From WXXI news.

This is connections.

I'm Evan Dawson.

Our connection this hour was made in Texas where measles are back.

An outbreak has now risen to almost 700 cases.

The vast majority in unvaccinated people.

This outbreak has been sparked by transmission in a largely Mennonite community that has a low level of vaccination.

Two children have died.

Another death involves an adult who was not vaccinated.

Now, before these three deaths, the United States had not had a measles death since 2015 and a child had not died of measles in this country since 2003.

Measles was declared eliminated in the United States 25 years ago.

At the current pace, that status could be forced to change.

The new Health and Human Services secretary is an anti-vaccine activist, not a medical doctor.

Robert F Kennedy Jr originally ran against Donald Trump for president, but he got no traction and endorsed Trump in exchange for a plum administration job.

And now he's tasked with dispensing information about public health, and he is often dangerously wrong.

The measles outbreak is a prime example.

RFK said that the measles vaccine is the best way to prevent the virus's spread, but then he essentially undermine that idea by rattling off a string of incorrect ideas about measles.

As CBS news reports, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr called for people to get the measles vaccine while in the same breath falsely claiming that it hasn't been safely tested and its protection is only short lived.

Kennedy also suggested that measles cases are inevitable in the United States because of ebbing immunity from vaccines, a notion that doctors say is false, end quote.

Kennedy told CBS news, quote, we're always going to have measles no matter what happens, as the vaccine wanes very quickly.

End quote.

It's important to note that this is not true.

Doctor Paul Offit, director of the Vaccine Education Center at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, said that two doses of the MMR measles mumps rubella vaccine offer lifelong protection.

As Doctor Offit explained, the elimination of measles could not happen if immunity was waning quickly after vaccination.

This summer, we wanted to bring in the local experts to help us make sense of what is happening not only in the American South, but really to help parents make good decisions about their kids, for families to make good decisions, and for all of us to become a little bit better consumers of information in a really fragmented landscape where you're going to hear a lot of stuff coming from a lot of different directions.

And a guest who's been helping us do that for years is Doctor Elizabeth Murray, director of child health and safety communications for the Golisano Children's Hospital.

Associate professor of clinical emergency medicine, Doctor Murray, welcome back to the program.

Happy to be here.

What are you wearing?

This is interesting.

I'm wearing my sweatshirt that says cite your sources.

Cite your sources.

Came dressed for the occasion.

And it's great to have her colleague, Doctor Justin Rosati on with us as well.

A pediatric neurologist, an assistant professor of neurology with University of Rochester Medical Center.

Doctor Rosati, welcome to the program.

Hi.

Thanks for having me.

Doctor Murray, you were just talking up your colleague and his social media platform prowess.

Tens of thousands of followers across platforms.

He's pretty good, Yeah, he's a darn near an influencer.

Is are you a is this a what's the term health fluency doctor?

I don't actually don't know what the term is.

God, I don't know if I'd consider myself an influencer.

Just somebody who likes to teach people things on the internet.

And, yeah, I built a little bit of a following.

I mean, you're going to eventually get called to do so.

There's a company called Jubilee that does a series where they put one person in the middle surrounded by 20 people with very different views and very opposing views.

And the people on the outside get to come and sit down at the table with the person.

And recently it was doctor Mike who sat down with a bunch of people who don't believe in vaccination.

And, it was not an easy watch.

I would say, it didn't look like a group of people who were interested in information.

But the bottom line is, these platforms exist.

People are are influencing and spreading messages in different ways.

And Doctor Rosati, let me just ask you and I'll ask Doctor Murray the same, why you've decided to dip your toe into TikTok and Instagram and other platforms like that.

Yeah, I just saw that's where a lot of my patients were getting their information.

It's it's funny because you don't think about it until people start asking you questions and appointments and you're like, gee, where did that come from?

And then, lo and behold, you find a viral trend and it's like, oh, that's where that question came from.

And I just felt like, you know, our, profession in general, medical doctors just we aren't in those spaces and somebody needs to be.

And I think, you know, as we'll probably talk about, those spaces are filled with people who, can just pump out information all the time.

And it goes relatively unchallenged.

So I want it to be where our patients are and provide information that's easily digestible and, you know, provide a resource to people who are looking for answers.

Doing a great job of that, Doctor Murray.

Yeah, same.

Yet you cannot let there be employed.

If there's a void of information, then other stuff will fill it.

And so we need to make sure we're filling it with accurate information.

Yeah.

This is something that a lot of WXXI colleagues were talking about last week.

And where I landed was, you know, I was a curmudgeon for a while about social media and, you know, all the time suck in the doomscrolling and, you know, putting half your day into tick tock and, and then I, you know, you really come to realize that when NPR and the BBC, in the New York Times and, and a lot of different and Wall Street Journal and many others, when they decide, well, we're not going to be on those spaces, then what they're doing is ceding the territory that is enormously popular.

If you're under 30 years and 30 years old in this country.

Tick tock.

It's where you get your news from.

And so if you're just not there, good luck countering anything that is either not true or just trying to be a presence that is irrelevant.

So we are you know, we're moving around there too.

And that's part of what this hour is about.

Doctor Murray, before we get into some of the specifics on measles in general, how concerned are you about how good we are at consuming information, in this sort of modern age?

