Doing Pull Ups at the Helm - December 13, 2025

Welcome back to another edition of The Public’s Health. Last week, I had a late night crashout thanks to the Trump administration. Thankfully, this week is a return to normal as I bring you news on measles, RFK Jr’s latest crimes against public health, and several vaccine stories.

Measles is spreading among the unvaccinated in South Carolina. There are 126 confirmed cases of measles linked to this outbreak. Of those cases, only 1 was fully vaccinated against measles. Quarantines and isolation are being used to try and slow the spread, with 267 quarantined and 13 in isolation. Measles quarantines are three weeks long. This is the largest measles outbreak on the East Coast in 2025.

Measles continues to circulate in Arizona and Utah, too. Ideally, this would spur vaccination campaigns across the nation to prevent continued spread during the holiday season. However, the captain of the public health ship has, well, different priorities…

I know politicians are freaks that essentially live at the airport, but this is going too far. RFK Jr and Sean Duffy milled around the Reagan International Airport to decry how terrible airports are for them because there’s no gym. Duffy announced a $1B grant program to incentivize airports to be more family-friendly? By building mini gyms and stuff? They also both did some pull ups to… um, to…

I can’t believe there’s a pull up video from a government official that makes me cringe harder than the Marjorie Taylor Green butterfly pull ups. Of course, there’s more! RFK Jr also decided to use this moment to heavily imply infant formula is worse than breast milk:

Infant formula is a wonder, truly. Breastfeeding is also a wonder, but it can be difficult for too many reasons to count. No crusty old man struggling to do pull ups in an airport should dissuade one single person from using life-saving infant formula to feed their baby. I’m sure this won’t be the last we hear from RFK Jr spreading appeal to nature fallacies around breast milk. Don’t fall for it. Say it with me everyone: fed is best.

Another baffling press release for the books. Good to know the priorities at the top are airport exercise, as measles rages on.

Threats to vaccine access continue apace, as does the science proving vaccine safety. Religious exemptions for vaccinations are used frequently to avoid vaccination requirements to enrolling in public school, whether or not the exempting family is actually religious. The Supreme Court has asked a lower court to re-review a case around religious exemptions in New York. This is possibly a win for religious vaccine exemption, as the lower court could force New York into allowing vaccine exemptions for religious reasons. Right now, New York doesn’t provide religious vaccine exemptions. They also have a really high vaccination rate! The lower court could change that, which means more unvaccinated New Yorkers in the future that can spread preventable illness.

The FDA is also in talks to put a black box warning on the COVID-19 vaccines. Black box warnings are meant to inform healthcare providers about important risks and contraindications of the enclosed therapy. These warnings have very specific language. There’s no draft of what this proposed vaccine warning would say, and it’s anyone’s guess if it would be about existing vaccine side effect risks or if it will be something totally new. I wouldn’t be surprised if they just make up risks of death to put in the warning, as it seems they are totally fine with saying at least 10 children have died from the COVID-19 vaccine without evidence.

All of this is happening as researchers drop another huge win for the COVID-19 vaccine. It seems like once a month researchers hit us with another study following millions of people and finding vaccination moves mountains for population health. A French study following 28.6 million people (!) found that the vax was associated with a 74% lower risk (!!) of death caused by COVID in the 4 years after vaccination. They also found that the vaccine was not associated with an increase of death from any cause. In fact, vaccinated people had a lower risk of death across the board (!!!).

The vaccines are winning the evidence war, for sure. The growing culture of fear and misguided skepticism remain the front lines of the vaccine fight where ideologues in politics and media gain ground. If only mountains of evidence were enough.

I’ve been intellectually ulting all week this week, so that’s all I got for this edition. I’ll be back next Saturday with the latest public health developments. See you then!

Professor Batty

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