RFK Jr.’s erratic measles messages alarm health officials
Health officials across the US are increasingly concerned that Robert F. Kennedy Jr., head of the federal health department, is sowing confusion about the effectiveness of the measles vaccine amid an outbreak that has left two unvaccinated children in Texas dead.
On Sunday, in a post on X disclosing the latest death, Kennedy wrote that “the most effective way to prevent the spread of measles is the MMR vaccine,” marking his clearest endorsement of the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine to date.
Hours later, Kennedy posted photos with two Texas doctors he claimed had “healed” about 300 children with measles by using a steroid treatment and an antibiotic. Neither has proved to treat measles, which is a virus and thus not susceptible to antibiotics.
To public health experts, such statements from the secretary of Health and Human Services risk misleading people into thinking unproven treatments are a viable alternative to the measles vaccine, which is more than 90% effective at preventing infection.
“The messaging needs to be consistent from the very top all the way down,” said Philip Huang, a physician who leads the department of health and human services in Dallas County. “Anything that undermines or creates confusion over the vaccine is counter-productive.”
The data supporting alternative treatments for measles is scant, in part because the rarity of the disease makes it difficult to run controlled studies, said Marschall Runge, dean of the University of Michigan Medical School. In many cases, it’s impossible to tell whether a given medicine was effective or whether the patient simply had a mild case of the disease that cleared up on his own.
“What we do have is abundant evidence that there is no cure for measles,” Runge said.
Meanwhile, Kennedy’s sweeping cuts to federal health infrastructure are making it more difficult to respond to the outbreak, officials said. While grants from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have supported vaccination drives and testing initiatives on the local level, Huang said cuts to the agency’s budget have forced public health departments to lay off staff and curtail work in the field.
Texas has been the epicenter of the outbreak, with 481 confirmed cases through April 4. Overall, the US has tallied 607 measles patients in 21 states so far this year.
“What’s happening right now is chaotic, it’s cruel, and it undermines stated goals of making America healthy,“ said Susan Polan, associate executive director of the American Public Health Association.
Before taking over HHS, Kennedy spent years espousing discredited theories about the safety of vaccines, including a debunked claim that the measles vaccine has ties to childhood autism.
In March, following the first death of an unvaccinated child in Texas, Kennedy wrote an opinion piece for Fox News saying the “decision to vaccinate is a personal one.”