I'm very concerned.

You know, this is something that popped up in front of our eyes.

And without anybody learning about it, you know, we're going backwards where we're trying to figure it out.

Should kids have cell phones in schools?

And what does all of that mean?

But at the same time, this, as you said, limitless platforms exist and new ones are popping up every day with minimal regulations.

And we've seen a tremendous downfall of any of the vetting or the safety parameters on these platforms as well.

And so, you know, being a good digital citizen is critical because otherwise, I feel like we're at a game of whac-a-mole trying to, you know, push down all of the disinformation.

But if we can teach people how to make sure they're having reliable sources, just because something is found on PubMed doesn't mean that it's necessarily a vetted study.

And there's so many layers to it.

But just making sure people can consume information instead of just saying, oh, well, they're speaking with authority online.

So it must be true that couldn't be further from the truth.

So we have to make sure people know how to critically review what they're seeing.

All right.

Since you just brought it up and this is now what this is about this hour.

But cell phones in schools are you are you good with the ban Bell?

The bell like the governor wants?

No.

Not really.

I mean, I think it kind of reminds me of abstinence only education, because if we're going to ban the phones, we have to pair that with teaching the students to be good digital citizens.

We can't just turn them off and then let them go home, where potentially nobody is watching and have them use the devices.

We have to teach them how to be on those platforms, understand what that means, understand the safety concerns associated with it, the bullying concerns associated with it, the sleep deprivation, concerns with it.

So if we're going to teach the students and teach the teachers how to use those things appropriately, and we're going to take breaks at school, fine.

But we have to pay for it.

We have to pay for it with the education.

How do you feel about that act?

Or is any?

I tend to agree with that.

I mean, you know, it's it's one of those things where it's ever present and I think we do need to do a better job.

I talked to my colleagues about this all the time of just being about knowing that stuff.

And so like when we were younger and learning about computers at school, like maybe there should be more education about how to interpret stuff that you see on the internet in school.

Yeah.

I had not thought about the idea of comparing it to abstinence only education, which study after study, all the data shows you the highest rates of unwanted teen pregnancy are in the contiguous American South, where abstinence education has replaced a lot of other kinds of education.

So I understand that, but that's a whole other conversation.

On a different day, we're going to come back to that.

You I want you guys to come back on a different day, because there's a lot of there's a lot of different perspectives.

But so listeners this hour, in the spirit of what the doctors have been talking about, we are on different platforms and you can find us in different ways if you're watching on YouTube.

We're streaming everyday live on YouTube, on the news YouTube channel.

Hello.

You can join the chat there.

or you can call the program just as ever.

844295 talk.

It's toll free.

84429582552636.

If you call from Rochester 2639994, you can email us connections at six talk.

so we're not going to do the whac-a-mole thing for 60 minutes.

We can't just do claim after claim.

All the listeners, if you do have specific questions and that you maybe you've heard on Theo Van or Joe Rogan or somewhere else, that's fine.

And I'm sure our guests can talk about that.

I do think it's valuable to talk specifically about measles, given all of what's happening right now.

So let's start in general, Doctor Murray, are you surprised to see what's going on in Texas, in the American South?

What this outbreak?

It's hard to say.

I mean, I get some I can't believe it is happening because we could have prevented this.

And so the numbers continuing to rise and the case is running rampant that I'm not surprised about because you have a under vaccinated community.

So I'm not I'm not surprised to see that.

But you're saying it's needless.

It's needless.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It should never have happened.

We eliminated this disease in our country.

We should have eliminated it in the world.

But that takes us being really good global citizens to to do that.

And so, it just makes me sad because this all could be prevented.

Okay.

Doctor Rosati, what has been your general reaction to seeing this outbreak?

Yeah, I mean, you can kind of I am I agree, I am surprised by it.

but not shocked.

I think you could kind of see this coming from many years.

And we've had multiple outbreaks over the past several years due to declining vaccination rates and just being on the online community and seeing the amount of disinformation there is about vaccines in general, you can slowly see why we've been slipping in those vaccination rates, and eventually we were going to reach a threshold.

and so, yeah, it's it's not that shocking.

So let's talk about what measles is because, you know, it's making this comeback and eventually it may lead to a change in status of an eliminated disease.

And so I'll start with you, Doctor Murray.

In general, when parents say, but what is is it like chicken pox?

I mean, is it a. Oh, I mean, I'm sure you hear it all.

Yeah.

What do you tell parents when they ask?

Well, what is it.

So it's a highly, highly, highly contagious disease that can have a course that can be incredibly variable.

Some kids do just have a rash like chickenpox with the rash looks a little bit different, but it the sneaky part about it is it.

It can create children who feel very sick and who are miserable, which if we can avoid it, we should do that.

But it can cause severe pneumonias.

It can cause damage to the child's brain or the whoever is infected with its brain.

it can damage your immune system, and it can also rear its ugly head again, 5 to 10 years down the road and cause significant damage to the person's brain after they well, after they think they're done with the illness.

And so, it's not something that we can treat.

We can prevent it for the most part with vaccination, but we cannot treat it.

It's not like a bacterial ear infection where we can give you an antibiotic and just make it go away.

