MEASLES HAS A 2 WEEK INCUBATION PERIOD!
RFK JR MADE $10 MILLION FROM HIS ANTI-VAX ORGANIZATION! REFUSES TO RELINGUISH TIES....
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said two died in measles outbreak. His agency says it was only one.
WASHINGTON - Sitting in the Cabinet Room of the White House during his first public appearance as the nation's top health official on Wednesday, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said two people had died in an ongoing measles outbreak in Texas.
But national and local health officials − including the Department of Health and Human Services, the agency Kennedy heads − say only one person has died. The White House and health officials aren't answering questions about the discrepancy.
A vaccine skeptic who founded the anti-vaccine group Children's Health Defense, Kennedy also said at the same briefing that the measles outbreak was “not unusual.”
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said the one known death - a school-age child - is the first measles fatality in the U.S. since 2015. The child was not vaccinated, according to Texas health officials.
“We are following the measles epidemic every day. I think there's 124 people who have contracted measles at this point, mainly in Gaines County, Texas, mainly, we're told in the Mennonite community,” Kennedy said. “There are two people who have died, but we're watching it.”
Kennedy said the latest outbreak is not out of the ordinary.
“Incidentally, there have been four measles outbreaks this year in this country,” he said. “Last year, there were 16. So it’s not unusual. We have measles outbreaks every year.”
GRAPHICS:One death in Texas measles outbreak, was not vaccinated. Know the symptoms
According to the CDC, there have been three outbreaks (defined as 3 or more related cases) reported in 2025. Of those, 92% of cases are outbreak-associated. In 2024, 16 outbreaks were reported and 69% of cases were outbreak-associated.
So far, 124 cases have been identified since late January, according to the Texas Department of Health. Out of those, only five people were vaccinated. The rest are unvaccinated, or their vaccination status is unknown. The outbreak in Gaines County, home to a large Mennonite community - whose members take religious exemptions from vaccinations - was the most pronounced, with 80 people infected.
In 2000, the U.S. eliminated measles, meaning there was no spread within the country, only from when someone contracted measles abroad and returned. With immunization rates above 95%, however, outbreaks are less likely to happen.
But for the last 20 years, cases have returned, said Dr. Paul Offit, director of the Vaccine Education Center at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.
Increases in cases have coincided with fewer people vaccinating their children, due in part to widespread misinformation about the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine after a debunked and retracted 1998 study by the disbarred British physician Andrew Wakefield. The study published in the eminent science journal, The Lancet, and falsely linked MMR vaccines with autism.
An environmental lawyer, Kennedy has echoed this false claim, even after Wakefield’s study was retracted and several studies have found no association between the vaccine and autism.
“Now we are having outbreaks in large part because of him and Andrew Wakefield’s advocacy,” Offit said. “It’s not OK to die from a preventable disease.”
Additionally, Offit questioned Kennedy’s knowledge of infectious disease, given that Kennedy described people being quarantined in hospital for measles. Because of how infectious measles is, with measles able to stay in an exam room for two hours, keeping contagious people away from others, especially people with weakened immune systems, is the best protocol.
“That’s the last place you want them to be,” he said.
Doctors want a different message
Dr. Manan Trivedi, an internist practicing in greater Washington D.C. area, was among the throngs of people who attended Kennedy’s contentious confirmation hearings to oppose his nomination. Kennedy's measles comments, he said, should be different.
“The message here should be ‘get your children vaccinated -- measles is deadly, it’s highly contagious, but it's preventable with an extremely proven, effective vaccine’,” he said.
He also said the magnitude of the spread makes it “highly unusual.”
In 2023, for instance, there were only four outbreaks. The resurgence of measles points to lower parental vaccine confidence and local pockets of unvaccinated and under-vaccinated individuals, according to the paper published by the National Institutes of Health, which falls under HHS.
Laura Anderko, a registered nurse, from Annandale, Virginia, who holds a Ph.D. in public health and has 40 years of experience, said Kennedy was “dangerously uninformed.”
“When you look at the trends over time, you’ll notice the majority of kids getting measles are unvaccinated,” she said.
Swapna Venugopal Ramaswamy is a White House Correspondent for USA TODAY. You can follow her on X @SwapnaVenugopal
After Texas child's measles death, infectious disease experts say outbreak is anything but 'usual'
The country’s first measles death in a decade was recorded Wednesday in Texas. Health officials in Lubbock, Texas, say the patient was an unvaccinated school-aged child.
The death comes during the country's largest recent outbreak; at least 124 cases have been recorded since late January, with at least 18 hospitalizations. Health and Human Services head Robert F. Kennedy Jr said Wednesday that the situation is not "unusual," something disputed by infectious disease experts who note that vaccine hesitancy and misinformation are causing an increase in outbreaks of a disease that the U.S. declared “eliminated” in the year 2000.
Texas infectious disease specialist Peter Hotez, co-director of the Texas Children’s Hospital Center for Vaccine Development, joins us.
