Ben Meyerink, MD
September 1, 2026
It’s the time of year when South Dakota families are savoring the last days of summer. I always recall this season including one last trip to the Missouri River, getting our 4-H projects ready for the State Fair, and gearing up to go back to school. In addition, it’s when we used to make our annual stop into the local clinic for our school vaccines without any hesitancy at all. The latter routine though, is changing rapidly for many South Dakota families. If you look back just a decade ago, our state used to excel with immunizations. For years we were consistently above the national average and vaccine skepticism was rare. Now, we have fallen below the rest of the country in many areas as government officials continually spread disinformation threating the health and safety of our children and most vulnerable citizens.
President Trump’s recent executive order is only a single action in a long line of attacks from government officials that seem to be growing exponentially. Like other threats that we have seen at both the state and federal levels for years now, it lacks any sound scientific evidence or reasoning. No study exists demonstrating that the MMR vaccine causes any harm being administered in combination as we currently have done for decades. The claim that children get 72 injections matches no vaccine schedule I am aware of. Certainly no study shows any links to autism from immunizations. While we as well-trained physicians and scientists know how safe and effective these immunizations are, these attacks filled with lies are undermining the trust our communities have had in evidence-based medicine and the implications could be deadly. I hope these policies are not adopted but regardless, significant damage has been done.
While many of you reading this may not directly deal with the administration of vaccines in your practices, the effects of these political attacks will reach all of us in one way or another. South Dakota now sits below the safety thresholds for highly transmissible diseases like measles. Many parents continue to decline the HPV vaccine not realizing that it could save their child from a future cancer requiring extensive surgery and treatment. Elderly rely on falsehoods they hear from misinformation sources and refuse preventions for pneumonia, RSV, and shingles. Even if you are not in the primary care realm, we will all deal with the downstream effects of these decisions often rooted in misplaced trust, fear, and a lack of understanding.
I want to commend the South Dakotan physicians and health officials who for decades had a culture built that respected physicians, science, and evidence-based medicine. Our state was better protected than most but now we are falling below average quickly and this culture is being severely undermined. I often feel that we cannot control what is done in Washington D.C. I do however, know that you and I can control what happens in Pierre, our communities, and our practices. The SDSMA is working with other officials, health systems, and organizations throughout our state to develop back a culture that relies on science, respect for the greater good, and evidence to protect our children and families. Each legislative session brings up new bills seeking to erode this further. We need you to help us work with our legislators to defend and rebuild this. Patients still most often trust their physician in these decisions and if anything, our role in this only has greater importance than ever before. Please continue to uphold the oath you took as physicians and counsel your patients and elected officials on what is true and best for the health of the citizens of our state.
