RFK Jr. Slammed For Calling Measles Outbreak 'Not Unusual' After Child Died Of Measles

During President Donald Trump's first cabinet meeting on Wednesday, Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.—a well-known anti-vaxxer and conspiracy theorist—downplayed the measles outbreak that has killed a child in Texas, and people online swiftly called him out.

His comments came right after state officials confirmed the death of an unvaccinated child in a measles outbreak in rural West Texas — the first U.S. death from the highly contagious but preventable disease since 2015.

The school-aged child, who had been hospitalized, died Tuesday night amid what has become Texas’ largest measles outbreak in nearly 30 years. Since the outbreak began last month, 124 cases have been reported across nine counties.

The Texas Department of State Health Services and Lubbock health officials confirmed the death to The Associated Press. While the child’s identity was not released, the patient was treated at Covenant Children’s Hospital in Lubbock.

Despite the growing crisis, Kennedy insisted that HHS is monitoring the situation and dismissed the outbreak as “not unusual":

"We are following the cases everyday. I think there's 124 people who have contracted cases at this point. ... We're watching it and there are about 20 people hospitalized for quarantine."

“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."

You can hear what he said in the video below.

He seemed to misstate several facts, including saying that most hospitalized patients were there just for “quarantine.” Dr. Lara Johnson, the chief medical officer at Covenant, pushed back on that statement, saying "we don’t hospitalize patients for quarantine purposes."

Kennedy also appeared to misspeak when he claimed that two people had died from measles. Later, Andrew Nixon, a spokesperson for the Department of Health and Human Services, clarified that the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had confirmed only one death.

His claim that these outbreaks were somehow "not unusual" was swiftly fact-checked by an epidemiologist on X:

Many online piled on in criticizing Kennedy.

The possibility of Kennedy assuming any senior government role raised significant concern among public health leaders and federal employees, who argued, even as Kennedy was taking the reins, that he should not have access to the nation's public health infrastructure.

For instance, as a prominent anti-vaccine activist, Kennedy has spent years lobbying lawmakers globally, including in Samoa during a deadly 2019 measles outbreak that claimed the lives of dozens of children. While Kennedy’s representatives have denied that he is anti-vaccine, Kennedy has also denied involvement in the Samoa measles crisis.

In a piece for The Hill, Scott A. Rivkees, M.D., a pediatrician and professor of practice at the Brown School of Public Health, criticized Kennedy's confirmation, saying that "as we observe the spillover effect of anti-vaccine viewpoints leading to reduced immunization rates, we see outbreaks of vaccine-preventable illnesses," including measles and whooping cough.