Ancient miasma theory may help explain Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s vaccine moves

Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (R) and Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Commissioner Martin Makary astatine nan White House successful May, erstwhile Kennedy released a Make America Healthy Again Commission study that blamed nan emergence successful chronic illnesses connected ultraprocessed foods, chemic exposures, manner factors and excessive usage of medicine drugs. Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images North America hide caption

toggle caption

Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images North America

Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has upended aesculapian investigation and nationalist wellness successful nan U.S. successful galore ways. One of nan ideas that could beryllium influencing his overhaul of national wellness agencies dates backmost to ancient Greece.

The miasma theory is 1 of nan first ideas that civilization hatched to effort to explicate why group get sick.

"It goes backmost to Hippocrates," says Dr. Howard Markel, an emeritus professor of aesculapian history from nan University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. "He wrote successful a book called Epidemics, that epidemics came from immoderate type of contamination – immoderate contamination of nan atmosphere, of nan aerial that we breathe. And hence we sewage unspeakable infectious diseases."

This thought that, successful essence, bad aerial caused unwellness was later championed by galore others, including Florence Nightingale. It besides led to immoderate things that did thief conflict diseases, for illustration cleaning up sewage.

But past came nan germ theory — 1 of humanity's large eureka moments. Scientists for illustration Louis Pasteur and Robert Koch discovered it wasn't immoderate mysterious stench successful nan aerial from rotting garbage that dispersed diseases. Instead, it was surviving microscopic entities.

"They discovered what we cognize arsenic germs – microbes," says Melanie Kiechle, a historiographer astatine Virginia Tech. "Bacteria and viruses and different microscopic materials were really what caused unwellness and besides explained nan dispersed of unwellness from 1 personification to another. So miasma mentation is debunked, essentially."

The find of germs led to breakthroughs for illustration antibiotics and vaccines.

But successful a book Kennedy published astir 4 years ago, The Real Anthony Fauci: Bill Gates, Big Pharma, and nan Global War connected Democracy and Public Health, the now- wellness caput harkens backmost to nan miasma theory.

"Miasma mentation emphasizes preventing illness by fortifying nan immune strategy done nutrition and reducing exposures to biology toxins and stresses," Kennedy writes.

But experts opportunity 1 problem is really Kennedy defines miasma theory.

"I will categorically opportunity that miasma theory, arsenic historians of medicine and subject understand it, is not what he is saying it is, period," says Nancy Tomes, a historiographer of germ mentation astatine Stony Brook University, who wrote The Gospel of Germs: Men, Women and nan Microbe successful American Life.

But Kennedy's return whitethorn thief explicate immoderate of his policies, particularly astir vaccines.

"The miasma mentation is nan conception that location are biology poisons, not needfully rotting integrated matter," says Dr. Paul Offit, a vaccine master astatine nan University of Pennsylvania. "For him, those biology poisons are electromagnetic radiation, pesticides, vaccines. Vaccines are, for him, a modern-day miasma."

And that's dangerous, galore experts say.

"Can stress, aerial pollution, different things, make infections worse? Yes. But nan origin of infections is simply a microorganism," says Dr. Tina Tan, who heads nan Infectious Disease Society of America. "It's nan microorganisms that are making group sick."

And vaccines person intelligibly been shown to safely and efficaciously protect group against vulnerable microorganisms, Tan and others say.

"He's trying to springiness this mendacious veneer of intellectualism by saying, 'Oh, nan miasma theory,'" says Dr. Amesh Adalja, a elder clever clever astatine nan Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health Center for Health Security. "This each conscionable obfuscation to support his thought that vaccines are not valuable."

But immoderate different observers reason that Kennedy's ideas astir nan miasma and germ theories aren't needfully mutually exclusive.

"The existent statement present is whether we tin lick nationalist wellness problems by processing treatments for illustration vaccines, antibiotics, aliases different drugs? Or whether we will lick these problems by strengthening people's immune systems done healthier habits?" says Gregg Girvan, a resident chap astatine nan Foundation for Research connected Equal Opportunity, a Washington deliberation tank. "And my consequence is, 'Why tin we not admit that location is truth successful some positions?'"

Kennedy's agency did not respond to NPR's petition for much accusation astir his views astir nan miasma and germ theories.