Former Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Acting Director Dr. Richard Besser suggested that optional vaccination standards violate a “social contract.”
Speaking to ABC “This Week” host Marth Raddatz, Besser said, “Well, it’s not a matter of getting rid of them. No vaccine is 100% protective. when you send your kid to school, fully vaccinated, you don’t want to have to worry that the child sitting next to them, that their parents chose not to vaccinate their child, because once the level of vaccination in a classroom drops below something like 95%, it’s a setup for diseases like measles or whooping cough to spread.”
The statement came in response to Raddatz asking if Besser is concerned Robert F. Kennedy Jr. would advocate to “get rid” of vaccines.
“If there’s a child in the classroom who has an immune problem, that child is at risk,” he added. “So it’s not a matter of saying, ‘Oh, yes, you have access to your vaccines.’ It’s pushing the idea that vaccines should be something that is totally up to the individual.”
Besser went on to describe how vaccines are linked to a “social contract.”
“We have a social contract in our country. There are things we do for our own health, but there are things we do that are good for ourselves, our families and our communities. Vaccination falls into that category. Having someone who denies that in that role is extremely dangerous.”
When President-elect Donald Trump chose RFK Jr. as the head of the Department of Health and Human Services, he wrote that Kennedy would restore agencies to the “traditions of Gold Standard Scientific Research.”
