Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has accused “fear-mongering” politicians and journalists of hyping up “so-called measles deaths” as he defended the Trump administration in the face of a historic spike in U.S. measles cases.
“In 10 years, there have been three measles deaths in America,” Kennedy said during Saturday’s town hall even on Fox News, after being asked if the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine should be mandatory, given two recent measles-related deaths in Pennsylvania.
“There are now about 1.2 million deaths every year from food-induced illness. The media and certain demagogic politicians are constantly trying to scare us about infectious disease,” he said.
Kennedy referred to the deaths in Pennsylvania, announced by public health officials on Tuesday, as “so-called measles deaths” and alleged “the governor has not been able to point to any child who died from measles in Lancaster County.”
Public health officials quickly took issue with Kennedy’s comments, noting that the low prevalence of measles deaths was a direct result of widespread vaccination.
open image in gallery“Measles deaths are rare in America for one reason: MMR coverage has been near-universal for decades,” Dr. Jake Scott, a clinical professor of infectious diseases at Stanford University, wrote on X. “Before the vaccine, this country lost 400-500 people to measles every year, with 48,000 hospitalizations. He’s citing the vaccine’s own achievement as evidence we never needed it.
Throughout the week, Kennedy has been locked in a war of words with Pennsylvania officials over whether the state had seen a spate of new measles-related deaths.
On Tuesday, the state health department said it had “confirmed” two measles-related deaths among people who were unvaccinated against the disease, the state’s first such deaths in 35 years.
Later that day, Governor Josh Shapiro said at a press conference he had pressed Kennedy in a phone call over his long history of vaccine skepticism, which included a 2021 visit to Lancaster County where he reportedly made light of his own childhood case of measles.
“I was very, very blunt with him,” Shapiro, seen as a 2028 Democratic presidential contender, said.
“[I] made very clear that his actions and the rhetoric that’s coming from this administration are having a negative impact on communities across America, particularly right here in Pennsylvania,” Shapiro said.
Kennedy responded, claiming on social media that Shapiro’s administration may have “fabricated” the cases for political gain, though the state said it reported the cases to the CDC on Tuesday.
open image in galleryLancaster County Commissioner Josh Parsons has accused state officials of withholding information from the public and potentially announcing the cases prematurely.
Under the Trump administration, measles cases have surged to their highest level since 1991, and three unvaccinated people died from measles last year, the first reported measles deaths in the U.S. since 2015.
During his town hall, Kennedy insisted the MMR vaccine was safe and blamed the outbreak on declining vaccination rates during the COVID-19 pandemic, a time when “a lot of people across the globe lost faith in the public health system.”
Prior to his time in office, Kennedy was a prominent anti-vaccine activist, and he has made various misleading and false statements about the MMR vaccine since being appointed, including that vaccines aren’t “safety tested” and that immunity from the vaccine wanes quickly.