RFK Jr. Says Texas Measles Outbreak ‘Top Priority’ at HHS, Sending Vaccine Doses

The outbreak so far has led to one death and more than 140 cases.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the new U.S. health secretary, said that a measles outbreak in western Texas that has infected more than 100 people and led to one death is a “top priority” for his agency and said that vaccines will be provided.

“Ending the measles outbreak is a top priority for me and my extraordinary team,” Kennedy said in a post on social media platform X on Feb. 28.

He said that his agency, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), would send Texas 2,000 doses of the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine through its immunization program.

Additionally, HHS will provide “lab support to better track the virus causing the outbreak,” will communicate “with public health officials every day in all affected areas to support their response and ensure they have the resources they need,” and provide communications to local communities in Low German—the language used by Mennonites.

“We will continue to fund Texas’ immunization program. Ending the measles outbreak is a top priority for me and my extraordinary team at HHS,” Kennedy wrote on the platform.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) confirmed in a statement that a child died due to measles in the western Texas outbreak, while state officials in Texas said that more than 146 cases have been identified so far.

“Due to the highly contagious nature of this disease, additional cases are likely to occur in the outbreak area and the surrounding communities,” the Texas health department said Feb. 28, adding that it is “working with local health departments to investigate the outbreak.”

The virus has largely spread among rural, oil rig-dotted towns in West Texas, with cases concentrated in a “close-knit, under-vaccinated” Mennonite community, state health department spokesperson Lara Anton said last week.

For years, Kennedy has publicly questioned the efficacy and safety of the MMR vaccine that many young children have to receive before attending schools or daycares, as well as other childhood vaccines. He has also spoken against states and localities mandating the shots for children.

During his Senate confirmation hearing earlier this year, Kennedy told lawmakers that he supports both “the measles vaccine” and the vaccine for polio, another shot on the childhood immunization schedule. He was responding to questions and criticism about his views on vaccines and whether he should be considered an “anti-vaxxer.”

Years earlier, in a 2019 Washington state legislature hearing on a bill that removed personal exemptions for families to the MMR vaccine, Kennedy expressed concerns over the safety of some childhood vaccines, including the MMR shot, and alleged that they are possibly linked to autoimmune disorders, autism, ADHD, and other disorders.

“ADD, ADHD, speech delay, autism, food allergy, autoimmune diseases… prior to 1986, 12 percent of kids in this country had chronic disease. Today it’s 54 percent,” he said, according to quotes provided by his group, Children’s Health Defense, on its website.

“Do we want to force parents to risky medical interventions without consent?” he asked. “Will mandating this vaccine cause more harm than good?”

After he was sworn in as the HHS secretary in February, Kennedy vowed to investigate the childhood vaccine schedule for measles, polio, and other diseases. “Nothing is going to be off limits,” he said, adding that pesticides, food additives, microplastics, antidepressants, and the electromagnetic waves emitted by cellphones and microwaves also would be studied.

Kennedy has said that he wants to “make America healthy again”—borrowing from President Donald Trump’s campaign slogan “make America great again”—by targeting chronic health issues that have plagued the United States.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.