Excerpts from recent editorials in the United States and abroad:

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March 3

The Washington Post on Guantanamo Bay

Since President George W. Bush opened the facility in 2002, at the height of the “ war on terror,” the American military prison at Guantánamo Bay in Cuba has been associated with torture, isolation, indefinite detention and the denial of basic constitutional protections, including the right to counsel and a fair trial. Most detainees there have been terrorism suspects captured on battlefields in Afghanistan or Iraq, or whisked away on U.S. military aircraft during “extraordinary renditions.” Their treatment violated the Geneva Conventions and U.S. laws.

And this was precisely the point. Holding inmates on a U.S. naval base in Cuba kept them outside the protections of U.S. law and the Constitution. Guantánamo detainees could assert no due process rights because they were not on American soil.

Now, here we go again.

Last month, President Donald Trump, as part of his crackdown on illegal immigration, signed an executive order to expand Guantánamo and fill it with “the worst criminal illegal aliens threatening the American people.” The first batch of nearly 200 migrant detainees shipped there were Venezuelans, described by Homeland Security Secretary Kristi L. Noem as “ the worst of the worst.” After they were sent back to Venezuela last Thursday, reports of their treatment at Guantánamo began to emerge.

A detailed report in The Post described how some were kept shackled in windowless cages, deprived of sunlight and allowed outdoors for only one hour each week. They were subjected to humiliating, invasive strip searches and denied access to lawyers and phone calls to loved ones. Some screamed during long hours in isolation; others threatened or attempted suicide.

Some legal experts, human rights groups and the United Nations consider prolonged solitary confinement a form of cruel and unusual punishment, but the U.S. Supreme Court has not definitively ruled on it. Denying the detainees access to lawyers would seem to violate the right to due process. But again, in Cuba, the prisoners are in what lawyers have called a “ legal black hole.”

Also, Noem’s claim that the first group of detainees included “the worst of the worst” criminals has not been verified and seems, at best, a wild exaggeration. A separate article in The Post, based on court records and conversations with detainees’ relatives, found that some of the prisoners did not have violent criminal records. Their only crime seems to have been illegally crossing the border to enter the United States.

By using Guantánamo to house migrants rounded up in enforcement raids, the Trump administration seems to want to create the public impression that undocumented immigrants are a particularly dangerous category of criminal — on a par with the 9/11 plotters and other suspected terrorists. And it seems to want to put the undocumented immigrant community in America — and people thinking of trying to join it — on notice that, if you get caught, you might end up at Guantánamo Bay in notoriously bad conditions.

In its 23 years of operation, the Guantánamo Bay prison has become a stain on America’s reputation as a country that values the rule of law and respects human rights. Even Bush belatedly recognized the damage it had done to the country’s global standing. Bush, followed by Presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden, tried to close Guantánamo but was stymied by Congress. Trump, who promised to keep the prison open, views it as a useful tool in his war against illegal immigration.

Many Americans support stricter enforcement of immigration laws and a crackdown on undocumented immigrants who commit serious crimes. Indeed, this was one of the main reasons Trump was elected. But Americans also want deportations to be handled humanely.

Using Guantánamo Bay is unnecessary, wasteful and cruel. The prison should become a shuttered relic of America’s unfortunate past — not a way station for deported migrants awaiting return to their home countries.

ONLINE: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2025/02/26/guantanamo-gitmo-trump-deportations-venezuelans-cuba/

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Feb. 28

The New York Times says the MAGA is fighting a war on free speech

In 1791, the nation’s founders ratified the First Amendment to the Constitution. It would come to offer protections in the new nation essentially never seen before: the right to ask things of and to criticize the government; to express opinions, popular or not; to assemble peacefully; to practice diverse religious beliefs; and to have a free press that publishes information without fear of censorship or retribution.

This constitutional provision reflects the framers’ intent to establish a society where individuals have the ability to voice their views and participate actively in shaping the nation’s governance while holding their leaders accountable. Together, these five guaranteed liberties continue today to make the people of the United States the freest in the world.

President Trump and many of his supporters — from tech leaders like Elon Musk to populist politicians like Vice President JD Vance — have spent the past several years portraying themselves as free-speech crusaders. Capitalizing on the censorial strains of the left, they regularly lecture about the necessity of letting people say whatever they want, even if it’s hateful, asinine or corrosive.

