Vaccines, Trust, and the Line Between Medicine and Power

It’s been another noisy week in vaccine news. Pediatricians clashing with RFK Jr. over COVID guidance. Measles declared “over” in Texas, only for a new exposure site to pop up at Denver International Airport. A dismantled vaccine panel that, it turns out, had fewer conflicts of interest than almost any in history. The headlines blur together, but the underlying questions remain sharp: Who do we trust, and where does choice end and coercion begin?

I write this not as a commentator looking in from the outside, but as someone who has given hundreds of vaccinations over years in clinical practice. When it comes to measles, my position is clear: vaccination works, and it matters. The disease spreads fast, leaves lasting damage, and the measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) jab is one of the most effective tools medicine has ever produced. That’s why outbreaks in Texas and Colorado are worrying, even if they’re “declared over” by public officials. A single airport exposure can restart the clock.

COVID-19 is different. Not the virus itself—it was deadly and disruptive—but the way vaccination unfolded. Unlike MMR, which has decades of data behind it, the COVID vaccines were developed at speed, pushed into public arms under emergency conditions, and became entangled with employment, travel, and politics. In Australia, colleagues of mine were stood down or dismissed for refusing the jab. I rolled up my sleeve, and suffered no side effects. But if I’m honest: it didn’t feel like a choice. It was comply or lose your livelihood.

That distinction matters. Not because the vaccines were necessarily unsafe (the evidence still suggests they reduced severe disease and death in vulnerable groups), but because public health crossed into compulsion. Once that line is crossed, trust is harder to rebuild.

Which brings me back to this week’s news. RFK Jr. is wrong about measles. He’s reckless to undermine childhood immunisation when the evidence is clear. But he’s not wrong to point out the dangers of groupthink, captured panels, and heavy-handed mandates. Both things can be true: that vaccination is one of medicine’s greatest triumphs, and that governments can overreach in the way they enforce it.

The challenge now is to separate the science from the politics, the jab from the mandate. Parents deserve clarity and evidence, not tribal fights between “pro” and “anti.” Adults deserve respect for their autonomy, not ultimatums. And society needs to remember that trust is a more powerful public health tool than any syringe.