Federal Officials Underplaying Measles Vaccination, Experts Say

In a first test of the Trump administration’s ability to respond to an infectious disease emergency, its top health official has shied away from one of the government’s most important tools, experts said Sunday: loudly and directly encouraging parents to get their children vaccinated.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the health secretary, was widely criticized as minimizing the measles outbreak in West Texas at a Cabinet meeting Wednesday. In a social media post on Friday, he took a new tact, saying that the outbreak was a “top priority” for his department, Health and Human Services.

He noted various ways in which the department is aiding Texas, among them by funding the state’s immunization program and updating advice that doctors give children vitamin A. But on neither occasion did Kennedy himself advise Americans to make sure their children got the shots.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, part of HHS, did not send its first substantive notice about the outbreak until Thursday, almost a month after the first cases in Texas were reported.

“They’ve been shouting with a whisper,” said Dr. Michael Osterholm, who is a public health researcher at the University of Minnesota and a former health department official.

“I fear that their hands have been tied,” he added.

CDC officials did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The measles outbreak in West Texas has sickened more than 140 residents and killed one child, the first such death in a decade. The lukewarm endorsement of immunization and infrequent federal updates particularly concern scientists in light of Kennedy’s long track record of sowing distrust in vaccines.

Over the years, he has suggested that the vaccine for measles, mumps and rubella was associated with autism and that measles outbreaks were mostly “fabricated” to fatten drugmakers’ profits.

If the Texas outbreak offers a window into the Trump administration’s approach to public health, it spells trouble for the future, some researchers said.

Health officials in the state say they have not needed extensive federal help, but future outbreaks in other places may not be manageable without federal assistance. “You could call this a dress rehearsal,” said Catherine Troisi, a public health researcher at the UTHealth Houston School of Public Health.

She added: “In the theater, a bad dress rehearsal means a good performance. I actually am quite sure that’s not the case in public health.”

In past measles outbreaks, the CDC often plays a leading role in educating the public about the dangers of contracting the virus and the importance of MMR vaccinations.

At the height of an outbreak in New York in 2019, during President Donald Trump’s first term, the agency issued a news release urging health care providers to reassure patients about the safety of the vaccine and criticizing groups that spread misleading information about it.

In an accompanying statement, Alex Azar, the health secretary at the time, wrote that measles was a “highly contagious, potentially life-threatening disease.”

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