So, you know, once a person has it, it has to kind of run its course.

We can support them through it and we can hopefully treat the side effects, but sometimes we can't.

And that's the we saw that now we've seen two children die because we couldn't get them back from the damage that the disease caused.

The deaths of those two children is an absolute American tragedy, it seems.

Yes.

have you seen children with measles up close in your practice?

Once, when I was in my second year of residency, I did see one child with measles.

Okay?

I mean, but that's how unusual it has been until now.

Doctor Rosati, have you seen it?

Yeah.

Also, one time during my residency.

but I have not seen it since.

Okay.

And so what?

What do you want people to know?

And we're focusing on kids, but, you know, there's an adult who has died.

I mean, measles can be a threat to anybody, but, But go ahead, doctor Rosanna, what would you tell, your patients, families, etc.?

Yeah, I think to piggyback off of what Doctor Murray was saying, I think that there is a lot out there of people thinking it's just a minor illness with a rash, but, you know, as as we were talking about, it does have neurologic manifestations.

And specifically in my patients, in my world, I'd be worried about, you know, there's there's this type of, subacute sclerosing pan encephalitis that you can get from the measles.

it's fairly rare, but, you know, there were thousands of cases every year when this was, you know, when measles was very prominent.

And this could lead to devastating seizures and ultimately, could be, fatal.

and so it's something that we don't think about happening because we just don't see the measles anymore.

But it's very much not just a benign, rash viral illness.

Doctor Rosati, are you concerned we're going to see it in our area?

Does it tend to travel to places that have, you know, significant pockets of, people who are not vaccinated, like we saw perhaps in that community in Texas?

Yeah, it's I mean, it's a very it it spreads very rapidly and very easily.

And, and I think that there are definitely pockets in our region that are under vaccinated who could be susceptible to it.

And it would just take, you know, a little bit of travel.

I know that there are some pockets within our state already.

fortunately not around here, but I it just takes one person to bring it into an under vaccinated population, and it can spread pretty rapidly.

Doctor Murray, would you be surprised if we saw cases here?

well, you know, we have Yates County, which the vaccination rate at two years of age, I think is about 55%.

So I would not be surprised if it pops up in a strong Mennonite community.

True, true.

And but we have to remember, you know, back in 2018, 2019, 2018, when we had the outbreak, the state took actions to minimize the likelihood of this happening in the future.

You know, so the religious exemptions were removed for school attendance.

And so overall, our vaccination rates are quite good.

The trick is, as you mentioned, if you have a packet of lower vaccination rate, it's going to it's going to swoop right in there.

You know, when when the religious exemption issue came up, we had a conversation on this show that felt like it was so far.

A couple things happened in that show that just felt like they were so far out of bounds, and now they feel very mainstream.

It's very strange sitting here in 2025 and looking back seven, eight years, we were having that conversation.

It was the only time on the show that I ever told a guest that I regretted having them on, and it was not a good moment for me.

That's not a good moment as a host.

That's not a very nice thing to say.

And I, I don't regret having people with all kinds of views on that's part of the job.

But we did have someone on who came out and said that they were going to come in from the legal side of things, who represents families in vaccine cases and the libertarian idea, that the government should be able to tell you what to put in your kid's body, which I can understand is an intellectual argument, and then came out and said, well, the polio vaccine had no impact.

And I thought, oh, boy, it's a totally different thing here.

And I had that kind of weak moment.

I said, I kind of regret having you on.

And she said, I kind of regret coming on.

You know, we were in agreement there.

but now seven, eight years later, that's a much more common thing.

You know, Joe Rogan was talking to someone recently who was questioning whether the polio vaccine was effective.

And the mainstreaming of those views has led to RFK.

So the reason I want to talk to both of our guests about specific claims is because they're literally coming from the HHS secretary.

Now, listen, if you want to talk about what you heard in various places or questions about measles, other diseases, information, misinformation, no problem.

But it is a challenge, I think when you've got someone who has worked in these anti-vaccine kind of conspiracy groups for years and now they're in the cabinet.

so, Doctor Murray, let me start with this, and I'll have both of our guests weigh in.

Doctor Elizabeth Murray, doctor Justin Rosati joining us this hour.

let's start with this.

His claim is that there may be some benefit to having kids or adults get measles because of what having a disease does when you convalesce and how it strengthened, strengthens or protects you against future disease.

Doctor Murray, if you live, I mean, I think that just why would we want to put somebody at risk of having severe complications when we have a very, very, very safe way to prevent the disease and also providing great immunity?

You know, measles is a type of germ that really hasn't changed that much over the years.

You know, some germs evolve and change and we have to, you know, have different flu shots every year.

And it's a very different situation.

You know, measles hasn't done that for us yet.

And the vaccine is incredibly, incredibly, incredibly safe.

Sometimes people are at risk for allergic reaction.

Certainly you could have a fever after it, but it's incredibly safe, especially when you look at the side effects of the germ itself.

So I think I would take my odds would be on the preventing it by your immune system still doing the same thing.

We have to remember the immune system is still producing antibodies, reacting as if they were exposed to the full virus.

It's just they're not exposed to the virus.

They're only exposed to a safe part.

Okay, doctor Rosati yeah, I would agree.

