By Carole Tanzer Miller HealthDay Reporter
MONDAY, April 7, 2025 (HealthDay News) — The death of a second child in a fast-growing U.S. measles outbreak brought the nation’s top health official to Texas this weekend.
U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. attended the funeral of an 8-year-old girl who died of lung failure caused by measles. She was unvaccinated and had no underlying health conditions, The New York Times reported.
Kennedy spoke with the girl’s family but not during Sunday’s funeral. In a post on X, he said his aim was to console the families quietly and be with the community in its moment of grief.
Then, Kennedy, a longtime vaccine skeptic, added: “The most effective way to prevent the spread of measles is the M.M.R. [measles, mumps, rubella] vaccine.”
He has previously touted vitamin A as a measles remedy, leading to concerns about inappropriate and unsafe use.
More than 600 people in 21 states have been sickened during the current measles outbreak, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Many of those cases are among unvaccinated people — most of them children.
Experts suspect the numbers are much higher because many cases go unreported, according to CNN.
A Trump administration official told The New York Times the Texas child’s cause of death is “still being looked at.”
Sen. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, a physician who cast a key vote in Kennedy’s confirmation, urged him and other top health officials Sunday to address the outbreak.
“Everyone should be vaccinated! There is no treatment for measles. No benefit to getting measles,” he wrote on X. “Top health officials should say so unequivocally b/4 another child dies.”
Kennedy has faced growing criticism of the federal government’s response to the outbreak.
He has ordered a re-examination of a long-debunked claim that the vaccine causes autism. The study will be conducted by a well-known vaccine skeptic.
Dr. Paul Offit, director of the Vaccine Center at Philadelphia Children’s Hospital, told CNN that Kennedy’s response to the outbreak has been “abysmal.” He cited Kennedy’s history of decrying vaccines and minimizing measles’ risks.
“The disease has returned because a critical percentage have chosen not to vaccinate their children, in large part because of misinformation provided by people like RFK Jr.,” he said.
Measles was declared eradicated in the U.S. in 2000 — meaning that more than a year had passed without spread of the disease, according to the CDC. The current outbreak threatens that status.
The MMR shot is recommended for children at 12-15 months of age and between 4 and 6 years of age. Older kids, teens and adults also need one or two doses at least 28 days apart.
More information
There’s a guide to measles vaccination at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
SOURCES: CNN, Sunday, April 6, 2025; The New York Times, April 6, 2025
Copyright © 2025 HealthDay. All rights reserved.