That form of free-speech absolutism, which aims to defend not just favored speech but also disfavored speech, has a long and welcome role in American society. The problem is that for all their bluster, these supposed free-speech crusaders have proved themselves consistently intolerant when it comes to words, ideas and perspectives they disagree with.

Over the past month Mr. Trump and his allies have embarked on an expansive crackdown on free expression and disfavored speakers that should be decried not just as hypocritical but also as un-American and unconstitutional.

In the distorted view of the Trump administration, protecting free speech requires controlling free speech — banning words, phrases and ideas that challenge or complicate a government-favored speech. Officials in Washington have spent the past month stripping federal websites of any hint of undesirable words and thoughts, disciplining news organizations that refuse to parrot the president’s language, and threatening to punish those who have voiced criticism of investigations and prosecutions.

The Orwellian nature of this approach is deliberate and dangerous. This posture is not about protecting free speech. It is about prioritizing far-right ideology — and at times celebrating lies and hate speech under the guise of preventing the criminalization of language — while simultaneously trying to silence independent thought, inconvenient truths and voices of dissent.

When Mr. Trump announced that he was changing the name of the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America, for example, it seemed to be an essentially harmless bit of nationalistic chest-puffery, paling in comparison to the real damage he intended to do to national security, public health, the Civil Service and the rule of law. But then he made it clear that compliance was mandatory.

Earlier this month, a reporter for The Associated Press showed up at an Oval Office event, and was barred from entering because the news organization continued referring to the gulf by the internationally recognized name it has had since at least the 16th century. That was an editorial decision that The A.P., just like The Times and many other outlets, has every right to make on its own without government interference.

The White House press office then upped the ante; it is now keeping both A.P. reporters and photographers away from many press events and off Air Force One on presidential trips, making it far more difficult for the nation’s largest wire service to provide essential coverage. The A.P., to its great credit, has sued officials in the administration, saying it was doing so “to vindicate its rights to the editorial independence guaranteed by the United States Constitution and to prevent the executive branch from coercing journalists to report the news using only government-approved language.”

Federal District Judge Trevor McFadden has yet to rule on The A.P.’s request, but made it clear that the White House appeared to be improperly punishing the wire service for its editorial decision. “It seems pretty clearly viewpoint discrimination,” the judge said at a preliminary hearing.

This struggle is obviously about more than the name of a body of water; the White House wants to use coercion to control how it is covered, and even who gets to cover the president. On Tuesday, the press office said it would begin handpicking the news organizations that cover Mr. Trump as part of the press pool, a decision that up to now has been made by a group representing the news outlets themselves. The White House immediately cut Reuters and HuffPost from the pool and added two sycophantic outlets, Newsmax and The Blaze.

“The White House press pool exists to serve the public, not the presidency,” said Bruce Brown, executive director of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press.

Politicians are allowed to criticize the press — that is free speech, too, and there is nothing new about it — but there is a difference between using language and using muscle. Government officials are supposed to use their considerable regulatory powers for the benefit of the public, not for personal or partisan goals. This administration, however, is mustering the arms of government to suppress speech it doesn’t like and compel words and ideas it prefers. It sees the press not as an institution with an explicit constitutional privilege but as a barrier to overcome, like an inspector general or a freethinking Republican senator. Members of Congress can be targeted for primaries, and inspectors general can be fired; under the same mentality, reporters need to be excluded and their bosses subjected to litigation.

The Trump administration’s intention can be seen clearly by looking at the way it communicates with the public. All federal contracts, job descriptions and social media posts are being scrutinized for any hint of “gender ideology,” according to a memo from the U.S. Office of Personnel Management; federal employees “whose position description involves inculcating or promoting gender ideology” must be placed on leave.

The National Park Service erased the letters “T” and “Q”: from L.G.B.T.Q.+ references on its website describing the Stonewall National Monument in New York City. More than 8,000 federal websites, in fact, have been taken down or altered to remove concepts derided by the MAGA movement. These include thousands of pages about vaccine research and S.T.D. prevention guidelines, efforts to prevent hate crimes, prevention of racial discrimination in drug trials and disbursement of federal grants, and details of environmental policies to slow climate change.

The government won’t even describe its own museum collections as “diverse.” The word was eliminated from an Interior Department website describing federally owned works of art and natural history, though it has one of the broadest and most significant collections in the world.