I mean, you know, if you're going to get the disease, you're also putting yourself at risk for death and for a lifelong disability.

So, you know, I again, you don't want to take your chances with that.

trust me, as somebody who sees a lot of kids with pretty significant disabilities and, delays, it is not something that you want to just take a chance on of.

Oh, well, most people don't get that serious illness, so it won't be me.

but yeah, I mean, if you're going to expose yourself to it, that's the risk.

And you do get good immunity just from the vaccine itself.

Okay.

The next claim from, RFK Jr. Is that the immunity wanes pretty quickly with the measles vaccine.

So you can get the measles vaccine, but it doesn't give you a long lasting benefit, Doctor Murray.

So I had to have my titers checked, and I think all physicians and health care providers have to do this when when for me first when I went to medical school.

Titers, titers.

Yeah.

So I had to have my levels checked of the various, vaccines I was given to make sure that the vaccines had worked and I had immunity to those germs.

So, I started medical school, in my mid 20s.

And I hadn't had a vaccine for a long time at that point, or a MMR vaccine for a long time.

and they were still good.

I mean, we, we checked these values in people throughout their lives and, still have a great response.

So in the death, that's what the data supports, is that people have remained immune because of the vaccine.

That's why we haven't adjusted.

You can think about there's some other germs where we now give boosters like pertussis, where you're giving adults and older kids pertussis boosters, whooping cough boosters, because the data has now shown us with the disease kind of being more prevalent as vaccination rates have declined, that that does wear off over time.

So I a couple of weeks ago, I just had my booster because the case rates are coming up so much that they wanted the doctors to get boosters.

And so I did.

that's very different again, than the measles.

The data is showing us that it's, great immunity from the vaccine.

Doctor Rosanna, when I heard, RFK Jr say that immunity wanes quickly on the heels of saying the best way to prevent further spread is vaccination.

It made it seem like someone who had been saying for years.

Like when a kid says, we need ice cream for dinner, we need ice, and your parents like you do not.

We are not doing ice cream for dinner.

And finally the kid's like, okay, broccoli for dinner.

However, the benefit of broccoli is short lived and what we really need is ice cream.

It felt like RFK was somebody told him, if you don't at least tout vaccination during this outbreak, you're going to have a revolt among doctors across the country.

And he was like, all right, I'll say vaccines are fine.

And then he immediately gets back to undermining them and saying things that, from what I am reading from the experts is not true.

What do you see there when he says immunity, you know, wanes quickly?

Yeah, I did have my hopes up when he put out that statement of maybe somebody is getting to him and is making him move in the right direction, and then he immediately backtracked it.

I do think that there is definitely some of him trying to save face, because he's so steeped in, his own rhetoric that's been, as you mentioned, he's been doing for years.

You know, I think this is a way for him to kind of have it both ways to not anger the group of people that put him in that position.

Again, you know, Bill Cassidy had very strong reservations about putting him in there as a very staunch pro hepatitis vaccine advocate.

and so he sort of did this little dance where he could say that, but again, we don't have evidence that vaccination, particularly with measles, wanes over time and back, before they added the second dose, you know, there was some potential.

But then by adding that second dose, actually conferred that long term immunity.

So I think it is, you know, a dance that he's trying to do to appease certain people while also still maintaining his positions.

You want to add to that, doctor?

Yeah.

I just I think at the end of the day, we're never going to really understand what his what he's thinking.

And you know, what he's going to do next to that.

We can speak to the facts of the matter.

And that is this is incredibly well studied vaccine.

All vaccines are actually incredibly well studied.

and the efficacy of this vaccine and the safety profile of this vaccine is time and time again, proven to be just excellent.

Well, on the subject of how well studied, I have a piece of sound I want to listen to with RFK Jr. And again, this is after he goes out and says, okay, vaccination is the best way to prevent the spread of measles.

And then he goes on the Podkats podcast circuit and says this.

So not a single one of the vaccines that so many vaccines.

Now I children have been tested against a placebo.

And my question is nobody knows because of that, nobody knows the risk profile or any vaccine that is currently on schedule.

And that means nobody can say with any scientific certainty that vaccine is inverting or integrase.

And as and it's causing.

And my question is, how in the heck can we be mandating to children that they take a medical product for which we do not know risk?

And to me that is criminal.

Doctor Murray, we do know the risks.

And that's discussed with families.

It's given to them in writing, at the time of vaccination.

and, you know, again, if you have a vaccine that's been out in the world for decades, you can watch to see also what happens that, you know, are there unintended consequences?

Are there things that were not expected once you start giving it to millions and millions of people?

And again, the safety profile remains excellent.

Plus, of course, there was placebo studies done.

It is not true when he says no childhood vaccine has ever been studied against placebo.

That is not true.

Okay, there are millions of Americans who are going to listen to him.

He's the Health and Human Services secretary.

What is it like listening to that clip for you?

It's just it's it's it's disheartening.

But again, I don't know that it matters who he is because he's not the only one out there.

I you know, I think the concern, I guess, is that there's a bigger platform for, him and those who feel the same way now or there's kind of unfettered access.

You know, we've lost, some of the restrictions on axon and other social media platforms with regards to fact checking and things along those lines.

