Making diphtheria great again? Why SA's public health experts are worried about RFK Jr
The grey membrane would take the form of wings at the back of the child's throat, spreading quickly, thickening up like leather. As the diphtheria moved through the body, a toxin would be released, potent enough to stop the heart and paralyse the nervous system. Some of the children who caught it would die within days, their narrow airways blocked by the winged formation.
Before vaccines were widely available, diphtheria was a leading global killer. But after the World Health Organisation (WHO) rolled out standard immunisation campaigns in 1974, new cases of diphtheria reduced by more than 90%. Today, most people would be hard-pressed to tell you what diphtheria is, never mind what it does to the body of a small child.
But one three-minute video released on social media at the end of June may change all that.
That's when US health czar Robert F Kennedy Jr accused Gavi, the international vaccine alliance, of distributing a version of what's known as DTP — the combined diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis (whooping cough) vaccine — that does more harm than good. Kennedy, known as RFK Jr, also halted all US funding to the group until it embraces what he defines as proper science.
RFK Jr's vaccine stance is completely at odds with the global public health community and years of science, ignoring years of research that have found vaccines are safe and effective and which have saved an estimated 154-million lives — mostly under the age of 5 — over the past 50 years.
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