Legacy of Mistrust: The Tuskegee Experiment and Vaccine Skepticism

For many years, the threat of measles, a deadly disease that spreads more rapidly than COVID and regularly took thousands of lives a year, had been effectively eradicated in the United States due to the widespread acceptance of vaccination. The death of a child from measles in West Texas was the first in over a decade and it came as a shock to the American medical establishment that is now grappling with a disturbing reality: the chief public health bureaucrat is a bonafide anti-vaxxer. This episode will explore the genealogy of anti-vaccination beliefs in the United States and how they spread into mainstream politics.

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https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC1200696/

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https://www.cascadepbs.org/mossback/2025/02/history-vaccine-skepticism-1920s-seattle-rfk-jr

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