And so, you know, we had his the organization that he founded, the Children's Health Defense, you know, they were labeled as the number one spreader of disinformation and the kind of disinformation does.

And that was a report that was published a few years ago.

And they were deplatformed for a period of time, but now they're all back.

And so again, you know, it's just I, I wish he was the only voice saying these kinds of things, but I know he's not.

And I don't know that it matters that the seat he holds, I think is just his reputation as the the thing that gets him the street cred.

Doctor Rosati, anything you want to add on the clip?

We just heard?

I mean, the obvious one is that children don't get 72 vaccinations.

there's not 72 diseases that we vaccinate against.

I wish we could, but that's just it's just a factually inaccurate statement.

I mean, the rest of it is, again, you know, also inaccurate.

like Doctor Murray said, we do, test all these vaccines against placebo.

Some of the newer vaccines were tested against older vaccines because we don't test things against nothing.

If we know that the old thing works.

so there there are nuggets.

I wouldn't say of truth, but nuggets in there that people have extrapolated on.

but yeah, this is parroted on many different accounts, and many different people.

And RFK Jr just happens to be at the top of the HHS right now.

And lastly, when he says, look, we're going to have measles no matter what.

part of why he said that is because of his claim that the vaccine is short lived in its efficacy.

Not true.

But he also said, well, look at Europe.

There's 100,000 cases in Europe.

And that's just proof that there's always going to be measles.

Most of what I'm reading, most of the cluster of cases in Europe are in very low vaccination rate countries in southeastern Europe.

So there's a huge difference from and this is across 53 countries.

so this is not a situation where it looks inevitable by any means unless I'm wrong here, Doctor Murray.

When when in 2000 when measles was declared eliminated, was it inevitable that it would come back?

Or is this a a set of choices and conscious decisions?

Yeah, this is a choice.

This is a choice that, you know, again, it's not like sanitation improved that much or anything else changed in the 1990s that would have allowed us to get to the point of elimination of a disease other than the widespread use of vaccination.

You know, we see in other countries that do not have the infrastructure that we have, do not have the financial resources that we have, that these diseases, including polio, including measles, including, malaria and other things that we don't need to vaccinate for in the United States, are wreaking havoc and causing hundreds of thousands of illnesses and deaths in children and adults every year.

You know, we were in a great spot, and vaccines have always suffered from their success.

And that's what we're seeing now.

Let me just, rip through a few questions via email.

And then what we'll do after our break is our guests are going to talk about, you know, how they approach helping people kind of steal themselves to encounter information, misinformation.

And it's a valuable skill to have.

And we all struggle at times with it for sure here.

David in Monday says, I remember very well having measles when I was a child in the 1960s.

I was very, very sick and I was miserable.

According to my mom, I had measles two times, supposedly to three day measles, as well as the six day measles.

Does that seem correct?

Doctor Murray?

I don't know.

I mean, there are other illnesses that look like measles, and I don't know that they would have done any specific testing.

So it's very possibly he had something else.

Okay.

He had German measles.

And you know, I don't I don't know I don't know okay.

Doctor, was that a three and six day measles.

What do you think.

Yeah I agree with Doctor Murray on that one.

You know, there are a lot of rash like illnesses at that age.

possible that they were two different things, but also it's hard, hard to say.

Okay.

now let me get Mark.

Marsha says 60 years ago, when I was only seven years old, I learned my first medical fact.

I learned that if a pregnant woman has measles, the genetic makeup of her unborn born child could be affected.

Is that why all pregnant women in New York state are screened for immunity from measles?

Doctor Murray, I don't it's, I'm not an ObGyn.

I don't recall that measles is one that specifically screened for rubella.

It definitely is.

Measles might be.

I don't know the answer to that, but the point of many different viruses or other illnesses that we try to prevent most certainly can, wreak havoc, in pregnancies and caused damage to a growing fetus for sure.

Rubella being one of the more notorious CMV, some of the other ones.

Okay, doctor, had anything to add there?

Yeah.

Now that I'm aware of measles being one of our typical infections that we look at, I do know again, my daughter Mary said that we do test for rubella immunity.

but yeah, any any significant illness during pregnancy can lead to, and depending on the time of pregnancy, during the pregnancy could lead to fetal abnormalities or just, any sort of health of the fetus.

Susan writes in citing a couple of what looked like real studies to me, saying, studies have shown that getting the measles virus can, can actually cause a person's immune memory for other diseases to be wiped out.

So after someone gets measles, they could spend a couple of years getting other diseases over again.

Getting measles is actually a disaster for your immune system, and not a good thing.

That's from Susan Doctor Murray.

That's correct.

Yes, it can definitely impact the functioning of your immune system.

Okay.

So, unlike the debate about Covid, perhaps, or flu or chicken pox that we hear, the chickenpox parties, the things that probably doctors don't love to hear, but regardless, measles has its own special ability to mess with your ability to handle other diseases.

So don't do measles parties and don't welcome it.

Lastly, Dallas was, citing both Europe and Canada, Canadian cases on the rise and measles.

So it says, is it just the people refusing vaccinations or the influx of undocumented immigrants?

Dallas you can blame undocumented immigration all you want.

Yes, measles will spread when people travel.

