Kennedy downplays immunity from vaccination as measles outbreak grows

Cases in the ongoing measles outbreak have risen to 258 across Texas, New Mexico and Oklahoma, and state health departments are urging more people to get the measles-mumps-rubella vaccine.

Cases in the ongoing measles outbreak have risen to 258 across Texas, New Mexico and Oklahoma, and state health departments are urging more people to get the measles-mumps-rubella vaccine. In an interview with Fox News that aired Tuesday, US Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said that “people ought to be able to make that choice for themselves. And what we need to do is give them the best information and encourage them to vaccinate. The vaccine does stop the spread of the disease.” But Kennedy also downplayed the safety of the vaccine and wrongly told Fox News’ Sean Hannity that measles outbreaks could be driven in part by people who have waning immunity from the vaccine. “When you and I were kids, everybody got measles, and measles gave you … lifetime protection against measles infection. The vaccine doesn’t do that. The vaccine is effective for some people for life, but for many people, it wanes,” Kennedy told Hannity. “Some years, we have hundreds of these outbreaks. … And, you know, part of that is that there are people who don’t vaccinate, but also the vaccine itself wanes. The vaccine wanes 4.5% per year,” he said. But Dr. Paul Offit, director of the Vaccine Education Center at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, says that if that were the case, measles wouldn’t have been declared eliminated in the US in 2000.