Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. backtracked two days after he dismissed the first American child’s death from measles in decades by saying that outbreaks were “not unusual.”
“Ending the measles outbreak is a top priority for me and my extraordinary team at HHS,” President Donald Trump’s health secretary wrote in an X post Friday afternoon.
He said that the HHS had sent 2,000 doses of the measles vaccine to Texas, which has become an outbreak epicenter.
“My heart goes out to the families impacted by the current measles outbreak in TX,” Kennedy added. “I recognize the serious impact of this outbreak on families, children, and healthcare workers.”
On Wednesday, though, Kennedy had struck quite a different tone.
Asked about the Texas outbreak at Trump’s first Cabinet meeting, Kennedy said, “There have been four measles outbreaks this year in this country. Last year, there were 16. It is not unusual. We have measles outbreaks every year.”
The remark sparked outcry from critics who said Kennedy was downplaying the severity of the situation.
Physicians have set off alarm bells about the outbreak, which has affected 100 people in West Texas and New Mexico. Measles was declared completely eradicated in the U.S. in 2000.
State officials said that the child who died in Texas was “school-aged” and unvaccinated. The last-known previous death from measles was in 2015, when an immunocompromised adult woman succumbed to the disease. Doctors did not realize she had it until after her death. Before that, it had been 12 years since a measles fatality.
Kennedy has a history as a prominent anti-vaccine figure, although he has rejected this characterization. During the Senate confirmation process, he repeatedly insisted that he was not going to “take away” access to vaccines.
