The health secretary, Robert F Kennedy Jr, said on a press tour that his response to a large measles outbreak in west Texas should be a “model for the world”. The statement came after Kennedy attended the funeral of a third measles victim over the weekend.
Kennedy’s response to the outbreak has been widely criticized by epidemiologists and public health experts, who argue he failed to give a full-throated endorsement of an extremely effective vaccine, that cases appear to be severely undercounted and that officials from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) have been deployed late.
“The numbers continue to grow by the day, but … the growth rate has diminished substantially,” Kennedy told reporters during a press conference, while promoting his health agenda through the American south-west.
Public health experts have said that, in fact, there is little evidence to support this claim.
“I would compare it to what’s happening in Europe now,” Kennedy continued, according to Politico. “They’ve had 127,000 cases and 37 deaths. And so, what we’re doing right here in the United States is a model for the rest of the world.”
Kennedy appeared to reference figures from the World Health Organization (WHO) released in March. In that instance, global health officials were referring to cases across 53 countries in Europe and central Asia, which make up the WHO’s “European region”. Included in that tally are nations such as Romania and Kazakhstan, which together account for nearly 60,000 cases.
“Measles is the most contagious illness that we know of and it is preventable,” said Susan Polan, associate executive director of the American Public Health Association. “What we’re seeing now… is a far, far undercount in terms of the actual number of cases.”
Before the current outbreak, the US had not had a measles death since 2015. Three people have now died as a result of the Texas outbreak, and nearly 500 people have gotten sick, according to Texas authorities. Because measles has an average death rate of one to three per 1,000, public health officials believe cases are undercounted. The measles vaccine is 97% effective at preventing the disease.
On Sunday, Kennedy said CDC staff would be redeployed to the outbreak in Texas. This week, Kennedy also said the best way to prevent measles is to get the vaccine. However, he also used his attendance at a measles victim’s funeral to promote unproven therapies for measles in a social media post.
“We should have had more people on the ground – this should have been a priority for weeks and weeks,” said Polan.
Measles was eliminated in the US in 2000. However, anti-vaccine sentiment first stoked by a fraudulent scientific paper in the Lancet and then by non-profits, such as the one Kennedy led for nearly a decade, has stoked a dramatic increase in vaccine hesitancy.
The decline in trust in vaccines has been especially precipitous among Republicans and Republican-leaning adults. A Gallup poll from August 2024 found the percentage of Republicans who believe it is extremely important to vaccinate children fell from more than 60% in the early 2000s to 26% in 2024.
As trust in vaccines wanes among Republicans, and Kennedy himself voices lackluster support, Kennedy has enjoyed high trust ratings among Republicans – nearly as high as Donald Trump himself.
Kennedy made the comments as the department he oversees, Health and Human Services, undergoes a dramatic and largely opaque restructuring. A total of 20,000 positions have been eliminated between a cut of 10,000 made by Kennedy and an additional 10,000 employees cut by billionaire Elon Musk’s unofficial “department of government efficiency”.
The CDC lost 2,400 employees in the restructuring. Overall, HHS will lose nearly a quarter of its workforce. Kennedy has also installed vaccine skeptics in important roles within the agency, including at least one who has paused approval of a Covid-19 vaccine.
Further, basic research into mRNA vaccines has been under threat during Kennedy’s tenure. Before he took office, he tried to force the federal government to rescind authorization for Covid-19 vaccines.
Kennedy’s statements also come as HHS has clawed back more than $11bn in funding to local and state health departments – including grants that had funded immunization clinics near the measles outbreak in Dallas.
In an interview with CBS News, Kennedy denied knowledge of the clawbacks, and said: “I’m not familiar with those cuts … The cuts were mainly [diversity, equity and inclusion] cuts.”
