You may know that President Donald Trump nominating Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to head the Department of Health and Human Services is not good for you or your kid’s health. Kennedy’s anti-vaccine advice offered on a trip to Samoa in 2019 contributed to a measles outbreak there that killed 83 and hospitalized more than 1,800, most of them children.
What you may not know is that this science cynic is also not good for the health of your dog.
Vaccine hesitancy is a human trait that veterinarians thought they did not need to worry about for animals. Two diseases have been eradicated in history, both by vaccines. The first was smallpox in 1980. Less well remembered is the second, rinderpest, because it infected and killed mostly cattle and buffalo.
The story of how rinderpest eradication was achieved is much simpler than smallpox because cattle are much simpler to deal with than humans. Human vaccination relies on choice, which risks refusals. Despite public health’s best efforts, people can always say no to a safe and effective vaccine, as some did even with smallpox. Eradicating a disease hinges on maximizing consent, since enough refusals will let infectious diseases keep spreading. Luckily, cow and steer consent is unnecessary. They were vaccinated and fully protected against deadly rinderpest infection without problem.
More recently, however, RFK Jr.’s commitment to disinformation and fearmongering is creating a pet vaccination problem. Now, pet owners have bought into vaccine panic. A significant portion of dog owners have worries about canine vaccines; 53% say routine vaccines for their dogs are unsafe, ineffective, or unnecessary, despite the insistence from American veterinarians that vaccines have saved millions of pets.
What’s not obvious is the benefit of animal vaccines for humans. The canine rabies vaccine, a routine vaccine some dog owners are now refusing, is the greatest example.
A dog bite, even a scratch, in many parts of the world is potentially fatal for humans. Over 99% of rabies cases come from dog bites, killing about 59,000 people every year. Without the vaccine, rabies is 100% fatal for both humans and animals. The borders between rich and poor countries largely demarcate where the rabies vaccine is available. Growing owner hesitancy will make things worse for us and our animals.
Thanks to RFK Jr., a strong predictor of pet vaccine rates is human vaccine hesitancy. Pet owners who have concerns about vaccines for themselves often share the same sentiments for their pets; 37% of dog owners absurdly believe that vaccines can cause autism in their dogs.
Beware the domino effect. Humans aren’t regularly vaccinated against rabies because of high vaccination in dogs, but if those numbers drop, it will spell trouble.
Almost every state in the U.S. mandates a rabies vaccine for dogs. Not vaccinating a dog against rabies is a crime. But anti-vaxxers like RFK Jr. have some people thinking the vaccine is more dangerous than a disease that guarantees death.
This is the time to increase rabies enforcement, and expand mandates to other vaccines for distemper, parvovirus, and kennel cough. And who knows — seeing their dogs get vaccinated and be just fine might show some that vaccines can be safe.
Will RFK Jr. protect your pets? Unlikely. Will his anti-vaccine stance put them and you at risk? Very likely. His decades-long crusade against vaccines puts all lives in danger, human and animal.
This guest essay reflects the views of Arthur Caplan and Nathaniel Mamo, director and program coordinator, respectively, of the Division of Medical Ethics at NYU Grossman School of Medicine. Their opinions are their own.
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