RFK Jr’s Measles Doublespeak

America Dissected

Incision Media LLC

Politics, News, Society & Culture

4.6 • 4.4K Ratings

🗓️ 6 March 2025

⏱️ 71 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

This week Abdul is joined by physician and writer Dr. Dhruv Khullar, who is subbing in for Dr. Katelyn Jetelina this week. Abdul and Dhruv discuss a rash of alarming news out of HHS, including its uneven measles response, more cancelled meetings, a policy change to end public comment, and the re-evaluation of a key bird flu vaccine contract. They also break down the Republican budget plan and explain why its proposed cuts would likely gut Medicaid. Then Abdul sits down with Lisa Sherman Luna, executive director of the Tennessee Immigrant and Refugee Rights Coalition, about the impact of ICE raids on the immigrant community. Check out our shop at store.americadissected.com for our new America Dissected merch – including logo shirts, hoodies and mugs. And don’t miss our “Vaccines Matter. Science Works.” t-shirts! This show would not be possible without the generous support of our sponsors. America Dissected invites you to check them out! This episode was brought to you by: Quince: Get free shipping and 365-day returns at quince.com/AD

Transcript

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0:00.0	RFK changes his tune on vaccines.
0:11.2	Congressional Republicans take aim at Medicaid, and more federal health meetings are put on ice.
0:16.3	This is America Desected. I'm your host, Dr. Abdul Al-Seid.
0:19.1	And I'm Dr. Drew Kula, subbing in for Dr. Caitlin Jedadalina, who's away this week. And we're recording this on Tuesday,
0:24.8	March 4th, 8 p.m. Eastern Time.
0:31.4	Drew, so thank you so much for joining the show. We really appreciated having you on our
0:35.5	episode about ultra-processed foods.
0:43.7	And, well, we figured you'd be a great sub. Obviously, nobody can sub for the fantastic Dr. Caitlin Gentilina, but I'm really excited to have this conversation with you. So thank you so much for
0:48.0	joining us today. I'll do my best. Let's start with the record measles cases hitting our country,
0:53.1	mostly driven by an outbreak in
0:55.0	West Texas. But across the country, we're at a total of 164 cases in just the first two months
1:00.4	of 2025. And we've tragically had one death of a school age child in Texas. To put that in
1:05.6	comparison, we had 285 cases in all of 2024. And it's been, well, let's just call it interesting to see how HHS Secretary and Vaccine
1:15.4	Skeptic Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s response has been on Sunday.
1:19.5	Kennedy released an op-ed to, of all places, Fox News, that read in part, quote,
1:24.5	vaccines not only protect individual children from measles, but also contribute to
1:28.4	community immunity protecting those who are unable to be vaccinated due to medical reasons,
1:33.1	which for RFK Jr., I have to say, is a bit of a breakthrough.
1:37.1	But at the same time, not to shed fully his past self, he said that the decision to vaccinate
1:43.1	is a, quote, personal one. So,
1:45.5	Drew, I got to step back here, right? This is a bit of a change from RFK Jr. What stood out to you
1:51.4	about his response in this op-ed in particular? Well, as you said, you know, he did advocate that
	...

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