
RFK Jr. said measles outbreaks are ‘not unusual’ in the US. Doctors say he’s wrong
CNN
When Health and Human Services Sec. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Kennedy answered questions during the first cabinet meeting of the new Trump administration, he incorrectly described the number of people who died in a West Texas measles outbreak and the reason people were hospitalized.
When Health and Human Services Sec. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Kennedy answered questions during the first cabinet meeting of the new Trump administration, he incorrectly described the number of people who died in a West Texas measles outbreak and the reason people were hospitalized. Measles outbreaks are “not unusual,” Kennedy said. Doctors say that was wrong, too. “Classifying it as ‘not unusual’ would be inaccurate,” said Dr. Christina Johns, a pediatric emergency physician at PM Pediatrics in Annapolis, Maryland. “Usually [an outbreak] is in the order of a handful, not over 100 people that that we have seen recently with this latest outbreak in West Texas.” “This is not usual,” said Dr. Philip Huang, director of the Dallas County Health and Human Services Department. “Fortunately, it’s not usual, and it’s been because of the effectiveness of the vaccine.” “The United States had really gotten to a point where we just didn’t see these kinds of outbreaks happening,” Dr. Lara Johnson, the chief medical officer of Covenant Health Lubbock Service Area, said at a news conference after the first death in the West Texas outbreak, the first measles death in the US in a decade. “Obviously, that has changed over the last 20 something years, and so we do see outbreaks more frequently, but that that is related to how much we’re vaccinating our population.”

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