The United States federal government’s response to the rapidly spreading measles outbreak has faced steep criticism after Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr (RFK Jr) falsely claimed the vaccine’s protection “waned quickly” and hasn’t been “safely tested.” 

While Kennedy endorsed the measles vaccine as the most effective way to protect against the disease, he has simultaneously sowed doubt in multiple statements. 

Meanwhile, a second unvaccinated US child has died from measles, a highly contagious but vaccine-preventable virus. 

More than 712 patients have been affected as of 10 April, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). 

The outbreak is quickly becoming the largest, and deadliest, in recent US history, threatening the country’s measles elimination status, which it has enjoyed since 2000.

Since then, slipping vaccination rates have meant communities have lost the herd protection needed (a vaccination rate of at least 95%) to keep cases from spiraling out of control. Prior to this outbreak, a child hadn’t died from measles since 2003 in the US.

Public health experts – pediatricians, epidemiologists, and government officials -– and Kennedy’s anti-vaccine supporters have criticized HHS for its contradictory and misleading statements.

“RFK Jr has stated that the measles vaccination routinely causes deaths, which is not true. The truth is that measles vaccination has prevented more than 60 million deaths globally. Vaccinating your children not only protects them, but also entire communities,” said Dr Tom Frieden, former CDC Director during the Obama administration and CEO of Resolve to Save Lives.

RFK Jr. has stated that the measles vaccination routinely causes deaths, which is not true. The truth is that measles vaccination has prevented more than 60 million deaths globally. Vaccinating your children not only protects them, but also entire communities.

— Dr. Tom Frieden (@DrTomFrieden) March 18, 2025

 “Measles has historically killed between one and three people per 1,000 cases, and those that died were usually immunocompromised. This year is different: two of the three deaths have occurred in healthy children,” noted W Brian Byrd, Public Health Director in Tarrant County, Texas, in a social media post.

“Most of us believe this outbreak is larger than what is being reported.”

Cases spread to Oklahoma, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Indiana, Arkansas

The US measles outbreak began in West Texas in late January, concentrated in unvaccinated children and adolescents. Three measles-related deaths have been reported – two unvaccinated children and one unvaccinated adult.

Since the outbreak began, 11% of the 712 cases have been hospitalized, according to the CDC. The World Health Organization (WHO) reported a 17% hospitalization rate. 

Measles is the most contagious infectious disease, causing high fever, runny nose, and a full-body rash. There is no specific treatment for measles. 

While the epicenter of the outbreak remains Western Texas and New Mexico (90% of cases combined), a total of 25 jurisdictions – including Indiana, Ohio, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Arkansas – have reported cases, some for the first time in years.

Across the country, childhood vaccination rates have dipped to 92.7%, several points lower than the 95% threshold the WHO stipulates will maintain herd immunity. 

In Gaines County, Texas, the epicenter of the outbreak, the vaccination rate is around 82%.

The measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine is proven safe and effective, according to the CDC, with rare side effects. Despite this, counties across the country have struggled with falling vaccination rates.

“Talking to the community, they really stopped vaccinating about 20 years ago, which is in line with what we’ve seen in other communities across the United States,” said Katherine Wells, director of public health of a West Texas city.

Mixed messages and mass lay-offs hamstring response

Entire disease communication teams were dismantled during the HHS’s recent sweeping purge of scientists, regulators and public health experts. 

The “reduction in force” (RIF) notices terminated over 10,000 HHS employees across divisions and agencies, including those responsible for communicating with the public about health emergencies. All agency press officers were fired.

In addition, scientists studying vaccine hesitancy recently lost their National Institutes of Health (NIH) funding.

“Eliminating communications staff from CDC means we all have less information on how to protect ourselves from health threats,” said Friedan. 

Jeremy Kahn, Food and Drug Administration (FDA) media relations director, was one of the many communications personnel removed. 

“Whether explaining the nuances of a medication recall or providing guidance during emerging health concerns, our communications helped Americans make informed decisions based on facts rather than fear. There is no question that this delicate balance of transparency and reassurance made tangible differences in public health outcomes,” he said in a LinkedIn post.

In the meantime, Kennedy appeared on several media platforms to discuss his department’s response.

This included claiming that the US’s response should be the “model for the rest of the world,” incorrectly comparing the US’s number of cases to the total cases from Europe’s 44 countries.

Kennedy also claimed that cases were slowing, directly contradicting Texas health officials’ projections that the surge in cases would probably last until the end of the year.

“We think these cases are undercounted,” Dr Amesh Adalja, senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security said at a press conference with Texas health officials, as reported by Politico. “So, you can’t say something is flattening if you don’t know the denominator of cases.”

In a CBS interview, Kennedy made several other claims that have been debunked by health experts: that vaccines were developed without placebos and that they were tested for “three or four days.” Both statements are misleading, according to vaccine experts.

MAHA backlash

Not only has Kennedy’s comments sparked backlash from the public health community, but also from his own ardent anti-vaccine “Make America Healthy Again” (MAHA) following.

After Kennedy posted that vaccines were the most effective way to prevent disease, Del Bigtree, the communications head of his presidential campaign and anti-vaxx advocate wrote on X: “Your post got cut off. The MMR is also one of the most effective ways to cause autism.” 

However, numerous studies have debunked the claim that the vaccine causes autism. 

“Health freedom” advocate Dr Mary Talley Bowden, who gained a following over her support of ivermectin, replied to the post with “I’m sorry, but we voted for challenging the medical establishment, not parroting it.” Ivermectin is a treatment for parasites that was promoted by anti-vaxxers and alternative health advocates as a treatment for COVID-19, although studies have found has little effect on the virus.

But Kennedy’s fluctuating position and mixed messaging appear to be jeopardizing the response to the outbreak, especially in getting more children vaccinated. 

“That’s the way to stop it. This only ends with immunity,” said Jennifer Nuzzo, director of the Pandemic Center at The Brown University School of Public Health, in a statement to NPR. 

Funding chaos shutters disease surveillance labs

Measles surveillance and messaging were not the only HHS functions crippled in the past weeks.Part of HHS’s unprecedented purge of employees was the closure of the preeminent CDC laboratory dedicated to tracking sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) which affect one in five Americans.

The CDC lab was only one of three globally that tracks particularly notorious drug-resistant STDs.

Leading STD experts, including David C. Harvey,, executive director of the National Coalition of STD Directors, called the lab closure “alarming” and a “critical loss of an essential health function that the federal government should be providing to protect the health of all Americans.”

“The lab closure removes one of the critical tools we use to protect people from drug-resistant infections at the same time our ability to prevent STIs has been set back by massive cuts and layoffs,” Harvey told the news site Healio. 

“We are urging Secretary Kennedy to reinstate these labs and staff in order to protect the public against the ongoing STI epidemic and other infectious diseases.”

It’s not only the US that will be forced to limp its way through outbreaks.

The US was the sole funder of the World Health Organization’s global measles and rubella network of more than 700 laboratories. These key labs face “imminent shutdown” in the wake of US funding cuts, the WHO director general  said to the media last month. Without “Gremlin,” the global surveillance network, outbreaks would not be detected, said Dr Kate O’Brien, WHO director at the department of immunization, vaccines and biologicals.

Surveillance plays a crucial role in understanding disease burden and trends – as well as in identifying outbreaks, like measles. Without public health laboratories, and the staff to communicate during an outbreak, “we are flying blind,” said Dr Tom Frieden, during a podcast interview. 

Image Credits: CBS, CDC.