Surgeon general calls for ‘all hands on deck’ to combat vaccine misinformation

The U.S. Surgeon General said in an interview that aired Wednesday on “Rising” that combatting misinformation surrounding vaccines will take an “all hands on deck approach,” involving doctors, parents, teachers and community members.

“We’re working with CDC [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention], with NIH [National Institutes of Health], it’s a total HHS [Health and Human Services] effort, and we’re all out there trying to combat this misinformation,” Dr. Jerome Adams told Hill.TV’s Saagar Enjeti.

“But it’s really going to take an all hands on deck approach,” he continued. “So I tell parents, I tell doctors, I tell community officials and legislatures that it’s important that we all say loudly vaccines are safe, they’re effective and they’re a proven public health intervention.” 

The number of measles cases in the U.S. has drastically increased this year, with the CDC announcing last month that the number of cases through the first five months of 2019 has surpassed the record 963 cases reported for all of 1994.

The majority of measles outbreaks have spread in communities where parents have declined to vaccinate their children. 

The CDC has warned that the growing availability of misinformation surrounding vaccines could cause parents to delay or refuse vaccines. 

— Julia Manchester