If you'd like a world where people are not traveling, that's fine.

But it doesn't matter if people are traveling in the populations they are arriving in are vaccinated with measles.

Right, doctor Murray.

Correct?

Correct.

If we are vaccinated, the then that definitely helps us.

And I will say, you know, in my experience, the families that I have interacted with it have needed to come to the emergency department.

I will welcome any vaccine or anything we could give them.

That's part of why they want to come here.

They want access to all the amazing things that we have in America.

Doctor Rosati, do you blame undocumented immigration for the spread of this?

No, I mean it.

Like you said, it's just one person on a plane anywhere.

could just be visiting somebody.

I think most of the time, that's actually how it spreads.

Is just one person.

and sometimes it's it's somebody from the US going somewhere else and bringing it back with them.

So, it can happen from either.

So after we take this only break, let's talk more about what our guests are doing, in their expertise and with their platforms to help the public become better consumers of information.

doctor Justin Rosati on the line with us, a pediatric neurologist, an assistant professor of neurology, the Aamc, and doctor Elizabeth Murray, director of child health and safety communications for the Goffstown Children's Hospital and associate professor of clinical emergency medicine.

We'll welcome more of your feedback and questions, comments, if you like, as well.

On the other side of this, only break.

Coming up in our second hour, we welcome Lynn Novick, director and producer for PBS, and we talk to Lynn about her work with Ken Burns and the Vietnam War series a number of years ago.

And then in 2022, we talked about the US and the Holocaust.

There are three part, six hour series now.

Novick is coming to Rochester as a guest of MK.

We'll talk about documentary filmmaking, how the media fragment, fragmented landscape is affecting how we learn.

That's next hour.

Support for your public radio station comes from our members and from Rochester Institute of Technology hosting.

Imagine.

All right.

Creativity and innovation Festival, a chance for the public to see creativity on display across the RIT campus.

Saturday, April 26th.

More at RIT Edu slash innovation.

This is connections.

I'm Evan Dawson.

When RFK junior says 72 vaccines, I don't know if he means a combined number of shots.

I mean there's some that need boosters and things like that.

There's not 72 times you go, you take a kid to the doctor to get a shot for 72 different diseases.

and that, you know, that's a pretty common, if you, if you read a lot of the spheres that are very against vaccination, that's the number they use a lot.

72 vaccines for kids, 72.

You know, I think it sounds kind of big and maybe scary to new parents.

And so, it's not really fully accurate, but some of it is probably related to the question of boosters or how many shots in a schedule.

And you heard Doctor Murray say, you know, for back in the day when this was new, people might have gotten one.

And here's Ario says, my husband was born in 1965 and was vaccinated with the outdated version of the MMR shot in 1966.

He recently had a blood test to check whether or not he had immunity to either the measles, mumps or rubella.

And the test came back just showing that he only had immunity to rubella, not the other two.

He will be getting his booster this week.

So I guess right in line with what you were saying earlier, correct?

I mean, we do know that sometimes interpreting those errors can be a little tricky because there's probably more to it.

It's not necessarily just one immune cell type that is ready in the in the wings to fight the infection.

We don't necessary test for all of those.

But certainly, you know, if anybody is concerned about their a vaccination status or their own immunities, having that conversation with their own physician is the way to go.

Okay.

So I'll start with you, Doctor Murray.

I'll ask both of you.

I was mentioning during the break that I've gotten some email from listeners who want you both to be tough on people who are dug in or spreading misinformation.

And they, you know, they want you to shame and hammer them and knock them down a peg and, I want to know your approach to, to number one, working with people who maybe, maybe are receiving a lot of misinformation first, and then we'll talk about how to steel yourself against getting misinformation kind of clouded in in this picture.

I'll, you know, I am a parent and I definitely worry about the choices I help make for my children or I make for my children, every day.

And that includes health care choices, for sure.

And so I firmly believe that the overwhelming majority of people are entering into parenting with the goal of loving their child and making the right decisions for their children.

And I also know what the data shows us is still, the overwhelming majority of parents in the United States are choosing to vaccinate their children.

So when people, are subjected to the disinformation, it's very easy to understand why they could fall for it.

Because when we invoke fear, it's a powerful, powerful motivation motivator of actions.

Right.

And so if we instill fear in somebody about something, and the person is trying to do the very best they can, that fear is going to be, very powerful and in controlling their actions.

And so, you know, yes, there are I feels like there's more and more disinformation spreaders out there and there's more bad actors out there.

But the bulk of the people that I interact with online, I think, are trying to get good information and good faith.

Yeah.

I mean, there's always going to be trolls.

And, you know, I it's really interesting that it's there's only been one time that I can think of up to the top of my head, where in real life somebody is come at me, but online they'll say all sorts of stuff and then, you know, you put the filters up to block trolls on your social media and somehow, magically, they all go away.

You know?

So, it's just, you know, I think there's a lot of keyboard warriors out there, but the people in real life are happy to discuss, and they want what's best for their kids.

They do, and they love their kids, and they want their kids to be protected.

Yes.

And and, you know, and I will say, I see that, you know, you know, I don't I am an emergency pediatric emergency medicine doctor.

I don't routinely vaccinate children.

