Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a prominent vaccine skeptic, dismissed concerns about a measles outbreak spreading in west Texas that has reportedly claimed the nation’s first life in a decade, telling reporters: “It’s not unusual” and “we have measles outbreaks every year.”
“There are two people who have died, but we are watching it. There are about 20 people hospitalized, mainly for quarantine,” he said Wednesday when asked about the death during the first Cabinet meeting of Donald Trump’s new administration.
His comments immediately followed health officials in Lubbock, Texas, announcing the death of an unvaccinated school-age child. It’s not clear when or where this second death cited by Kennedy occurred. A spokesperson for his office did not immediately respond to HuffPost’s request for comment.
The death announced Wednesday is the first attributed to measles in the U.S. since 2015, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which did not immediately respond to HuffPost’s request for comment, told The Associated Press.
The Texas Department of State Health Services has reported 124 cases as of Tuesday, making it the largest outbreak the state has seen in nearly 30 years, state health officials have said. The vast majority of those infected in Texas are children, and all but five of the cases are in people who are unvaccinated or with a status unknown.
Nine additional cases also have been confirmed in Lea County, New Mexico, which is along Texas’ northwest border.
“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,” Kennedy said when asked about the child’s death during the first two months of this year. The CDC confirms 16 outbreaks in 2024 but reported just four outbreaks in 2023.
For comparison, there were 285 confirmed cases across the country during all of last year.
The virus can be especially dangerous for children, resulting in respiratory and neurologic complications and death.
Approximately 1-3 out of every 1,000 measles cases will result in death from these complications, while 1 in every 1,000 measles cases will result in acute encephalitis, which often results in permanent brain damage, according to the CDC.
Kennedy, who does not have a medical background, has a long record of anti-vaccine advocacy and other conspiracy theories, which he was repeatedly grilled over during his Senate confirmation hearing last month.
In 2023 he falsely said “there’s no vaccine that is safe and effective,” and in 2021 he urged people to “resist” CDC guidelines on when kids should get vaccinated. He’s also falsely claimed that vaccines cause autism.
He reversed some of those comments during his hearing, telling lawmakers that he supports vaccines and would not discourage people from getting vaccinated as health secretary.
The current measles outbreak comes amid a yearslong decline in vaccination rates for children in the U.S.
The vaccination rate was near 95% for 10 years before dropping to about 93% starting in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic. So-called herd immunity can be reached when more than 95% of a community’s population has been vaccinated, according to the CDC.
Go Ad-Free — And Protect The Free Press
Already contributed? Log in to hide these messages.
This rise in cases, and drop in vaccinations, follows measles being declared officially eliminated from the U.S. in 2000 thanks to the nation’s then-high vaccination rate. That status meant that the only new cases that occurred were from people who contracted the virus from another country and returned with it.
“Before the measles vaccine was introduced, an estimated 48,000 people were hospitalized and 400–500 people died in the United States each year,” according to the CDC.