Facing an increase in measles growth that could test his leadership, this week’s Secretary of Health Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
He also questioned why the death killed an 8-year-old girl due to measles by health authorities. His latest remarks downplay the threat of the virus.
in Interview with CBS News The country’s top health officials, aired Wednesday, said “people should get the measles vaccine.” This is a more direct argument than typical of Kennedy, who has a long history of questioning vaccine safety.
But at the same time, he appears to minimize the threat of a growing outbreak, centered around Texas and New Mexico, sending mixed signals about the vaccine saying many vaccines were “not safety tests.” He went on to claim that they have not been tested against the placebo group or have only been tested for a short period of time. Independent agency public health officials have repeatedly approved the vaccine based on safety and efficacy evidence, including placebo-controlled trials and long-term studies.
“When I say they’re not undergoing safety tests, what I mean is that they’re not appropriate. [tested]He said.
Kennedy once again downplayed the outbreak at a cabinet meeting with President Trump on Thursday.
“We’re trying to focus on the press to get them to pay attention to the chronic disease outbreak, as you asked us,” he told Trump.
He praised the administration’s handling of illness, saying he snuck in about 680 cases in 22 states.
“The CDC did an incredible job of controlling the measles outbreak,” he said.
CBS News also suggested that shots known as single antigen vaccines do not work in the case of respiratory pathogens. Many vaccines, including all approved COVID-19 shots, are single antigens.
The interview took place after Kennedy attended the funeral of the 8-year-old in West Texas, who died in West Texas, according to state health officials. In an interview with CBS News, Kennedy suggested that other illnesses caused her death after talking to the girl’s family and reviewing the medical chart.
John Lapook, a medical correspondent and doctor at CBS News who interviewed Kennedy, revised him. It is related to illnesssecondary infections that can be fatal due to the damage caused by measles.
Texas health officials described the two children who died of measles from the outbreak as “previously healthy.” Little is known about adults in New Mexico that could have died. All three weren’t vaccinated.
The Atlantic reported that Kennedy did not mention the vaccine when he visited the family of the recently deceased girl. The girl’s father told the Atlantic: “He said nothing about the vaccine being helpful.”
“He said, ‘You don’t know what the vaccine is about anymore,'” Peter Hildebrand, the girl’s father, told the publication. “I actually asked him about it.”
The number of measles cases reported by the CDC is considered to be a significant underestimation, with some parents avoiding testing their children. CDC data shows that over 10% of these cases resulted in hospitalization.
But the Health Secretary has downplayed the severity of the disease in the United States.
“In 20 years, only three people have died from measles,” Kennedy told CBS News. “They are all people with extreme complications.”
Three deaths have so far this year, and four have died in the last 20 years. The fact that the number of deaths so far in 2025 equals the number recorded in the last 24 years has something to do with the country’s infectious disease experts currently on their path to greater measles outbreaks and frequent measles deaths.
The mixed messages from the nation’s top health authorities about whether measles is a serious threat or the vaccine is safe are in contrast to those of public health experts and doctors who fear the impact of Kennedy’s statement.
“This is not a way to let people know about vaccinations,” Tom Frieden, doctor, former CDC director and president and CEO of Resolve, said in an interview with STAT on Wednesday.
Several anti-vaccine groups have seen long-standing approval of views in Kennedy’s statement.
“We’re reading between the lines, right?” Children’s Health Defense, an anti-vaccine organization recently established by Kennedy. Posted on xalong with a video from the HHS secretary, he says he believes that vaccines should not be mandated by the government.
The federal government does not require vaccines, but state rules that require children to get vaccines before they go to school are important to protect them from measles and other illnesses.
“We put parents who don’t vaccinate their children, especially those with vulnerable medical conditions at risk,” Frieden said.
The secretary made state policy an important target on his agenda and met with state leaders this week on his Make America Healthy Tour.
Kennedy has changed a considerable amount of money on this issue. He previously framed the measles vaccine as dangerous and deadly. This is part of my job as an anti-vaccine advocate. Faced with a second child dying from a growing outbreak over the weekend, Kennedy said the vaccine is the best tool available to combat outbreaks and is currently spreading across several states.
Kennedy later pointed out other tools to handle outbreaks that are well outside of mainstream recommendations as potential treatments for children ingesting the virus.
“Measles is something we should not be fooled,” Frieden said. “Measles spreads like a wildfire.”
In an interview with CBS News, Kennedy was asked about his recent rationale Controversial decision by Food and Drug Administration political staff It is still being used under emergency use permits to delay approval of the Novavax Covid-19 vaccine. “It’s a single antigen vaccine, and because of respiratory illness, a single antigen vaccine has never worked,” Kennedy said.
(Antigen refers to the components of a vaccine that induces an immune response. Some vaccines, like with COVID vaccines, target multiple parts of a pathogen that are designed to protect them to focus on one part.
In an interview with STAT, experts dismissed Kennedy’s claims. Peter Marks, the recently banished head of the FDA’s biology department that regulates vaccines, said there are multiple effective vaccines for respiratory pathogens that target a single antigen.
Helen Branwell contributed the report.