The open hypocrisy on matters of speech is perhaps best exemplified by the actions of Mr. Musk, even before he became the Trump administration’s designated wrecking ball to crucial institutions of government. Mr. Musk has every right to say what he wants on X, a forum owned by a private company. Describing himself as a “ free speech absolutist,” he said he acquired Twitter in 2022 to create “a common digital town square, where a wide range of beliefs can be debated in a healthy manner.” He seemed particularly agitated that the platform had earlier dared to distinguish between lies — like those about Covid vaccines and the 2020 election — and verifiable truth.

But nearly immediately he began to demonstrate that the only free speech he championed was his own. Within a couple of months, he had suspended the accounts of journalists who had written critically about his business practices or the flights of his private plane. (So much for the hope he had earlier expressed that “even my worst critics remain on Twitter, because that is what free speech means.”)

Then he began suppressing access to posts with words like “transgender” and “bisexual,” or ideas like Ukraine’s battling against Russian aggression, and made it more difficult for users of his platform to read articles from independent news organizations, including The Times and Reuters. Purveyors of hate speech were invited to return to Twitter, which he later renamed X, and when some critics advocated a boycott of the platform in response, he moved to block them. Mr. Musk even boosted his own pronouncements on X, forcing his posts to appear loudly even on the timelines of those who chose not to follow him.

And when he couldn’t quiet his critics, he sued them. He filed suit against Media Matters for America, a liberal media watchdog group that wrote about advertisements on X appearing next to neo-Nazi content, and then sued a group of prominent businesses, including Unilever and CVS, for what he said was an illegal advertising boycott of his platform. (Last year a federal judge threw out a similar lawsuit Mr. Musk brought against the Center for Countering Digital Hate.)

When the magazine Wired published the names of six inexperienced young men working for Mr. Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency, Mr. Musk falsely announced on X that publication of the names constituted a “ crime.” And later, illustrating the connection between Mr. Musk’s aims and those of the administration, one of the loyalists that Mr. Trump installed as a federal prosecutor in Washington made an inflammatory announcement that he would use his position within the Justice Department to defend claims that Mr. Musk had raised.

The administration’s desire to control speech and thinking has also extended to Congress, the military and college campuses. Among other recent examples:

1. After the office of Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Democrat of New York, conducted a webinar instructing immigrants of their constitutional rights when challenged by federal officials, Tom Homan, the president’s so-called border czar, said he had asked the Justice Department to investigate whether she crossed a legal red line by suggesting noncompliance with federal immigration officers.

2. The Pentagon began pulling books off the shelves of school libraries used by the children of military families if they violated Mr. Trump’s new rules on not speaking about gender or racial equity issues. Among the titles subject to military review are a picture book about Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and a book by the actress Julianne Moore about a young girl coping with her freckles.

3.

In a fact sheet accompanying an executive order about antisemitism last month, Mr. Trump said he would deport legal immigrants if they joined in “pro-jihadist protests,” and would cancel the student visas of all pro-Hamas sympathizers on college campuses. “We put you on notice,” he wrote. “Come 2025, we will find you, and we will deport you.” Supporting terrorism is always wrong, and antisemitism is vile in any form. Even some congressional Democrats cheered the executive order. What the administration is establishing, however, is a much more expansive legal definition of hate speech to include even just strident critiques of the Israeli government policy.

The current administration may argue that these steps are simply payback for an American political left that can be rightly criticized for policing speech in recent years, from trying to shut or shout down conservative speakers to trying to enforce adherence to its own list of acceptable words and phrases like “ pregnant people,” the “ unhoused,” “ incarcerated individuals ” and “ Latinx.”

But the Trump administration’s early and furious reaction to criticism and pungent speech isn’t just guilty of the same sins, it expands upon them, worryingly, with the powers of the state. If the MAGA movement were really confident that the American public stood firmly behind the new intolerance, then why not welcome serious news reporting, or even the jeers of critics, and let the best ideas win? That, in fact, seemed to be what Mr. Vance was advocating in recent remarks to the Conservative Political Action Conference.

“You do not have shared values if you’re so afraid of your own people that you silence them and shut them up,” he said.

The administration and the broader MAGA movement are demonstrating that they lack the confidence to permit free thinking by the American people. But those people still have the powers granted to them more than 230 years ago by the Bill of Rights to make themselves heard.

Americans have enormous ability and enviable creativity in finding ways to speak out against Mr. Trump’s repressive and hypocritical speech regime, whether on social media or in the public square. The independence of The Associated Press and other organizations to make decisions contrary to government fiat should be defended and championed. Mr. Trump wants to redefine free speech with bans, bullying and fear. It’s never been more necessary to speak up.

