“Gone with the measles:” how a 7-year-old Californian helped vaccinate the state
Back in 2015, Rhett Krawitt was a 7-year-old leukemia survivor with a compromised immune system, a plaid blazer, and a better grasp of public health than half the state. Sitting before the California legislature, Rhett delivered a mic-drop plea for vaccines with more clarity than most adults: “My name is Rhett, and I give a damn.” The anti-vax movement never stood a chance.
“I wrote the bill after parents were calling from across the state saying, ‘There’s a measles outbreak. We need to do something about this,’” Pan, who is now running for congress in California’s 6th District, told SFGATE. “This is not normal to have a measles outbreak.”
The Krawitts were connected with Pan after he introduced SB 277 in February 2015. That same month, Rhett addressed his school board, asking them to endorse the bill.
“Make everybody get vaccinated unless they are getting chemo like I did,” Rhett said while standing on a folding chair to reach the microphone. “Soon they will say, ‘Gone with the measles.’”
My daughter was in Marin public schools at the same time Rhett and his family asked the county health officer to ban unvaccinated kids. A decade later, California’s childhood vaccination rates are soaring, and the measles has (mostly) left the building. Rhett, the kid who once battled cancer, is now sailing the Bay, still fully vaccinated, unlike a disturbing number of adults who’ve turned Reddit threads into their primary care provider. Meanwhile, the movement Rhett helped ignite shows that science, when backed by smart policy and one very determined family, can still win over fear, Facebook, and RFK Jr.’s brainworm.
The episode led the family to realize that their home in Marin County, just north of San Francisco, could be a dangerous place for Rhett. At the time, just 82.7% of kindergarteners were fully immunized in the county. For the entire state, it was 90.7%. Those percentages may seem high but are below the rate required for herd immunity, or about a 95% vaccination rate, which stops even the most infectious diseases from circulating widely.
SF Gate
This story is particularly meaningful at a time when Florida, Idaho, and other conservative strongholds are doing all they can to defeat vaccine science, and the Trump Administration has installed a Secretary of Health and Human Services who pushed snake oil over vaccines during a legendary measles outbreak.