Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on Sept. 29 challenged the common assertion that vaccines against diseases such as measles and polio have prevented hundreds of millions of deaths.
When Kennedy appeared before the Senate Finance Committee earlier in September, Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) displayed a chart titled “How Vaccines Helped All But Eradicate Diseases” and credited vaccines with lowering morbidity for measles and six other diseases by 99 percent or 100 percent.