I don't do a regular pediatric practice, you know, other than perhaps tetanus, when the kid has an injury.

But I do definitely care for children who are sick with some of these vaccine preventable diseases or who are sick for other reasons, but they're also not vaccinated.

And when that happens, if a child has had a fever and they're completely unvaccinated and they're still a toddler, we need to get a blood culture because we need to make sure.

And I have that conversation with the family and they're like, okay, that's what we need to do.

And that's and that's fine.

You know, is very rare to have people say you're not going to do that.

You know, they understand this.

All right, well, we made these decisions and this is what we need to do.

and so we have those conversations.

People in person are usually willing to discuss.

Okay.

Doctor Rosati yeah, I, I usually see the same thing.

So most of it is that in person, a lot of people come with good questions.

my field, obviously, I see a lot of kids with significant neurologic diseases, which often in the disinformation space get blamed on vaccines.

and so I don't personally give vaccines.

And so a lot of what I do is explaining that these disorders are not from the vaccines themselves.

And there's a lot of that online to unpack.

And, you know, even the whole vaccine, autism debate, if you want to call it that, it's not a debate.

It's it's settled science that it is not a cause of autism.

But, you know, when you see all this stuff and you're a parent and you're trying to figure it out, you know, you don't want your child to be in that position to have these disorders, and you want to have the most information possible.

Now, there are bad actors out there.

There are, specific accounts that are trying their best to have you not vaccinate.

And usually they often have ulterior motives, whether it's whether it's selling something to you or, you know, trying to make money off of something that those are really hard to go after.

and those are going to attract certain people and they happen to be very good at the whole marketing thing.

and that's how they often sell themselves to parents.

But I think at the end of the day, most parents are pretty open, and if they're seeing that stuff, they will bring it up with me in our visit.

I've had several parents ask me about things that they heard on podcast, things that they saw on the internet and just, you know, are genuinely curious and are not firmly stuck in a position.

And, yeah, it's the stuff on the internet, like Doctor Murray was saying, those keyboard warriors who you're not going to be able to convince them one way or the other.

and those conversations don't really have much effect if they're done behind a keyboard, I want to say.

But both Doctor Murray and Doctor Rosati, I've been watching TikToks are are so patient and explain things.

And in such, I think, effective, gentle, non-judgmental ways that really break down some of those barriers where people have their guard up.

And I, I really respect, what they're doing and different on different platforms to try to, to kind of break through with people.

And, you know, Tim, Tim emailed the program to say, Evan, you yourself said that you shamed a guest on your show about vaccines.

No, I was upset that the guest lied to me in a pre-interview.

I was lied to about what they were going to say on the show and what their position was.

If they had told me in a pre-interview, yeah, polio vaccine never worked.

That was a conspiracy.

No, I mean, that's not someone I want to spend a lot of time talking with on the show, not because I'm not interested in it, giving them some place to have an opinion, but that's not true.

I mean, it's been very, very well studied and documented.

so that was the issue, Tim.

It wasn't that, you know, I would never talk to somebody who opposes vaccines.

not not at all.

And I also think, Doctor Rosati, let me start with you on this one.

So I think that there is an unexplainable epistemological way that people are arriving at this skepticism because maybe their skepticism of big business, big corporations, you know, maybe they're turned off by the advertising Big Pharma does, and maybe they feel like Big Pharma has got too much power, which I think maybe it does.

And so, instead of holding two beliefs at the same time, which is big pharma is at least contributed a lot of great things that have saved kids lives.

And also it's a little crass, and I don't love the system of which it operates.

It becomes a well, they're making money.

I don't know how much you're making off vaccines, but I'm going to assume it's a lot when it probably actually isn't.

And I don't like the way they they advertise.

It all feels commoditized.

I think I'm going to go down the road of not trusting them.

And I can understand that.

I do understand that.

The interesting thing to your point is, on the other side of this, there's still a lot of money to be made.

The anti-vax community, you know, natural health news and stuff like this.

They make a lot of money, a lot of money.

The money is not only going in one direction, but I think that their doctor was out.

He is.

I don't think it's crazy for people to go, I don't know.

I want to spend more time with it.

I don't know if I trust this, I get that.

Do you get that?

I do get that.

you know, and to your point, vaccines are not the moneymaker for for the pharmaceutical industry.

They just don't, make the money.

The things that tend to make the money are those drugs that you see on commercials.

and that's why they're selling them so hard.

But, I agree, I do think that there is some skeptical nature that we all should have against the pharmaceutical industry, industry, because I don't think that they always have the best interest of the patient in mind.

that being said, yeah, I do think that there is a lot of people who do like those natural remedies, and there are a lot of people who have been selling those natural kind of things for people.

And natural doesn't always mean safe.

I should also mention that there's a lot of stuff that's out there that's unregulated, that people are trying to sell for certain things.

But, you know, recently there was the whole, Netflix show about, you know, the influencers, that called apple cider vinegar, influencers who were peddling just natural remedies to things like cancer, that I think we need to be more wary about and to to just think about that whole argument, because I hear it all the time of Big Pharma.

but big wellness is also a thing.

the wellness industry has a market cap three times the size of the pharmaceutical industry.

So it's just something that we, we sort of don't think about in the same breath.

