A pastor who rejects “established science” decided polio & measles vaccines should be optional
Dr. Kirk Milhoan is the head of the Republican-backed Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, and he's completely out of his depth
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In a move that will ultimately harm ignorant Americans, the head of the Republican-backed Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices said this week that vaccines that fight polio and measles ought to be optional, flying in the face of all documented evidence.
The chair of that panel, Dr. Kirk Milhoan, said the right to refuse vaccines was more important than a mandate to protect public health.
In the case of an infectious disease, a personal choice to decline a vaccine may also affect others, including infants who are too young to be vaccinated or people who are immunocompromised. But a person’s right to reject a vaccine supersedes those risks, Dr. Milhoan said.
“If there is no choice, then informed consent is an illusion,” he said. “Without consent it is medical battery.”
To make sense of the decision, it helps to know more about Milhoan and why he’s on this panel at all. He’s an evangelical Christian pastor with a long history of promoting vaccine misinformation, which is why he was appointed to this vaccine advisory panel by Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. It was part of a larger effort by this Republican administration to undermine public health by lying to people about the efficacy of vaccines.
Milhoan isn’t just a pastor. He’s a pediatric cardiologist. That doesn’t mean he’s a vaccine expert, however, and critics have known that for years ever since Milhoan downplayed the safety of COVID shots during the pandemic and promoted the use of hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin. He also falsely claimed the COVID vaccine caused cancer and miscarriages. He said having to carry around records of when you got your COVID shots was akin to “what happened when the Jews had to wear the yellow Star of David” during the Holocaust. During the worst months of the pandemic, Milhoan said that members of his Calvary Church of South Maui didn’t need to wear masks or practice social distancing.
He risked losing his medical license over all of this, but he and one of his allies were ultimately cleared of wrongdoing by a Hawaiian state agency in 2022. Still, that shouldn’t be mistaken as proof that they should be trusted on these matters.
In fact, he continued spreading lies after being cleared. In 2024, he participated in a sham hearing on COVID vaccine “injuries” hosted by conspiracy theorist Rep. Marjorie Taylor Green.
During the hearing he advocated against vaccinating children, alleging the Covid vaccine had triggered cardiac problems in some pediatric patients he’d seen
All the recent headlines stem from a January 22 appearance on the podcast “Why Should I Trust You?” during which Milhoan offered plenty of reasons he shouldn’t be trusted. He argued that requiring kids to be vaccinated in order to go to a public school was “heavy handed” and “authoritarian,” even though those vaccines protect both the lives of those students and the students around them. As STAT reported, Milhoan also pushed the idea that individuals should be making their own vaccines decisions rather than listening to doctors or government agencies staffed by experts.
“What we are doing is returning individual autonomy to the first order, not public health, but individual autonomy to the first order,” he said. Members of the panel have frequently questioned whether providers adequately inform patients of the risks and benefits of vaccines. At one point, Milhoan accused the American Academy of Pediatrics, which is suing the Department of Health and Human Services over its vaccine policies, of claiming their members don’t have time to adequately inform patients.
“[Patients] should be making the decisions on what the risks are of disease, what the risks are of vaccines, which is different for each person, what the family history is, and then make a decision from there, as opposed to what was sort of more of a heavy-handed, authoritarian thought of the vaccine schedule that led to mandates that if you didn’t have this set of vaccines exactly how they were prescribed, then you didn’t get in school,” he said.
All of that is a ridiculous idea, but it’s the same mentality you often hear from Christian parents who homeschool their children: When it comes to my kids, I know what’s best for them. That may sound nice, but it’s just not true. If you’re the sort of parent who thinks you’re smarter than experts who dedicate their lives to studying these subjects, you’re precisely the sort of parent who shouldn’t be trusted to make health care decisions. In what world are random parents with no expertise in vaccines capable of assessing the risks of disease, how their family histories might affect them, and whether their kids would be better off without shots? They’re not.
No one has to get vaccinated, but there can and should be a societal stigma—and outright punishments—against people who put everyone else’s lives at risk. That’s why it’s not unreasonable to say a kid can’t attend a public school if they’re not fully vaccinated (with the exception of those with medical exemptions).
It’s the same reason we issue fines against people who refuse to obey traffic lights; their desire to do whatever they want is not more important than the community’s right to feel safe while on the road. And if you choose to make the world less safe, there should be consequences to your selfishness.
