticism about vaccines is a luxury made possible by the success of modern medicine in eliminating once-deadly diseases. If government officials put more of an emphasis on transparency, public confidence will be restored and this important public health tool will continue to save lives.
Dr. Tom Price served as the 23rd U.S. secretary of Health and Human Services and is a former member of Congress from Georgia.