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stated on November 15, 2024 in a photo:

Smallpox was “never eradicated, it’s held in check by vaccines,” and RFK Jr. would eliminate coverage for the smallpox vaccine.

Robert Kennedy Jr., right, speaks at a rally on Friday, Feb. 8, 2019, at the Capitol in Olympia, Wash. (AP)

By Kwasi Gyamfi Asiedu November 27, 2024

Smallpox was officially eradicated in 1980. It doesn’t need to be held in check by vaccines.

If Your Time is short

The World Health Organization in 1980 officially declared smallpox eradicated. The last natural case was in 1977.
The smallpox vaccine helped eradicate the smallpox virus. Because the virus doesn’t exist in the general public, vaccination is no longer required to keep it in check.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who is President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee for health and human services secretary, has said in recent interviews he would make vaccinations a personal choice.

See the sources for this fact-check

A Facebook photo claims smallpox, a viral infection the World Health Organization declared eradicated in 1980, will return now that President-elect Donald Trump has said he will nominate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. for health and human services secretary.

"Say hello to smallpox. It was never eradicated; it's held in check by vaccines, which RFK Jr. says he will eliminate coverage for, making vaccines ‘optional,’" text overlaying an image on a Nov. 15 Facebook post said. The image features a child with smallpox and Kennedy, Trump’s nominee for health and human services secretary.

The Facebook photo was flagged as part of Meta’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Meta, which owns Facebook, Threads and Instagram.)

This claim isn’t true. The World Health Organization officially declared smallpox wiped out in 1980 after years of no new reported cases. Smallpox is "the only infectious disease to achieve this distinction," according to the WHO. In the United States, there have been no natural cases of smallpox since 1949, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The last reported case of smallpox in the world was recorded in Somalia in 1977.

The smallpox vaccine was the key driver in eliminating the disease, but since the virus’s elimination, the vaccine plays no role in keeping smallpox eradicated. The smallpox vaccine does, however, protect against the mpox virus.

Instagram posts

stated on November 7, 2024 in Instagram posts

“2,038 suicides have been reported (Nov. 6) following Donald Trump’s election win.”

PolitiFact has fact-checked several claims by Kennedy, who has built a political movement on years of vaccine skepticism and science denialism and has talked about making vaccines optional. He said in a Nov. 6 interview with NBC News that "if vaccines are working for somebody, I am not going to take them away. … People ought to have a choice."

Kennedy would not change the status quo for smallpox because vaccines for the smallpox virus are no longer administered. Routine smallpox vaccination among the American public stopped in 1972 after smallpox’s U.S. eradication, a CDC fact sheet said.

Although smallpox has been eradicated globally for decades, the U.S. and Russian governments maintain live samples in secure laboratories. In theory, either country could release the samples as a biological weapon. If that were to ever happen, "health officials would use smallpox vaccines to control it," the CDC said.

We rate the claim that smallpox was never eradicated and that RFK Jr. would eliminate coverage for the smallpox vaccine False.