HEARD WHILE DRIVING - WORTH LISTENING TO A REAL
EXPERT:
This segment aired on February 27, 2025. Audio will be available soon.
RFK Jr. flubs facts and plays down measles outbreak that killed child in Texas
Though measles was deemed eliminated in the US in 2000, a resurgence of the disease in recent years has been linked to a rising opposition to vaccines.
On Tuesday, a child described as "school-aged" became the first person in the US to die of measles since 2015.
During President Donald Trump cabinet meeting at the White House on Wednesday, a reporter asked if the administration was "concerned" about the outbreak.
Trump passed the question to RFK Jr., who was confirmed as head of the Department of Health and Human Services two weeks ago.
"We are following the measles epidemic every day," Kennedy said. "I think there's 124 people who have contracted measles at this point, mainly in Gaines County, Texas, mainly, we're told, in the Mennonite community. There are two people who have died, but we're watching it."
He added: "Incidentally, there have been four measles outbreaks this year in this country. Last year, there were 16. So it's not unusual. We have measles outbreaks every year."
According to the Associated Press, RFK Jr. was wrong on several counts, including regarding his claimed that those who had been hospitalized were there only for "quarantine."
A spokesperson for the HHS also clarified with the outlet that only one death has been recorded so far, not two as Kennedy stated.
In pugnacious exchange, Mass. Sen. Warren grills RFK Jr. over ties to law firm suing vax maker
Massachusetts U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren on Wednesday grilled President Donald Trump’s pick to run the nation’s public health system over his pledges to close a “revolving door” in government.
In a sharply worded exchange, Warren asked Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to pledge not to take employment with a pharmaceutical company or any other related industry he’d be charged with regulating if he were to win Senate confirmation to helm the U.S. Department of Human Services.
"I’m happy to commit to that," Kennedy, the son of former U.S. Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, said during an appearance before the U.S. Senate Finance Committee.
Warren shot back, “Good, that’s what I figured. I said, it’s an easy question to start with. And I think you’re right on this question ...”
That prompted Kennedy to quip that he did not believe that “any of them want to give me any money, by the way.”
The Cambridge Democrat also asked Kennedy, who has faced scrutiny for his public pronouncements on vaccines, to further commit to not taking compensation from lawsuits against drug companies during his tenure and for four years after that.
“In the past two years, you’ve raked in $2.5 million from a law firm called Wisner Baum. You go online, you do commercials to encourage people to sign up with Wisner Baum to join lawsuits against vaccine makers,” Warren said Wednesday.
“And for everyone who signs up, you personally get paid, and if they win their case, you get 10% of what they win. So, if you bring in someone who gets $10 million, you walk away with a million dollars,” Warren said.
As part of his ethics filings, Kennedy disclosed financial ties to the firm, which is pursuing litigation against drug maker Merck over its human papillomavirus vaccine Gardasil.
The firm employs Kennedy’s son, Conor, Politico reported Wednesday.
"Pursuant to the referral agreement, I am entitled to receive 10% of fees awarded in contingency fee cases referred to the firm," Kennedy wrote in that filing.
“I am not trying these cases, I am not an attorney of record for the cases, and I will not provide representational services in connection with the cases during my appointment to the position of secretary,” Kennedy wrote in his ethics filing.
Kennedy bristled at Warren’s characterization of his relationship with the law firm, telling her that she made him “sound like a shill.”
" I put together that case," he said. “I did the science day presentation to the judge on that case to get it into court, the docket hearing ...”
Warren cut him off, firing back: “Mr. Kennedy, it’s just a really simple question. You’ve taken in $2.5 million, I want to know if you will commit right now that not only will you not go to work for drug companies, you won’t go to work suing the drug companies and taking your rake out of that while you are secretary and for four years after.”
Kennedy told Warren that he would “commit to not taking any fees from drug companies” while he helmed the agency, prompting more back and forth.
In a statement to MassLive released after the confirmation hearing, Warren said Kennedy “has made millions off of lawsuits against the same vaccine makers he’d regulate as health secretary.”
“Today, he wouldn’t commit to stop raking in those profits. Kids might die, but Robert Kennedy Jr. will keep cashing in,” Warren said.
Republican doctor clears way for Senate to confirm Kennedy as top US health official
By Gabriella Borter and Stephanie Kelly
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Robert F. Kennedy Jr. cleared a big hurdle in his bid to become the top U.S. health official on Tuesday after clinching the committee vote of Louisiana Republican Senator Bill Cassidy, a doctor who had expressed wariness over Kennedy's anti-vaccine views.
Cassidy, who spent decades working in public health, was seen as a potential swing vote on the Senate Finance Committee, which voted 14-13 on Tuesday morning to put Kennedy's nomination to a full Senate vote. All Republicans voted in favor and all Democrats voted against advancing Kennedy's nomination.
Cassidy chairs the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee. During a hearing before that committee last week, Cassidy had said he was troubled by Kennedy's long record of casting doubt on vaccine safety, and cited his own ethical duties as a physician.
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