The Brainwashing Campaign That Is Measles Misinformation
A shameful mass propaganda campaign is unfolding in the U.S., one that will make millions of kids needlessly sick with measles
Fake gravestones to signify victims of the measles outbreak in Samoa in 2019 sit in the grass outside the U.S. Capitol as concerned doctors, nurses and health care advocates from across the country join senators for a press conference ahead of Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.’s confirmation hearing in Washington, D.C. on January 29, 2025.
Jason Andrew/The Washington Post via Getty Images
A long-running nationwide brainwashing campaign, conducted in plain sight, now comes to its deadly culmination. The predictable consequence—reviving a preventable childhood disease in the U.S.—is at hand.
With two children dead in Texas, an adult dead in New Mexico and nearly 900 confirmed cases of measles across 25 states, we are now at risk of a preventable, dangerous disease becoming endemic once more within a generation. A terrifically infectious disease, measles requires roughly 95 percent of people being vaccinated to stop its spread, and the U.S. has been below that since 2022.
Why is this happening? An April poll on measles beliefs from the health policy-centered Kaiser Family Foundation tells us. One quarter of the 1,380 people surveyed believe the false notion that the measles vaccine causes autism. Some 19 percent mistakenly believe the vaccine is more dangerous than the deadly virus it prevents. That’s simply untrue.
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This is a shameful, mass propaganda campaign, unfolding in real time, championed by our top health official, a lawyer who recently announced a pointless study into the causes of autism. This propaganda exercise, headed by an unqualified anti-vaxxer, was conjured simply to raise questions about vaccines. The poll makes clear who this noise is aimed at: Republican voters, bidding to undermine their trust in science and government in ways familiar since COVID.
We are on the brink of an epidemic, one that could make millions of people sick with measles each year, and this is all being done for political and personal gain, with children as the collateral damage.
The tanning-booth cabal broadcasting this nonsense has helped one in three U.S. adults report they have now heard the falsehood that the measles vaccine is more dangerous than the disease, almost twice as many as said the same a year earlier. And people who identify as Republican are eating this up.
“We see that trust overall has fallen, but that’s really been driven by declining trust in government sources of health information among Republicans,” says Liz Hamel, vice president and director of public opinion and survey research at KFF. “And that’s whether you ask the question about information on COVID-19, or information on vaccines, or just to make the right recommendations on health care.”
![A long-running nationwide brainwashing campaign, conducted in plain sight, now comes to its deadly culmination. The predictable consequence—reviving a preventable childhood disease in the U.S.—is at hand. With two children dead in Texas, an adult dead in New Mexico, and nearly 900 confirmed cases of measles across 25 states, we are now at risk of a preventable, dangerous disease becoming endemic once more within a generation. A terrifically infectious disease, measles requires roughly 95 percent of people being vaccinated to stop its spread, and the U.S. has been below that since 2022. Why is this happening? An April poll on measles beliefs from the health policy-centered Kaiser Family Foundation tells us. One quarter of the 1,380 people surveyed believe the false notion that the measles vaccine causes autism. Some 19 percent mistakenly believe the vaccine is more dangerous than the deadly virus it prevents. That’s simply untrue. FIRST GRAPHIC This is a shameful, mass propaganda campaign, unfolding in real time, championed by our top health official, a lawyer who recently announced a pointless study into the causes of autism. This propaganda exercise, headed by an unqualified anti-vaxxer, was conjured simply to raise questions about vaccines. The poll makes clear who this noise is aimed at: Republican voters, bidding to undermine their trust in science and government in ways familiar since COVID. We are on the brink of an epidemic, one that could make millions of people sick with measles each year, and this is all being done for political and personal gain, with children as the collateral damage. The tanning booth cabal broadcasting this nonsense has helped one in three U.S. adults report they have now heard the falsehood that the measles vaccine is more dangerous than the disease, almost twice as many as said the same a year earlier. And people who identify as Republican are eating this up. SECOND CHART “We see that trust overall has fallen, but that’s really been driven by declining trust in government sources of health information among Republicans,” says Liz Hamel, vice president and director of public opinion and survey research at KFF. “And that’s whether you ask the question about information on COVID-19, or information on vaccines, or just to make the right recommendations on health care.” Why undermine public trust in health recommendations? It’s good politics, Trump and his supporters have found, aimed at driving the country back to the gilded age. Public health, ensuring safe drugs and food, are public goods largely directed by federal agencies. If your goal is dismantling the federal government, making people think those (admittedly far-from-perfect) health agencies are lying about vaccines is a great place to start undoing the progressive era. The partisan differences are stark, making clear who is getting this message. Only half of self-declared Republicans in the poll know that measles cases are up this year compared to recent years. Nearly three-quarters of Democrats say they know the same. One third of Republicans say it is “definitely” or “probably true” that the measles vaccine, typically given in childhood in a combination with mumps and rubella, has been proven to cause autism, compared to 10 percent of Democrats. Why pretend there isn’t a political brainwashing experiment going on? The Trump administration’s loudest voice on vaccines is (somehow) HHS chief Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., who after tepidly endorsing the MMR shot in the Texas outbreak (“stoking fury among his supporters,” according to NPR), pivoted to doubting their safety and embraced a Texas doctor who treated kids while reportedly ill with measles. His autism study move seems aimed at scaring parents into not vaccinating their kids by laundering the bogus link back to the