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Routine childhood vaccinations are falling, the proportion of children exempt from vaccination is at an all-time high, and cases of measles are being reported across the country.

And things could soon get worse.

Doctors are now preparing for a future under President-elect Donald Trump and his administration, which has floated the idea of ​​hiring prominent vaccine skeptic and conspiracy theorist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to lead the country’s federal health agencies.

Kennedy, the former independent presidential candidate who withdrew from the race to support Trump, does not have a medical background but his anti-vaccine Children’s Health Defense group focuses on chronic diseases and chemicals in food — and on spreading misinformation and conspiracy theories – have brought him enormous attention and support.

Trump has promised to give Kennedy a key role in his administration. The Republican president-elect said he wanted to let him go wild “on the health issue” and “the food and the medication.”

With Republicans controlling the Senate, Kennedy could potentially easily be confirmed to top health care positions if Trump nominates him, including secretary of Health and Human Services, commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration or director of the Centers for Control and Prevention of diseases.

Trump said he would “make a decision” on whether to ban vaccines based on Kennedy’s recommendations, although he would have no unilateral authority to do so. Kennedy said this week that he would “not take them away” and that “people should have a choice, and that choice should be based on the best information.”

Pediatricians and public health experts are sounding the alarm over serious concerns that an anti-vaxxer could potentially take a highly influential position to question the safety and effectiveness of life-saving drugs, potentially accelerating the trend of parents refusing vaccinations for their children .

“I witnessed a child die in the hospital from a vaccine-preventable disease because his parents refused to vaccinate him,” said Dr. Catherine Ohmstede, a pediatrician at Novant Health in Charlotte, North Carolina, told NBC News. “Many parents today have not experienced this…If this trend continues, this is the reality we will be faced with.”

Doctors have warned Trump’s campaign “of the impact on the party and the country of coming across as anti-science and having to manage and accept a spate of measles and polio outbreaks,” said Trump’s former surgeon general, Dr. Jerome Adams.

Adams told CNN that Kennedy “could spread misinformation and take us back to the dark ages” when it comes to vaccine-preventable diseases.

Fighting measles, chickenpox, polio and other diseases for decades, routine childhood vaccinations have prevented about 508 million illnesses and more than 1.1 million deaths among children born in the past 30 years, according to an August report from the CDC became.

Last month, the agency reported that the proportion of children exempt from vaccination requirements rose to 3.3 percent, up from 3 percent in 2023, an all-time high since mandatory vaccinations were introduced.

According to the CDC, at least 15 measles outbreaks have been reported this year (as of November 1), with a total of 272 cases. More than half of these cases involved children under 5 years old and another quarter involved children aged 5 to 19 years. Almost 90 percent of these patients were not unvaccinated.

Giving Kennedy the role overseeing these cases is “a potential disaster waiting to unfold,” Dr. Kavita Patel, a professor of medicine at Stanford University and board-certified internal medicine physician who served as director of policy for the Office of Intergovernmental Affairs and Public Engagement in the White House under President Barack Obama.

“Imagine giving the keys to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s data vaults to someone who has spread vaccine misinformation for years,” she wrote. “It’s like asking a flat earther to guide our next mission into space.”