This year alone Ohio has already faced two outbreaks of measles — one in early January and one just a few weeks ago. Measles, a disease once considered eliminated in the United States, is not just spreading through Ohio but across the entire country.

The best way to protect yourself and your family from measles is to get vaccinated.

In times like these, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) should be a leading public health voice, ensuring that the public has science-backed information and understands the importance of curbing outbreaks and protecting themselves and their families.

However, under the leadership of Robert F. Kennedy Jr., HHS has shied away from this responsibility and instead, actively promoted misleading and confusing information on vaccines.

The confusion and danger extends beyond measles.

Earlier this year, HHS has rolled back long-standing universally recommended childhood immunizations, including, but not limited to, rotavirus, meningococcal disease, hepatitis A, hepatitis B, and influenza immunizations.

These changes were made without scientific justification or transparency and have now been put on hold by a judge.

This rollback and legal battle leaves parents and health care providers confused and without the scientific guidance they need. And worse, leaving vulnerable populations at risk.

As physicians, it’s our responsibility to answer our patients’ questions and provide them with the most up-to-date, evidence-backed science.

These conversations are only made more difficult by the confusion HHS has caused. Putting politics over science, the agency’s unprecedented changes to the childhood immunization schedule will have real implications for families.

The World Health Organization estimates that global immunization efforts have saved 154 million lives.

Since 2000, the measles vaccine alone has saved nearly 59 million lives. These are real results, real families, and real lives saved.

Vaccines are safe and effective. Sowing doubt and distrust in medicine that continues to save lives is dangerous.

This is why HHS’s actions are so concerning. They not only ignore long-established scientific evidence but also put the lives of the most vulnerable among us, children and immunocompromised individuals, at risk.

Every contraction of a preventable disease represents a failure of public health leadership.

There has been widespread pushback against the HHS’s decisions from the medical community.

In fact, over 200 groups, representing doctors, nurses, and health care professionals and advocates, denounced this decision.

But we cannot be the only ones sounding the alarm.

We need our Ohio elected officials to stand with us.

They must publicly challenge these dangerous policy changes and demand that HHS follow established science.

Silence only puts Ohioans at risk. And while we wait for their courage to stand up, our children and our most vulnerable patients will face real consequences.

Dr. Chelsea Mooreland is the Founder and CEO of Life Cycle Direct Primary Care, a membership based practice designed to provide affordable culturally conscious care to marginalized and underserved communities in Central Ohio. 

This story is republished from the Ohio Capital Journal. View the original article.