Washington – The Secretary of Health and Human Services, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., avoided a question about vaccines on Wednesday and if he would choose to vaccinate his children today against a series of diseases, saying: “I don’t think people should take medical advice from me.”
Kennedy’s comment was in response to the representative Mark Pocan, D-Wisconsin, during an audience of the Chamber Assignments Committee.
In the midst of a continuous measles outbreak in western Texas and other parts of the USA, which killed two children and an adult, all not vaccinated, Kennedy has pushed unseeded remedies, including a steroid called Budesonid
None are proven measles treatments, experts say. The high doses of vitamin A can cause nausea, vomiting and liver damage, especially in young children.
Kennedy, sometimes, has offered a warm support of the measles-ba-rubella vaccine, but often undermines that message with false statements about damage and lack of long-term protection.
Kennedy told Pocan that “he probably” vaccinated his children against measles today, but added: “My opinions about vaccines are irrelevant.”
Pocan then asked Kennedy if he was vaccinating his children today against the chickenpox and the polio.
Kennedy refused to answer, saying: “I don’t want to give advice.”
Kennedy’s children are vaccinated, a decision that has previously said that he regrets.
The camera audience began what is expected to be a controversial day for Kennedy after budget cuts and mass layoffs in HHS. Kennedy is expected to testify in the afternoon before the Senate committee on health, education, work and pensions.
During the audience on Wednesday morning, Kennedy defended the response of the United States to measles outbreak, said the agency was doing a better job than other countries.
He pointed to the highest measles per capita in Mexico, Canada and Western Europe.
“Mexico has approximately the same number with a third of our population,” he said.
There have been more than 1,000 cases of measles in the United States so far this year. Measles was declared eliminated from the country in 2000. The only year since then, with more cases, it was 2019.
Experts say that numbers are probably a lower content because many cases are probably not reported.
