Former U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Jerome Adams blasted Health and Human Services Secretary (HHS) Robert F. Kennedy Jr. for promoting vaccine skepticism during a current measles outbreak, which is raging on the Texas-New Mexico border.
In a CNN op-ed on Thursday, the country’s former top medical official—who was nominated by Donald Trump in 2017—claimed that the vaccine’s decline in Texas’ Mennonite community, where the outbreak originated, showcases just how rapidly measles can spread in an unvaccinated population.
“While some may believe that abstaining from vaccination keeps them healthier or more resistant to diseases, the reality is that their ‘immunity’ has, until now, been borrowed from their vaccinated neighbors,” Adams wrote. “This collective shield, known as herd immunity, is not automatic or enduring; it has been built over decades through high vaccination rates.”
Adam’s remarks mirror those of other infectious disease specialists who have spoken out in the era of a vaccine-skeptic health secretary.
Because the U.S. was lucky enough to gain measles elimination status in 2000, experts say, Americans have perhaps forgotten just how bad the infection can get.
“I think not only have we largely eliminated measles, we’ve eliminated the memory of measles. I don’t think people remember just how sick measles can make you,” the director of the Vaccine Education Center at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, Paul Offit, told The Hill.
Adams called out RFK Jr. as a “significant driver of current skepticism,” noting that the Children’s Health Defense nonprofit organization he led also promoted “vaccine mistrust and misinformation for years.”
The former Surgeon General took particular issue with RFK Jr.’s statement that the outbreak was “not unusual,” a comment he made at Trump’s first cabinet meeting.
Adams also mentioned the health secretary’s Fox News op-ed, in which RFK Jr. dramatically changed his stance, writing in a piece titled, “Measles outbreak is a call to action for all of us.”
“[Kennedy] is now being forced to confront the consequences of the very skepticism he helped foster,” Adams quipped.
In the same Fox News op-ed, Kennedy also prioritized vitamin A and “good nutrition” over getting a vaccine, which he deemed a personal choice.
Instead, Adams, who served as US surgeon general in the first Trump administration, noted: “This moment is critical for both Kennedy and the nation. As I have previously stated, his tenure will not be defined by his work on nutrition or chronic disease (no matter how commendable) but by how he responds to an inexorably increasing number of vaccine-preventable disease outbreaks.”
Calling Kennedy to action, Adams also highlighted that “A true leader must be willing to acknowledge mistakes — even if unintended — and correct course.”
