Thanks goodness that Boston Federal Judge Brian Murphy has stopped some of Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s vaccine insanity, reversing the Health and Human Services secretary’s dangerous and destructive effort to drop hepatitis A, hepatitis B, RSV, dengue, and two strains of meningitis from recommended immunizations for infants.

Monday’s ruling also prevents the seating of RFK’s hand-picked new vaccine advisory panel, who would have replaced serious experts with wild ideologues.

There are a lot of issues in government that can be the subject of reasonable and well-informed discussion, where different parties might fall on different answers. Is it possible for the U.S. to fulfill strategic objectives in its war with Iran? Will a higher marginal tax rate incentivize increased economic activity or drive wealthier people out of town?

However, the need to vaccinate babies against common deadly pathogens is not one of those subjects. There are no coherent debates to be had about the absolute necessity to immunize children for both their individual benefit and the preservation of public health as a whole.

In science — which is often allergic to making concrete statements and where there is always a little bit of room for debate — it is remarkable that there is such broad agreement among experts about the vaccination schedule.

Can RFK and his henchmen find individual researchers and practitioners who will selectively read data or otherwise muddy the waters around safety? Sure, just the same as the tobacco industry once shored up supposed experts to argue that smoking did not cause cancer or fossil fuel companies once found people to testify that their industrial activity was not driving man-made climate change.

These efforts have in retrospect seemed both ridiculous and offensive, misleading as they were in ways that had significant consequences for our collective health and well-being. Now, a significant majority of people already understand the need for our robust vaccination standards.

Unfortunately, the garbage that RFK spewed during his time as a private sector anti-vaccine crusader and is now trying to make government policy as the nation’s top public health official has had vaccine skepticism growing nationwide, with deadly consequences. Measles, once eradicated, has grown to 1,300 cases since an outbreak last year.

Murphy’s pro-science ruling is undoubtedly a victory, but that does not mean that RFK isn’t continuing to do damage every single day that he’s at the helm of our health apparatus. That damage will be felt in the vaccines that are never developed as he has moved to kill crucial research and turned down approval for already developed immunizations. It will be felt as people struggle to get insurance coverage for vaccinations that the CDC is no longer recommending.

You could make a pretty strong argument that vaccination is humanity’s greatest-ever technological achievement, which just makes it all the more bewildering for a government official tasked with safeguarding all Americans to be walking away from it. RFK won’t change; he was lying when he assured senators that he would respect the scientific consensus on vaccinations. Perhaps senators were legitimately duped then, but they have no reason to continue believing Kennedy now.

He will only stop harming public health if he is stopped. It was public and political pressure that forced fellow MAGA crank Kristi Noem out. It’s long past time for RFK to follow her out the door.

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