Against the backdrop of a rapidly expanding measles outbreak, what we need right now is urgent assistance from the federal government to support immunization and strengthen vaccine delivery, not more challenges. Unfortunately, vaccine expertise is instead being sidelined while anti-vaccine perspectives are being elevated.

On Friday, Dr. Peter Marks, a well-respected career scientist whom AAP has worked closely with for years, was reportedly forced out of his job at the Food and Drug Administration, where he directed the division responsible for ensuring that vaccines are safe and effective. Earlier in the week, The New York Times reported that the Department of Health and Human Services had hired well-known anti-vaccine activist David Geier to re-examine the thoroughly debunked theory that childhood vaccines cause autism.

These developments should alarm us all.

Our country is currently experiencing a growing outbreak of measles — a highly contagious and potentially fatal disease easily prevented by vaccines that we know are safe and effective. Just a few weeks ago, an unvaccinated 6-year-old Texas girl died of measles, the first such death in the U.S. in a decade.

This should be an all-hands-on-deck moment for public health officials. They should be waging a comprehensive immunization and education campaign to contain this danger as quickly as possible. The federal government should be leading these efforts.

Instead, officials have tapped Geier, who does not have a license to practice medicine, to push an agenda that exploits the trust of parents and families. And they have ousted Marks, who helped guide the emergency authorization of vaccines to combat the COVID-19 pandemic.

Measles is not a mild illness for many children. In fact, more than a quarter of young children under 5 who have been diagnosed with measles in the current outbreak have been so ill they have been hospitalized. No family wants their child to go through that experience. Death and hospitalizations are preventable with vaccines.

Continued efforts to push an agenda that contradicts facts and creates an environment of anxiety is unwarranted, distracting and dangerous. And while on the surface one might ask what the harm of more scientific inquiry could be, it must be understood that by continuing to ask questions on an issue that has been answered multiple times, by multiple people, introduces doubt and anxiety. Our children and families deserve better.

As a pediatrician, I know these things to be true:

--Vaccines work. They prompt your immune system to recognize a virus or bacteria so it will be ready to respond if it encounters it again.

--Multiple studies from around the world, involving thousands of individuals and spanning several decades, have found them to be safe and effective.

--The data from which these conclusions were drawn were compiled by independent researchers and published in peer-reviewed journals after undergoing rigorous scientific scrutiny. This is science we can trust.

Further, speaking about autistic children through this context does a disservice to families with children who have autism, many of whom celebrate their neurodiversity and take issue with it being cast as something to be fixed or feared.

The vast majority of parents in the U.S. believe that immunization protects their children from infectious diseases, and most children are fully immunized. When kids stay healthy, they can focus on growing, learning, and doing the things they love to do.

Now is the time to build on that trust. Instead of rehashing a question that has been asked and answered unequivocally, our government should be leading the charge to mitigate this outbreak and prevent new ones.

The American Academy of Pediatrics urges government leaders to work in partnership with public health and medical experts to promote immunization, disseminate factual information and reduce barriers to access so that every child and community can benefit from the American success story of vaccines. Pediatricians are eager to help. Children and their families are counting on us.

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Dr. Susan Kressly is president of the American Academy of Pediatrics.

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