1. After the office of Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Democrat of New York, conducted a webinar instructing immigrants of their constitutional rights when challenged by federal officials, Tom Homan, the president’s so-called border czar, said whether she crossed a legal red line by suggesting noncompliance with federal immigration officers.

2. The Pentagon began pulling books off the shelves of school libraries used by the children of military families on not speaking about gender or racial equity issues. Among the titles are a picture book about Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and a book by the actress Julianne Moore about a young girl coping with her freckles.

3.

In a fact sheet accompanying an executive order about antisemitism last month, Mr. Trump said he would deport legal immigrants if they joined in “pro-jihadist protests,” and would cancel the student visas of all pro-Hamas sympathizers on college campuses. “We put you on notice,” . “Come 2025, we will find you, and we will deport you.” Supporting terrorism is always wrong, and antisemitism is vile in any form. Even some congressional Democrats cheered the executive order. What the administration is establishing, however, is a much more expansive legal definition of hate speech to include even just strident critiques of the Israeli government policy.

The current administration may argue that these steps are simply payback for an American political left that can be rightly criticized for policing speech in recent years, from trying to shut or shout down conservative speakers to trying to enforce adherence to its own list of acceptable words and phrases like “ ,” the “ ,” “ ” and “ .”

But the Trump administration’s early and furious reaction to criticism and pungent speech isn’t just guilty of the same sins, it expands upon them, worryingly, with the powers of the state. If the MAGA movement were really confident that the American public stood firmly behind the new intolerance, then why not welcome serious news reporting, or even the jeers of critics, and let the best ideas win? That, in fact, seemed to be what Mr. Vance was advocating to the Conservative Political Action Conference.

“You do not have shared values if you’re so afraid of your own people that you silence them and shut them up,” he said.

The administration and the broader MAGA movement are demonstrating that they lack the confidence to permit free thinking by the American people. But those people still have the powers granted to them more than 230 years ago by the Bill of Rights to make themselves heard.

Americans have enormous ability and enviable creativity in finding ways to speak out against Mr. Trump’s repressive and hypocritical speech regime, whether on social media or in the public square. The independence of The Associated Press and other organizations to make decisions contrary to government fiat should be defended and championed. Mr. Trump wants to redefine free speech with bans, bullying and fear. It’s never been more necessary to speak up.

ONLINE: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/28/opinion/free-speech-trump-maga.html

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Feb. 28

The Wall Street Journal says Putin won the Zelensky-Trump debacle at the White House

Toward the end of his on-camera, Oval Office brawl with Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky on Friday, President Trump quipped that it was “great television.” He’s right about that. But the point of the meeting was supposed to be progress toward an honorable peace for Ukraine, and in the event the winner was Russia’s Vladimir Putin.

“He disrespected the United States of America in its cherished Oval Office,” Mr. Trump wrote on social media on Friday afternoon after the exchange, while booting the Ukrainian president from the White House. “He can come back when he is ready for Peace.” The two didn’t sign a planned agreement on minerals that would have at least given Ukraine some hope of future U.S. support.

The meeting between Messrs. Trump and Zelensky started out smoothly enough. “It’s a big commitment from the United States, and we appreciate working with you very much, and we will continue to do that,” Mr. Trump said of the mineral deal. Mr. Zelensky showed photos of Ukrainians mistreated as prisoners of war. “That’s tough stuff,” Mr. Trump said.

But then the meeting, in front of the world, descended into recriminations. The nose dive began with an odd interjection from Vice President JD Vance, who appeared to be defending Mr. Trump’s diplomacy, which Mr. Zelensky hadn’t challenged. Mr. Zelensky rehearsed the many peace agreements Mr. Putin has shredded and essentially asked Mr. Vance what would be different this time.

Mr. Vance unloaded on Mr. Zelensky—that he was “disrespectful,” low on manpower, and gives visitors to Ukraine a “propaganda” tour. President Trump appeared piqued by Mr. Zelensky’s suggestion that the outcome in Ukraine would matter to the U.S. “Your country is in big trouble. You’re not winning,” Mr. Trump said at one point.

Why did the Vice President try to provoke a public fight? Mr. Vance has been taking to his X.com account in what appears to be an effort to soften up the political ground for a Ukraine surrender, most recently writing off Mr. Putin’s brutal invasion as a mere ethnic rivalry. Mr. Vance dressed down Mr. Zelensky as if he were a child late for dinner. He claimed the Ukrainian hadn’t been grateful enough for U.S. aid, though he has thanked America countless times for its support. This was not the behavior of a wannabe statesman.

