Are anti-vaxxers guilty of child abuse?

In 2008, Madeline "Kara" Neumann, age 11, died of diabetic ketoacidosis in Wisconsin. Her parents treated her symptoms with prayer instead of medical care. The day before she died, Kara could no longer talk while suffering terrible stomach pains. Yet her adults still wouldn't take her to a doctor. A Wisconsin jury convicted the mother of reckless homicide. This is one of several famous cases involving parents charged with murder for denying their children medical treatment that could have saved their lives. Past examples have generally pitted the right to hold certain religious beliefs against the obligation to protect children. The judgments almost always went against the caregivers -- and the idea that parents have the right to do with their children as they wish. When a child dies of starvation in a slum because the parents were cruel or just crazy -- no religious excuse given -- they get dragged off in handcuffs. Not so when children die of measles because parents denied them a two-second jab-in-the-arm, explaining that they don't believe in vaccines. Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the crackpot Trump put in charge of the Department of Health and Human Services, covers his rear by insisting that he's not stopping anyone from taking vaccines. He and fellow "skeptics" are just calling for "vaccine transparency and safety" while undermining the public's trust in both. "Bobby" has rolled back government support for mRNA vaccine research, canceling 22 projects for tools to fight respiratory viruses such as COVID and the flu. No new projects will be started. This technology could be used to treat or cure cancer and other diseases. Kennedy has no scientific background and evidently suffers from his own mental confusion. He's said batso things like Lyme disease is "highly likely a militarily engineered bioweapon."' He has never openly promoted violence against vaccine scientists. More cleverly, he's telling unstable people to question whether widely used vaccines could hurt them. He has linked life-preserving vaccines to autism in children -- and hired a vaccine foe who practiced medicine in Maryland without a license to study the matter. His department is no longer recommending the COVID vaccine for healthy young children. How many children may die as a result? We already know that from September 2023 through August 2024, about 152 children died from COVID. How many more perished without the disease being reported we cannot know. The lunatic who attacked a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention building, killing a police officer, claimed that the COVID vaccine had made him sick. Where did he get that idea? It seems no coincidence that this assault took place in the summer of 2025. Can you envision the medical researchers having to barricade themselves in their offices? Has the public become so dazed by political chaos that it's not up in arms over government actions that could cost millions of lives? During the pandemic, nearly a quarter-million Americans talked out of taking the COVID vaccine died unnecessarily from the disease. This is more harmful than the religious beliefs that miracles can cure anything. They skirt rather than fight science. Kennedy and company distort it, putting a scientific veneer on dangerous misinformation. And they are backed by a creepy pack of influencers. What grown-ups do with their lives is not the great concern here. Rather we should find shock in having a government actively promoting ignorance at the cost of children's lives. Parents who do not protect their charges belong behind bars. Never mind their claiming good intentions. That's what child abusers do while insisting they were just disciplining unruly kids. It may take a mass tragedy to move responsibility where it belongs. We seem headed for one. Follow Froma Harrop on Twitter @FromaHarrop. She can be reached at fharrop@gmail.com.