Human Development
Feb 2, 2026
Peter Singer
Disregard for scientific evidence by opponents of vaccination, led by US Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr., is producing exactly the harms experts predicted: disease outbreaks, preventable deaths, and the reversal of decades of progress in public health. The consequences could become truly catastrophic.
MELBOURNE – Three people, including two children, died of measles in the United States in 2025. Their deaths were preventable. There were 2,267 confirmed measles cases in the US last year – more than seven times the 285 cases in 2024, and the highest number in more than 30 years. All these cases were preventable, too. So, why weren’t they?
