More than a hundred years ago, in the quiet prairie south of Hartford, Kansas, a tragedy unfolded that still speaks today. In a small cemetery are markers: the final resting place of eight children that died in a 1903 diphtheria outbreak. Their names, etched in stone offers a warning and stark reminder of a time when medicine had few answers.
Think about how your lived experience today is buffered by a century of medical progress, including vaccines, antibiotics, and public health. Yes, life was more simple in a Little House on the Prairie where American families lived under constant threat. Diphtheria, scarlet fever, measles, & diseases - now mostly preventable and treatable swept through towns and homesteads with ruthless efficiency. The loss of eight children in one family was not unthinkable, but was tragically familiar.
This was the same era when President McKinley died of sepsis no one could treat, when tuberculosis was a leading cause of death, and when childbirth was often a gamble with a woman’s life. These weren’t isolated tragedies. They were the fabric of daily life in an America without the tools we now take for granted.
Our lived reality has been radically transformed by science. But that very transformation distances us from the terror that once gripped every household at the sound of a child’s cough. The silence of that Kansas cemetery speaks louder than we can hear—if only we’re willing to listen.
This isn’t just a story about a graveyard. It’s a window into how far science has brought us—and a reminder of what’s at stake when we forget. What happened in that little house on the prairie isn’t ancient history; it is a lesson written in stone. Graveyards don’t just hold the dead. They hold the truth—of suffering, of lives cut short, of children buried by their own parents. So when people today preach the virtues of “natural immunity” and rail against vaccines, understand this: if you’ve never had to dig a grave for your child, you don’t know what “natural” death really is—or what science has spared you from.
I first read this story years ago, and I haven’t been able to forget it. When I revisited it recently, I felt something shift. For anyone who wants to make American healthy & strong again, let this be your starting point: not nostalgia for a past—a past that buried children—but a renewed commitment to the science, medicine, and public health. Do read the original story from 2011.
and…if you choose to read the story, perhaps you too will feel the vicarious or compassionate grief that grips parents who have lost their children. The moment that struck me most deeply was the line: “…were buried in the same coffin Sunday afternoon.” Imagine, for a moment, being those parents—facing a world where medicine offered so few answers, where loss came swiftly and without mercy. It is a reality most of us cannot truly grasp today, given how far modern medicine has advanced.
Science Communication
A few weeks ago, Dr. Jessica Steier wrote about how MAHA is winning the messaging battle — and I couldn’t agree more. We need to be better communicators, better storytellers.
When I first started to write about the O’Marra family to a friend, I made a conscious effort to separate myself from the personal story. Science is not emotional; it is objective, dispassionate, clinical, and driven by data — cold and calculating by design. Its strength lies in this impartiality, building trust through transparency, rigorous methods, and reproducibility. Science welcomes scrutiny and self-correction, free from bias, grounding conclusions in evidence, not feelings. So…
I started … “Black respiratory diphtheria” is a serious bacterial infection caused by Corynebacterium diphtheriae. It spreads through droplets when an infected person coughs or sneezes and it can be life-threatening if not treated. Mechanistically, and in part, a secreted exotoxin disables cellular elongation fact 2 (EF-2), that eventually damages tissues in the throat leading to the formation of a pseudomembrane made of dead cells, bacteria, and immune system materials. The pseudomembrane is often gray or bluish-white, but may become dark gray or black due to bleeding and tissue death. This membrane can block the airway, make it difficult to breathe, and can lead to death by asphyxiation. Then, as I searched the Protein Data Bank for the crystal structure of diphtheria toxin (e.g., 7K7C) - I stopped - what was I doing?
Imagine another description…
Imagine gasping for air, each breath shallower than the last, as a thick, leathery membrane—born of a ruthless bacterial invasion—tightens its grip on your throat. It spreads like a creeping death, sealing off your airway, while your swollen neck pulses with the strain of useless inhalations. The body thrashes, starved of oxygen, the mind trapped in rising panic, fully aware of its slow, inescapable suffocation. No relief, no reprieve—just the slow, merciless tightening until consciousness fades into the black abyss of hypoxia.
Science can explain the process—but it doesn’t soften the terror. And without science, that terror becomes reality, as it has for thousands of families. Nature, however breathtaking, is merciless. That’s why we can’t afford to let people like Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the Mean siblings, the Food Babe, and others now in leadership positions hijack public trust with misinformation. They prey on fear—especially around vaccines—offering false comfort where only science stands between us and the return of diseases we’ve nearly eradicated.
Their influence far exceeds their credentials, and worse, they routinely misrepresent basic science. They promote the myth that healthy children don’t die, that vitamins or cod liver oil are cure-alls, that industries are poisoning children, and that medical professionals profit from keeping people sick. Their rhetoric isn’t just wrong—it’s dangerous. If they can’t get simple facts straight, why should we trust them on anything more complex?
I don’t believe most MAHA moms reject science out of malice. They love their families and want to protect them. In a world where “natural” is constantly marketed as synonymous with “safe,” it’s easy to see how that message takes hold. But the truth is, nature is indifferent. It doesn’t care how organic your pantry is or how meticulously you read ingredient labels. Infectious diseases don’t discriminate based on lifestyle.
Nature can be breathtaking—but only when we’re shielded from its harshest realities. For most of human history, survival meant a constant struggle against hunger, infection, and injury. Science didn’t ruin a golden past—it lifted us out of it. Vaccines, clean water, safe food, and medical care have dramatically reduced childhood mortality and made life better for all of us.
Wanting the best for your kids is noble. But that means trusting the tools that actually protect them—not the influencers who sell fear disguised as empowerment.
Science isn’t anti-nature—it’s what makes nature survivable. Without it, we would still be living in a world where disease takes children in the blink of an eye, where survival isn’t guaranteed by anything other than luck. This is the world that Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and the Food Babe want us to return to—a world where we put our faith in unproven, dangerous myths. Science, for all its complexity, offers something those voices can’t: tested, transparent tools that actually save lives. It’s time we stopped letting pseudoscience wear the mask of motherly wisdom. Instead of MAHA jargon, we need clarity. Instead of cold facts, real stories.
Let’s be honest that government leadership hasn’t always earned the benefit of the doubt. Regulatory inertia, political interference, and broken trust have created a vacuum that opportunists are all too happy to fill. That’s why scientists and communicators have to step up—not just with data, but with empathy. We have to start where MAHA moms are, not where we wish they were, not as scientists. Begin with shared values: “We all want healthy kids.” Then build the bridge: “Let’s use the tools that actually work.” When science speaks in plain language, listens before it lectures, and proves it’s on the side of families—not power—it becomes something worth trusting again.
Thanks for reading / listening…
Stay safe out there…
