Vaccine expert worries child measles deaths are being 'normalized'

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🗓️ 14 April 2025

⏱️ 13 minutes

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Summary

Measles is an extremely contagious disease. It's also extremely preventable. There's a vaccine. It's highly effective.

For decades it has made measles outbreaks in the U.S. relatively rare, and measles deaths rarer still. But the U.S. has now seen more than 700 measles cases this year, and 3 deaths so far with active outbreaks across six states.

The federal response is under scrutiny because Health and Human Services Secretary, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. has made a career spreading false information about vaccines.

What are this administration's views on vaccines, and what do they mean for what is already one of the worst U.S. measles outbreaks this century.

Kennedy publicly promised he would support vaccines. Dr. Peter Marks, who was forced out as the nation's top vaccine regulator says his department isn't doing enough.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	There's a moment from Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s confirmation hearing that now feels very relevant.
0:06.7	Senator Ron Wyden, a Democrat from Oregon, is pressing Kennedy on his long history,
0:12.1	purveying misinformation about vaccines.
0:14.8	In 2021 in a book called The Measles book, you wrote that parents had been, quote, misled into believing that measles is a deadly
0:22.2	disease and that measles vaccines are necessary, safe and effective. And Wyden asks Kennedy directly
0:29.2	about measles. Mr. Kennedy, is measles deadly? Yes or no? The death rate from measles.
0:38.2	The exchange quickly devolves into crosstalk, but at the end of it, before Widen's time expires,
0:44.0	Kennedy said this.
0:45.4	We need to move on.
0:46.0	I support the measles vaccine.
0:48.4	I support the polio vaccine.
0:50.2	I will do nothing as HHS secretary.
0:53.7	That makes it difficult or discourages people from taking either of those vaccines.
0:57.9	Anybody who believes that on a look at the measles book you wrote saying parents have been misled
1:03.2	into believing that measles is a deadly disease, that's not true.
1:07.5	This exchange is relevant now because the U.S. is in the midst of ongoing measles outbreaks.
1:13.3	More than 700 cases so far this year, three deaths.
1:17.4	As the Secretary of Health and Human Services, Kennedy has said the measles vaccine is the best way to prevent the spread of the disease.
1:25.3	He reiterated that in an interview last week with CBS News.
1:29.5	The federal government's position, my position is people should get the measles vaccine.
1:33.9	But in the same interview, he raised false doubts about vaccines.
1:38.6	Right now, we don't know there is of many of these products because they're not safety tests.
	...

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