Opinion: My sister died from measles. I find RFK Jr. terrifying.

Oh, how I loved those shoes. They looked so much like Dorothy’s ruby slippers, from “The Wizard of Oz.” Ruby red and glittering against her white, frilly, ankle socks, the image remains seared into my memory. My 8-year-old big sister, Lisa, clothed in her first communion dress and veil, her treasured rosary draped in her hands, lay motionless and cold amid the white silken lining, her head upon a white satin pillow. Six-year-old me gazed at those dazzling shoes and willed her to click her heels together three times while repeating, “There’s no place like home.” Her skin remained cold, her feet lifeless. I turned and walked away from her casket and into the waiting arms of my parents, not fully grasping that I would never see her again.

Lisa, my twin brother and I all contracted measles on that same weekend. Lisa had come home early from a trip to Grandma’s house, insisting she felt alright. She wasn’t. As her symptoms rapidly worsened, a rather brusque doctor was called to our house. He recommended she be given tea with honey whether she liked it or not and told her to stop crying, as though she had been faking and it annoyed him. A large man, he scared me, and I didn’t like him at all. Not long after his visit, Lisa fell into a coma, still crying. From our bedroom window, I watched as my father carried her down the front walk to the driveway where my mother waited in the car. They took their precious daughter to the hospital, where doctors eventually diagnosed her with measles/encephalitis, a brain inflammation. She languished in her comatose state until when, some 12 days later, the phone rang at about 3 a.m., on June 10, 1963. I heard hushed, grief-stricken cries coming from my parents’ bedroom.

Tragically, the measles vaccine became licensed for public use that very same year, but it was not widely accessible. Although we never discussed it, I’m sure my parents experienced profound agony — not only due to the loss of their child, but also because a vaccine could potentially have prevented it. The introduction of this new vaccine greatly reduced the incidence of measles for subsequent generations. Although no vaccine is perfect, today, the efficacy rate for the first dose administered at 12 to 15 months of age stands at 93%, and at 97% for the second at 4 to 6 years of age, a remarkable achievement against this highly contagious, sometimes fatal disease.

Now, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., a longtime vocal anti-vaccination activist, wants to make big changes, perhaps even eliminating some vaccines. Remarkably, he doesn’t believe in herd immunity, where enough individuals have achieved protection against an illness (say, through vaccination), making it difficult or impossible for the virus to gain traction in a population. Nationally, the measles vaccine remains mandatory for now, though Texas and some other states permit exemptions based on personal and religious beliefs. Astonishingly, Kennedy, as the secretary of HHS, fervently believes it remains a personal choice, even though such a choice, without doubt, endangers everyone else’s children and disrupts herd immunity. According to the Texas Department of State Health Services, as of Aug. 12, the state reported 762 cases, 99 of which led to hospitalizations, with two deaths of unvaccinated children linked to an outbreak. Sadly, nationwide, the numbers continue to trend upward.

Further, Kennedy remains busy gutting the HHS and the Centers for Disease Control by firing top officials who refuse to carry out his unsafe vaccine policies. Other vitally important officials have resigned in protest. The brain drain is being replenished by Kennedy loyalists, a deadly scheme, to be sure. Toward what end?

I can’t imagine what motivates an educated man like Kennedy to summarily dismiss medical experts who have decades of experience to wreak such havoc while subscribing to wild conspiracy theories like administering vitamin A as a measles treatment. So, like that brusque doctor 62 years ago, Kennedy wants us to drink the tea with honey, whether we like it or not, and to knock off the crying.

But, unlike my sister, the American public has emerged from its coma, and clearly sees the reality through its tears, whether Kennedy likes it or not. Loving, caring parents know “there is no place like home” for their children to remain safe and well. And Kennedy, an impostor just like the Wizard of Oz hiding behind the curtain, must be removed before he does irreparable harm.

Newton, a real estate agent, lives in Elfin Forest.