- RFK Jr. said the MMR vaccine was the “most effective way to prevent the spread of measles.”
- He previously touted Vitamin A as a possible treatment for the highly contagious disease.
- There have been close to 500 reported cases of measles in Texas since January, most being children.
The US’s new health secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., advocated for the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine amid the ongoing measles outbreak in the country.
“The most effective way to prevent the spread of measles is the MMR vaccine,” Kennedy said in an X post on Sunday, in which he said he visited the family of the second child in Texas who died after contracting the highly contagious disease.
Kennedy added in the post that he had deployed a team to supply pharmacies and clinics in Texas with MMR vaccines and other medicines in March to support the state during the outbreak.
The Texas Health Department said on Sunday that the child who died from measles was not vaccinated against the disease. The department added that 481 measles cases — mostly children — have been reported in Texas since late January.
Kennedy has been a vocal critic of vaccines. When he launched his 2024 presidential bid, he vowed to cut funding for federal health agencies that regulate childhood vaccines.
But during his January confirmation hearings to become health secretary, Kennedy was grilled on his views on vaccines by Sen. Bill Cassidy, the Louisiana Republican who heads the Senate health committee and has spent decades practicing medicine.
Cassidy finally voted in favor of Kennedy after receiving assurances from Kennedy and the Trump administration that they would work within existing vaccine systems and not remove vaccine guidance from government websites.
And in an opinion piece in Fox News in March, Kennedy said the MMR vaccine was “crucial to avoiding potentially deadly disease.”
However, he stopped short of mandating the vaccine, writing in the op-ed: “The decision to vaccinate is a personal one.”
He then recommended Vitamin A as a possible treatment for measles, adding that a balanced diet and good nutrition “remains a best defense against most chronic and infectious illnesses.”
Representatives for the Department of Health and Human Services did not respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.
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