It.

And there are reasons to be skeptical of both for sure.

So Doctor Murray, what should people do.

How do you what's the playbook for being a good, smart consumer of information in 2025?

So one thing I like to do is if I hear a claim or see a claim, I cross check it and I want it to come up in three reasonable sources.

You know, is there an academic center associated with this research?

Is there another major news outlet reporting on it, or then can I actually get my hands on the study?

Is it is the data actually being released?

You will see a lot of times in these claims that are made, in the disinformation world that they cite all of this stuff, but then you can't actually they won't actually share the data or share the, the supposed study.

And so that is a huge red flag right there.

but the other thing too, again, is where is the information coming from?

Is this a group of people that were funded by somebody who has a known reputation in one way or the other, and who wanted this study done?

Like, I'm worried we're going to see coming up here and, we're going to find out the cause of autism study that's supposedly coming up.

and, you know, and I think that that's the biggest thing for me is figuring out where is this information coming from, and is there a known, reputable agency or authority confirming it, supporting the release of that information?

And Doctor Rosetti, same question if you want to build on that.

Becoming smarter digital consumers of information.

Yeah, I think if you see a post or something with a graph or a chart, try to figure out where that came from.

there are many times where I've seen somebody post charts specifically in the, the, in the vaccine world of, you know, declining, rates of disease before vaccines.

And then I try to find that graph in and, and there's no where to find it.

It was just generated from something.

You know, a lot of it is, you want to find the source, know your source, and make sure that source is reputable.

And again, I think a big tell, is when you hear somebody say, studies show without actually showing the studies.

yeah.

Because I think for, for me that is always a red flag of perhaps those studies do not actually exist.

a listener on YouTube says, Is Robert Kennedy a medical doctor?

No, he is a lawyer.

among other things, he's in his career, but he's not a doctor, not a medical doctor.

and then a couple more listeners are talking about German measles, which is generally, I think that's rubella.

So, I mean, back in the day, 60, 70, 60 years ago, rubella and measles kind of gets confused when it becomes German measles, one becomes measles.

Measles.

But, my understanding, in reading about this, Doctor Murray, is that you don't want either.

measles tends to be a little more virulent, but rubella can really be a problem for pregnant women, right?

Correct.

And that's why we vaccinate against it for sure.

And all the naming of these rash associated childhood illnesses is incredibly confusing.

And they started a numbering system, but then they also have medical names and then they have common names in it.

You're right.

It can be very confusing.

But at the end of the day, if you can prevent them, prevent them.

Have you, listen, wants to know if you've seen common side effects on HBO.

Is that common sense?

No, I don't think I've seen, Doctor Rosati, have you seen that one?

I don't think so.

All right.

Alex is endorsing that one.

I have not seen it, though, Alex.

but, you know, I'm always interested, always listening.

and, let me just close with this here.

I want to ask our both of our guests.

Got about a minute.

A piece here, doctor Murray, you hinted that we could start to see things kind of gamed by this administration and say, well, look, look at this autism link or look at that.

So people are going to if that happens, people will struggle even more to say, what's your source?

And can you trust this?

Generally speaking, do you feel like we're in like this temporary lull or do you think, do you think that this is a, this is going to be an ongoing program now that we are in a problem to have, now that we're in the sort of the digital age of information and misinformation.

Right?

Unless we teach people how to be good consumers of this information, and it will continue to be a problem because it's no, it's turning off the internet.

It's going to it's going to be there.

And I think the information is going to continue to spread in a variety of different ways.

And so we have to make sure that we're, understanding it correctly and consuming it correctly.

And I do definitely have this kind of dread feeling of waiting for the other shoe to drop.

I, you know, they might not take away vaccines, but I worry that funding for some of the vaccines will be taken away, which will, in essence, remove vaccines from certain populations in our in our communities and, causing disparities in health even further.

And I think, you know, one thing pediatricians have always been advocating for is to make sure all children have access to the things they need, a safe place to live, a supportive adult in their life, access to healthy food, access to clean, healthy water that's lead free, access to routine health care.

We've always wanted all of these things for children and their parents, too, because healthy parents make healthy kids and doctors handy.

Tell people where to find you on different platforms.

so you can find me at the Baby Brain doc on pretty much any platform.

though I am no longer on X, okay, but, you got a TikTok following that's growing.

Yes.

that's primarily where I do my content.

I like to make short form videos.

I find it, the easiest, way to disseminate information and honestly, cramming as much, high level medical knowledge into a 62nd clip is fun.

but, you know, you might find it boring.

I don't find it boring at all.

And I will say this, Doctor Rosati, doctor Murray, you got a few other colleagues who are on social doing really interesting stuff.

One of these days we're going to have a conversation with the highest followed doctors locally, and we're going to share some of their short form stuff to kind of give you a little taste of it, and we'll talk about how to keep reaching people on those platforms.

Sounds good.

I should get back to that.

Doctor Rosati, please come back for that.

And thank you for making time for the program today.

Yeah, I would love to.

Thanks so much for having me, doctor.

Elizabeth Murray, always good to have you cite your sources.

It's right there on the sweatshirt.

That's right.

Thank you for being here.

Thank you.

And more connections coming up in just a moment.

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