Mr. Zelensky would have been wiser to defuse the tension by thanking the U.S. again, and deferring to Mr. Trump. There’s little benefit in trying to correct the historical record in front of Mr. Trump when you’re also seeking his help.

But as with the war, Mr. Zelensky didn’t start this Oval Office exchange. Was he supposed to tolerate an extended public denigration of the Ukrainian people, who have been fighting a war for survival for three years?

It is bewildering to see Mr. Trump’s allies defending this debacle as some show of American strength. The U.S. interest in Ukraine is shutting down Mr. Putin’s imperial project of reassembling a lost Soviet empire without U.S. soldiers ever having to fire a shot. That core interest hasn’t changed, but berating Ukraine in front of the entire world will make it harder to achieve.

Turning Ukraine over to Mr. Putin would be catastrophic for that country and Europe, but it would be a political calamity for Mr. Trump too. The U.S. President can’t simply walk away from that conflict, much as he would like to. Ukraine has enough weapons support to last until sometime this summer. But as the war stands, Mr. Putin sees little reason to make any concessions as his forces gain ground inch by bloody inch in Ukraine’s east.

Friday’s spectacle won’t make him any more willing to stop his onslaught as he sees the U.S. President and his eager deputy unload on Ukraine’s leader. Some Trumpologists have been suggesting Mr. Trump will put pressure on Mr. Putin in due time. But so far Mr. Putin hasn’t made a single concession on territory, or on Ukraine’s ability to defend itself in the future after a peace deal is signed.

President Trump no doubt resents having to deal with a war he thinks he might have prevented had he won in 2020. But Presidents have to deal with the world they inherit. Peace in Ukraine is salvageable, but he and Mr. Zelensky will have to work together on an agreement that Ukrainians can live with.

Mr. Trump does not want to be the President who abandoned Ukraine to Vladimir Putin with all the bloodshed and damage to U.S. interests that would result. Mr. Vance won’t like to run for President in such a world either.

ONLINE: https://www.wsj.com/opinion/putin-wins-the-trump-zelensky-oval-office-spectacle-e23e9b21?mod=editorials_article_pos6

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March 2

The Guardian on Donald Trump, the United States and a new UN tax convention

Donald Trump’s Oval Office tirade on Friday laid bare his instinct to harangue and bully those – even supposed allies such as Ukraine, fighting for its survival – who dare to disagree. Countries pushing global tax reform at the UN will be watching as US demands for subjugation play out in plain sight. His day-one threat to punish nations taxing US firms is an all-out attack on global fiscal cooperation. If multilateralism in taxation was already on shaky ground, Mr Trump’s return could bury it for good.

Under discussion is a new UN tax convention that may permit states to tax economic activity where it actually occurs, rather than allowing multinationals to shift profits to tax havens. The Tax Justice Network (TJN) said last year that nations lose $492bn (£390bn) annually due to corporate tax abuse. The global south bears the greatest losses, which undermine public services like health and education. If enacted, the convention would create a legally binding framework requiring multinationals to pay tax where they employ staff and do real business – not where they stash profits. This would replace the outdated arm’s-length principle with unitary taxation, ensuring fair profit allocation. It would mean an end to Amazon, Google and Apple putting billions through lower-tax jurisdictions while extracting wealth from higher-tax ones.

Before Mr Trump’s election, about half of global tax losses were facilitated by the eight nations opposed to a UN tax convention – Australia, Canada, Israel, Japan, New Zealand, South Korea, the UK and the US. Yet opposition takes two forms: constructive and destructive. When negotiations for the UN framework convention on international tax cooperation began last month, all participants committed to the convention’s principles except Mr Trump’s delegate, who walked out in defiance, calling on others to follow. The expected exodus never came. Washington was left isolated. Mr Trump’s “America first” became “America alone”.

But the US still has tremendous clout. As TJN’s new report, The International Tax Consequences of President Trump, highlights, talks among 120-plus nations on taxing cross-border digital services – led by the US-dominated OECD – are grinding towards a showdown. Mr Trump’s tariff threats against Canada and the EU are warning shots, aimed at countries daring to raise tax rates on multinationals, especially US ones. This fight isn’t just about taxation; it’s about sovereignty. Mr Trump’s administration is trying to strong-arm nations into preserving a system that shields corporate profits from fair taxation. The difference now is that the world is pushing back.

