Washington-the Secretary of Health and Human Services, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a critic for a long time of well-established vaccines, said on Wednesday that his department is tracking a measles outbreak that has infected more than 100 people and killed a child in Texas. But it minimized the consequence of resurgence, 25 years after it was thought that the disease had been eradicated in the United States
“We are following the measles epidemic every day,” Kennedy said during the first meeting of President Donald Trump’s cabinet since he swore on January 20. “By the way, there have been four measles outbreaks this year in this country. … then it is not unusual. We have measles outbreaks every year.”
But the death of a child not vaccinated at school age in western Texas, confirmed by a state health official this week, is the first mortality in the United States since 2015.
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Kennedy has been scarce at the HHS headquarters, has not visited several HHS agencies and has not sent emails from all personnel to the workforce of the department, according to an official of the department. In particular, said this person, Kennedy has done nothing to address the measles outbreak.
“It is almost as if it were still in campaign mode instead of realizing that he is head of a large agency and workforce,” said the HHS official.
An HHS spokesman did not immediately return a request for comments.
Trump’s decision to take advantage of Kennedy to lead HHS reflected the president’s own relationship with pandemic disease, mass immunization and a political base that has become increasingly critical of vaccines after health and economic damage caused by COVID-19.
It also represents a risk for Republican legislators in the middle of the period elections if measles, aviar flu, ebola or other disease shakes the country after Kennedy’s appointment and the cuts of the government’s efficiency department in foreign and national efforts to combat those viruses, according to some republican strategies.
“If you are cutting a program, that increases the potential that something goes wrong: it will possess it,” said a strategist who has worked on presidential republican campaigns, the Senate and the Chamber. “Perhaps the measles is the canary in the coal mine … This is a small example of a potential problem. This has real -life consequences, and that is the politically dangerous part.”
Senator Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaaska, who voted to confirm Kennedy, said the government must pay close attention to the implications of public health of communicable diseases.
“We should be worried about any outbreak, particularly measles,” Murkowski said.
Billionaire Elon Musk, a temporary advisor to Trump’s White House that is Doge’s public face, erroneously said Wednesday that public financing for anti -bola efforts had become after Dege interrupted him, according to the Washington Post, who reported that the money is still frozen. Dux’s cuts and Trump’s executive orders that stop some government operations, complicated the administration’s response to an avian flu outbreak that has increased egg prices and could endanger people. But the Secretary of Agriculture, Brooke Rollins, said this week that his department would commit up to $ 1 billion to combat the economic and health effects of the disease.
Many political experts believe that Trump’s reactions to COVID-19 hurt him by losing re-election against Joe Biden in 2020. To delay the propagation of the coronavirus, the Trump administration issued guidelines that stay at home that contributed to economic losses. The Congress and Trump passed billions, then increased by a massive Biden stimulus law, to avoid an economic collapse. At the same time, Trump launched Operation Warp Speed, a successful effort to push pharmaceutical companies to develop a vaccine in record time.
But many Trump voters were upset by federal guidelines and the most strangling commercial closures at the state level, and some questioned the efficacy and safety of the vaccine. Trump’s pride to press for the vaccine dissolved during his 2024 campaign. Apparently his change was sufficient for Kennedy, who left the race and supported it. Since he assumed the position, Trump issued a federal prohibition of Covid vaccine mandates in schools and ordered the restoration of military personnel who was fired for refusing to take the vaccine during the Biden administration.
In other words, Trump has found a position that allows him to oppose vaccine mandates without prohibiting immunizations, a posture that gives him a space to maneuver on each side when necessary. Kennedy, who was confirmed 52-48, with the former leader of the majority Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., Throwing the only republican vote “without”, has been more critical of vaccines, including MMR injection.
Kennedy has promoted an unfounded theory that vaccines cause autism, and blamed measles deaths in Samoa in 2018 for immunizations instead of the disease.
“I think we need a vaccine that is not a vaccine with leaks,” Kennedy told NBC News about the MMR vaccine in February 2024. “The immunity you get is ephemeral and disappears over time.”
He added that the “most terrifying part” of measles taking is that “does not provide maternal immunity.” When asked if he would recommend that the children obtain the measles vaccine, moved away from the interview.
The refusal to support the balance takes Kennedy to a small minority of Americans, according to surveys in recent years. The vast majority of children in the US.
“It was irresponsible for the president to put a vaccine skeptic in charge of the Department of Health and Human Services,” said representative Joaquin Castro, D-Texas. “Death in Lubbock is tragic, and I hope it is a call for attention for Republican leaders who have promoted the dangerous theories of conspiracy on vaccines and have advocated the cuts to medical research and public health.”
Senator Roger Marshall, Republican from Kan., An obstetrician by trade, told NBC News that he spoke with Kennedy on Thursday morning, but that measles did not arise.
“He has already said that it is pro-vax,” said Marshall, changing the guilt of skepticism to the former director of the National Institute of Infectious Allergies and Diseases, Dr. Anthony Fauci.
“Fauci made more to create vaccines in this country in two years than Bobby Kennedy could have done in his life,” Marshall said, referring to Fauci’s role in the Task Force of the Trump Coronavirus and the testimony of El Congress on the origins of Covid-19 that some Republicans say it was known.
Marshall also pointed a finger to Biden, setting the outbreak of undocumented immigrants.
“I encourage everyone to get their measles vaccine, their MMR vaccine. I think it’s a great idea,” said Marshall. “But this would not happen in Texas at this time if it were not for Joe Biden’s open border.”
Trump frequently portrayed Fauci as a villain during the 2024 campaign and, taking the presidency, revoked the security details that protected him.
During his confirmation hearings, Kennedy said he is widely in favor of inoculation, but refused to support the measles vaccine.
The attached press secretary of the White House, Kush Desai, said that the West wing is happy with Kennedy.
“The White House has full confidence in Secretary Kennedy and its ability to meet President Trump’s mandate to make the United States again healthy,” Desai said in an exchange of text messages.
