Newly appointed Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. appeared to dismiss a rare measles outbreak that has killed a child in Texas and sickened more than 120 people.
“It is not unusual, we have measles outbreaks every year,” the controversial politician said during Trump’s first cabinet meeting Wednesday afternoon.
Kennedy then went on to incorrectly state that two people have died from the outbreak, when multiple officials had only confirmed one death as of Wednesday. He also said the majority of hospitalizations have been “mainly for quarantine,” which health officials have also denied.
“We don’t hospitalize patients for quarantine purposes,” Dr. Lara Johnson, the chief medical officer at Covenant Children’s Hospital in Lubbock, Texas, said at a Wednesday press conference. She added that most of the patients hospitalized for measles have suffered from trouble breathing, some have required intensive care and none of them were vaccinated against the disease.
The child who died in Texas was also unvaccinated, officials said Wednesday. The school-aged child, who was not identified further, was the first person in the U.S. to die from the measles since 2015. Prior to that, the last death was in 2003, according to NBC News.
The CDC has thanked the widespread use of the measles vaccine for essentially eliminating the disease since 2000. However, cases of the measles have been growing in recent years as vaccine hesitancy has increased over time.
A particularly large anti-vaccination movement emerged during the COVID-19 pandemic, and was championed by media personalities like Kennedy. His nomination to become the nation’s 26th Health and Human Services Secretary was met with considerable objection from the medical community. More than 17,000 doctors signed a letter urging the Senate to reject his bid.
RFK Jr. assured his fellow cabinet members Wednesday that his team is “following the measles epidemic every day.”