RFK Jr. Supports Measles Vaccine During U.S. Outbreak

US Health Secretary Expresses Serious Concern Over Texas Measles Outbreak.

Robert F Kennedy Jr, the leading US health official often regarded for his vaccine scepticism, has now endorsed the measles vaccine amid a significant outbreak of the disease in Texas.

In a Fox News opinion piece published Sunday, Kennedy voiced his “deep concern” over the disease’s spread, even though he had previously downplayed it as “not unusual.”

Kennedy emphasized that vaccines safeguard children against measles and bolster community immunity, protecting individuals who cannot be vaccinated for medical reasons. Still, he maintained that the choice to vaccinate remains “a personal one.”

The US Secretary of Health and Human Services highlighted that before the MMR vaccine was introduced, nearly all children in the US contracted measles. He illustrated this with data from 1953 to 1962, showing an average of 530,217 confirmed cases and 440 deaths, a fatality rate of 1 in 1,205 cases.

Last month, US authorities reported the country’s first measles-related death in a decade when an unvaccinated school-aged child in northwest Texas was hospitalized and succumbed to the disease.

As of Friday, 146 cases have been reported in Texas since late January, according to the Texas Department of State Health Services. These cases have mainly affected a Mennonite community, a Christian group that emerged during the 16th-century Reformation.

Kennedy, often criticized for promoting debunked claims linking vaccines to autism, faced backlash last month for seemingly downplaying the outbreak by noting multiple outbreaks earlier this year.

Measles poses a significant threat to unvaccinated individuals, especially young infants who typically cannot receive the vaccine. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention states that one in five unvaccinated individuals with measles requires hospitalization, while roughly one in 20 children with the disease contracts pneumonia.