For decades, the US has had an unofficial veto over global tax rules, using its heft to shape – and then reject – OECD-led proposals. But this approach is no longer sustainable. The growing coalition behind the UN tax convention shows that many governments prefer to chart their own course. Mr Trump’s return forces a stark choice: stick with a broken system that fuels tax abuse or push forward without the US. Any attempt to tax multinationals fairly will face American retaliation, but clinging to the OECD’s US-dominated framework is a dead end.

A united front at the UN is needed to forge a global tax system not dictated by Washington’s whims. The cluster munitions convention succeeded without US involvement, proving international norms can shift without it. The world doesn’t need US approval to fix global taxation. It needs the will to move forward together.

ONLINE: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/mar/02/the-guardian-view-on-a-tax-war-the-world-must-unite-against-american-obstruction

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Feb. 28

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch says to heed the warning of the first U.S. death from measles in a decade

Bearing in mind that any child’s death is a tragedy, many American media consumers could nonetheless be forgiven for wondering about the proportionality of national news coverage regarding the death of a single Texas child from measles Wednesday.

In fact, the outsized attention to the unvaccinated child’s death is merited by the context: It is the first U.S. fatality in 10 years from a disease that was declared effectively eradicated here as of 2020 — but has been making a comeback in the past few years here, tracking with increased and unmerited public distrust of vaccinations.

What would make this fully preventable death even more tragic is if the warning it offers to other parents around the country about the value of childhood vaccines continues to be ignored by too many of them. Every epidemic in history starts with “just one,” after all.

The Lubbock death, officials say, is part of a measles outbreak in rural West Texas that is apparently centered on an undervaccinated Mennonite community. But it isn’t just religious belief anymore that drives increasing anti-vaccination sentiment. The growth of libertarian-leaning politics that encourages both healthy and less-than-healthy skepticism of societal institutions such as government and medicine has depressed vaccination rates and increased outbreaks around the country.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that vaccination rates nationally have dropped from more than 95% in 2019 to under 93% today. That sounds like a small drop and still-impressive vaccination rate, but for two factors: One, a 95% percent vaccination rate is considered the minimum necessary to provide herd immunity to a given community; and, two, the national average hides wide variations by local and state populations.

In the West Texas community where the current outbreak is centered, close to 20% of the population is unvaccinated; here in Missouri, it’s close to 10%, almost double the statewide non-vaccinated rate of just five years earlier. In St. Louis, roughly 1 in 4 kids aren’t vaccinated.

The anti-vax trend actually began about a decade ago but appears to have grown worse following the 2020 COVID pandemic. Undoubtedly, the medical and political handling of that once-in-a-century crisis wasn’t flawless. But what started as understandable public skepticism about unfamiliar COVID vaccines and unusually aggressive public policies has seemingly fueled a wider distrust toward even long-proven vaccines that have saved countless lives from measles, mumps, polio and other diseases for generations.

The results of this still small but growing rejection of medical science is undeniable: Measles outbreaks, generally limited to a few dozen cases a year nationally for the first decade of this century, approached 300 last year, the highest number since the pandemic.

Newly installed Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy had no direct role in the Texas outbreak that claimed the child’s life. But RFK’s irresponsible public reaction to it has validated the warnings that this page and many others gave about allowing the nation’s top vaccination skeptic from being put in charge of the federal government’s top health agency.

In an almost eerie echo of Kennedy’s blithe dismissal of a deadly measles outbreak in Samoa that erupted after he visited there and fueled local reluctance toward vaccination (“mild,” Kennedy characterized the epidemic that caused more than 80 deaths), this week he downplayed the seriousness of the Texas outbreak as “not unusual”: “You have measles outbreaks every year.”

That’s only been true in the past few years — the period during which Kennedy and his anti-vax movement have battered the public’s trust in these inherently trustworthy vaccines.

It says much about our current political era that, for America to reclaim its earlier success at virtually eliminating these dangerous diseases, it must ignore the damaging disinformation coming from its (medically untrained) top health official and the toxic movement he embodies, and start listening to their own doctors again. There is a family in West Texas right now that will be forever haunted by its tragic failure to do that.

ONLINE: https://www.stltoday.com/opinion/editorial/article_e9d6d252-f533-11ef-b825-afd35fe3f1f6.html#tncms-source=login

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