NPR.

This is the indicator from Planet Money.

I'm Adrienne Ma.

And I'm Darian Woods.

Over the past five decades, the World Health Organization estimates vaccines against diseases like

hepatitis B, measles, and tuberculosis have saved at least 154 million lives.

Now that is a pretty good batting record. Even so, the current head of the Department of Health

and Human Services, Robert F. Kennedy Jr.,

has been on this campaign to undermine public trust in vaccines.

And not only that, he's also criticized the doctors who provide those vaccines.

Here he is in a video he recorded and posted on X last month.

Should doctors make decisions based upon what's best for their patients? Or based upon what

makes them the most money? Doctors are being paid to vaccine not to evaluate. Their pressure to

follow the money, not the science. So, RFK Jr. says doctors are pushing vaccines onto their patients

in order to make profits. And sure, healthcare in the U.S.K. Jr. says doctors are pushing vaccines onto their patients in order to make profits.

And sure, healthcare in the U.S. is a business. But does that mean that doctors actually make

money on vaccines? Today on the show, we fact-check that.

We'll talk with doctors who explain the financial reality behind vaccines and why RFK Jr's attack on vaccines

could come at an even bigger cost to public health. That is after the break.

So do doctors push vaccines onto patients because vaccines are profitable. For perspective on that, we

first called up Jennifer Bacani-McCenni. I'm a family physician in Fredonia, Kansas, which is a town of

about 2,200 people in southeast Kansas. Jennifer's been practicing family medicine for about 16 years.

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