Vaccine Panel Chair Says Polio Shots Should Be Optional

[applegrove]

Vaccine Panel Chair Says Polio Shots Should Be Optional

January 23, 2026 at 1:12 pm EST By Taegan Goddard 214 Comments

https://politicalwire.com/2026/01/23/vaccine-panel-chair-says-polio-shots-should-be-optional/

“Offering a startlingly candid view into the philosophy guiding vaccine recommendations under the Trump administration, the leader of the federal panel that recommends vaccines for Americans said shots against polio and measles — and perhaps all diseases — should be optional, offered only in consultation with a clinician,” the New York Times reports.

[Norrrm]

1. How many years until it becomes wise to invest in iron lung companies?

[LetMyPeopleVote]

2. MaddowBlog-Key CDC leader calls measles outbreaks the 'cost of doing business'

Deputy Director Ralph Abraham appears unconcerned that the U.S. is losing its measles elimination status. Public health experts aren’t pleased.

Link to tweet

https://www.ms.now/rachel-maddow-show/maddowblog/measles-outbreaks-elimination-ralph-abraham

One might expect the leaders of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to react to these developments with great concern. But the Trumpified CDC is apparently content to shrug with relative indifference. STAT News reported:

With measles transmission in the United States at levels that haven’t been seen in decades, the principal deputy director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Tuesday that he would not view the loss of the country’s measles elimination status as a significant event.

‘Not really,’ said Ralph Abraham, a physician who formerly served as Louisiana’s surgeon general. ‘You know, it’s just the cost of doing business, with our borders being somewhat porous [and] global and international travel.’

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..Abraham added, “We have these communities that choose to be unvaccinated. That’s their personal freedom.”

As The San Francisco Chronicle noted, public health advocates responded to the CDC deputy director’s comments with disgust. Pediatrician and vaccine specialist Paul Offit said in an online discussion hosted by the health blog Inside Medicine this week, “When you hear somebody like Abraham say ‘the cost of doing business,’ how can you be more callous? Three people died of measles last year in this country.”....

Abraham has gone so far as to describe Covid shots as “dangerous” (they are not) and touted ivermectin during the 2020 pandemic, despite science showing the drug was an ineffective treatment.

Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. nevertheless brought the Louisiana Republican in to serve as principal deputy director at the CDC, effectively the agency’s No. 2.

Three months later, Abraham appears wholly unconcerned about the United States losing its measles elimination status.

My siblings and I all had measles before the vaccine. It was not fun. My sister had polio and was on crutches for a while but has recovered. We need vaccinations for all of these diseases.

[Thunderbeast]

3. I think we should bring back the Plague!

"Cost of Doing Business"

Do these fools remember 2020 when hospitals were storing corpses in parking lots?

Do they think they are immune from germs and viruses? I lost several friends to Covid. I don't want to return to a world of fear of disease.

In the late 19th Century the average life expectancy in the UNITED STATES was 45 years.

These clowns demonstrate magical thinking at a remarkable rate.