syndrome into the news. None of this is subtle. An April Journal for the Anthropology of North America study, looking at distrust for the government among Evangelical Christians in Oregon, nicely lays out how these kinds of views were transmitted to Republican voters in the COVID pandemic. “[I]ndividuals we met invoked well-worn and pervasive far-right and/or Christian conspiracy theories promulgated by right-wing media,” found the anthropologists. A pastor counseled people to eschew vaccines out of Christian duty to demonstrate faith in God. A career nurse “read reports of how the COVID-19 vaccine made people sicker than the virus itself,” and stopped endorsing vaccines for kids. To some, “the COVID-19 vaccine symbolized everything wrong and threatening” about “big government” and “big medicine, the study in Oregon found. Such conspiratorial thinking is now standard stuff in our politics. Ever since President Donald Trump first botched the handling of COVID in 2020, when his administration fumbled the rollout of vaccines, the Republican Party has turned against inoculations. Partly, this turn against science was meant to inoculate Trump from the political cost of raising hopes of the pandemic ending “by Easter” in its first year. The subsequent resurgence of SARS-CoV-2 cases ahead of the 2020 election led to attacks on then NIAID chief Anthony Fauci, as a political scapegoating strategy. In 2024 Trump brought RFK, Jr. (whom he once accused of being a “fake” anti-vaxxer) onto his campaign precisely for his anti–medical establishment credentials. Kennedy’s views, steadily peddled on right-wing outlets, attracted measles-vaccine-doubting voters. It was a classic case of “If you can’t beat ‘em on lying about vaccines, give him control of the nation’s public health apparatus.” The propaganda is effective enough that the parents of one girl who died of measles in Texas told the rabidly anti-vaxx group Children’s Health Defense (which was founded and until recently chaired by RFK, Jr.) that they still opposed vaccinations even after this preventable tragedy. In stomach-turning fashion, the group turned the family’s statements into a propaganda video against vaccines. For the politicians and the grifters who pump out this dangerous dishonesty, these deaths don’t matter, so long as they get the votes. For everyone else, the deadly spread of measles is the dismal future they now promise our kids. This is an opinion and analysis article, and the views expressed by the author or authors are not necessarily those of Scientific American.](https://static.scientificamerican.com/dam/m/6cced4919af7a82a/original/measles-propaganda_graphic_d1_TEXT.png?m=1745948819.43&w=2000)
Amanda Montañez; Source: KFF
Why undermine public trust in health recommendations? It’s good politics, Trump and his supporters have found, aimed at driving the country back to the gilded age. Public health, ensuring safe drugs and food, are public goods largely directed by federal agencies. If your goal is dismantling the federal government, making people think those (admittedly far-from-perfect) health agencies are lying about vaccines is a great place to start undoing the progressive era.
The partisan differences are stark, making clear who is getting this message. Only half of self-declared Republicans in the poll know that measles cases are up this year compared with recent years. Nearly three-quarters of Democrats say they know the same. One third of Republicans say it is “definitely” or “probably true” that the measles vaccine, typically given in childhood in a combination with mumps and rubella, has been proven to cause autism, compared with 10 percent of Democrats.
Why pretend there isn’t a political brainwashing experiment going on? The Trump administration’s loudest voice on vaccines is (somehow) HHS chief Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., who after tepidly endorsing the MMR shot in the Texas outbreak (“stoking fury among his supporters,” according to NPR), pivoted to doubting their safety and embraced a Texas doctor who treated kids while reportedly ill with measles. His autism study move seems aimed at scaring parents into not vaccinating their kids by laundering the bogus link back to the syndrome into the news.
None of this is subtle. An April Journal for the Anthropology of North America study, looking at distrust for the government among Evangelical Christians in Oregon, nicely lays out how these kinds of views were transmitted to Republican voters in the COVID pandemic. “[I]ndividuals we met invoked well-worn and pervasive far-right and/or Christian conspiracy theories promulgated by right-wing media,” found the anthropologists.
A pastor counseled people to eschew vaccines out of Christian duty to demonstrate faith in God. A career nurse “read reports of how the COVID-19 vaccine made people sicker than the virus itself,” and stopped endorsing vaccines for kids. To some, “the COVID-19 vaccine symbolized everything wrong and threatening” about “big government” and “big medicine,” the study in Oregon found.
Such conspiratorial thinking is now standard stuff in our politics. Ever since President Donald Trump first botched the handling of COVID in 2020, when his administration fumbled the rollout of vaccines, the Republican Party has turned against inoculations. Partly, this turn against science was meant to inoculate Trump from the political cost of raising hopes of the pandemic ending “by Easter” in its first year. The subsequent resurgence of SARS-CoV-2 cases ahead of the 2020 election led to attacks on then NIAID chief Anthony Fauci as a political scapegoating strategy.
In 2024 Trump brought RFK, Jr. (whom he once accused of being a “fake” anti-vaxxer) onto his campaign precisely for his anti–medical establishment credentials. Kennedy’s views, steadily peddled on right-wing outlets, attracted measles-vaccine-doubting voters. It was a classic case of “If you can’t beat ’em on lying about vaccines, give him control of the nation’s public health apparatus.”
The propaganda is effective enough that the parents of one girl who died of measles in Texas told the rabidly anti-vax group Children’s Health Defense (which was founded and until recently chaired by RFK, Jr.) that they still opposed vaccinations even after this preventable tragedy. In stomach-turning fashion, the group turned the family’s statements into a propaganda video against vaccines.
For the politicians and the grifters who pump out this dangerous dishonesty, these deaths don’t matter, so long as they get the votes. For everyone else, the deadly spread of measles is the dismal future they now promise our kids.
This is an opinion and analysis article, and the views expressed by the author or authors are not necessarily those of Scientific American.