In any case, the reason you put experts in charge of vaccine schedules is so they can debate the nuance and come to professional conclusions without boring everyone else with details they can’t possibly understand. But this administration has a goal of undermining the very idea of expertise. That’s why RFK, Jr. dismissed the entire Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices last year and replaced them with lackeys who have histories of science-denial.
Milhoan seems to be the only person who believes he was put there based on merit.
And he admitted on that podcast that he was questioning both the polio and measles vaccines.
… Milhoan cast doubt on the scientific rigor of current public health decision-making. “I don’t like established science,” he said, adding “science is what I observe.”
…
Asked about his thoughts on polio and measles vaccines, Milhoan seemed to question whether both are still necessary. There has been an international effort for nearly the past 40 years to eradicate the crippling polio virus, which still spreads in Pakistan and Afghanistan, and which occasionally makes its way out of that region. Measles, however, is running rampant in parts of the United States, with transmission occurring at rates that haven’t been seen since the early 1990s.
“I think also, as you look at polio, we need to not be afraid to consider that we are in a different time now than we were then. Our sanitation is different, our risk of disease is different, and so those all play into the evaluation of whether this is worthwhile of taking a risk for a vaccine or not,” Milhoan said.
The vaccines are proven to help. The side effects are minimal. The risk of lasting damage due to unvaccinated people catching polio or the measles is high. This isn’t complicated. All Milhoan was doing was giving the most ignorant people in the country reason to jeopardize their own health—and, because we’re talking about infectious diseases, the health of those around them.
And those garbage thoughts now shape our public policy.
“He has no idea what he’s talking about,” said Dr. Sean O’Leary, chair of the infectious disease committee at the American Academy of Pediatrics.
“These vaccines protect children and save lives,” Dr. O’Leary said. “It’s very frustrating for those of us who spend our careers trying to do what we can to improve the health of children to see harm coming to children because of an ideological agenda not grounded in science.”
All this is happening as measles and polio are making comebacks when the possibility of eradicating both was once within reach. But when you elevate religious zealots over trained professionals whose careers have involved studying vaccines, it’s not surprising that science is thrown out the window.
It’s bizarre that someone like Milhoan would throw away an otherwise accomplished career in order to Do Harm against Americans who don’t know any better. But that’s also the job description at this point for anyone who wants power in a Republican administration. Dr. Mehmet Oz made the same calculation when he decided to become a Republican politician.
Ultimately, none of this is part of a good-faith debate about liberty or consent. Milhoan and his allies are willing to discard centuries of hard-fought public health victories in favor of anecdotal bullshit. It’s the opposite of what science demands. But when your day job involves denying science to the congregation, it’s not a stretch for Milhoan to deny science to the rest of the country, too. Those who question the necessity of polio and measles vaccines—now, especially—aren’t being courageous or independent. They’re broadcasting why they have no right being in charge of any aspect of public health. The rejection of credentialed, accountable professionals in favor of ideologues should scare all of us.
How many people have to die of measles or be permanently harmed by polio before Milhoan finally accepts that vaccines are necessary?
His fixation on “choice” is especially disturbing because it deliberately ignores the communal nature of infectious disease. (It’s also ironic given what evangelical Christians say about personal autonomy when it comes to abortions or gender-affirming care.) That rhetoric is also dangerous because he’s cloaking misinformation in the vocabulary of conscience. Conservatives love that because they don’t understand the implications of it. They don’t realize this move will ultimately hurt them.
The price for what Milhoan is advising will be paid by children, all because a bunch of adults want to gamble with their kids’ lives. Instead of telling those parents to come to their senses, we have a government that actively encourages harm.
Somehow, the word 'unbelievable' doesn't even come close to describing this level of stupidity. I'm old enough to remember the days before the Polio vaccine, and why anyone would want to return to those days is beyond me. I think a lot of people on the religious right view science as something you believe in like a religion. Ignore religion at your leisure, ignore science at your peril.
"...a personal choice to decline a vaccine may also affect others, including infants who are too young to be vaccinated or people who are immunocompromised. But a person’s right to reject a vaccine supersedes those risks,...'
Yup. Sounds about christian to me. "My right to be a selfish asshole supersedes my moral duty to love my neighbor and protect the vulnerable." The fact that this 'pastor' wasn't immediately stuck by lightening is all the proof we need that his religion is bogus.