Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. called for people to get the measles vaccine while in the same breath falsely claiming it hasn’t been “safety tested” and its protection is short-lived.
Kennedy, an anti-vaccine activist now overseeing federal health agencies, including the Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, had shied away from a full-throated endorsement of measles vaccinations, instead claiming the vaccine is the “most effective way” to prevent the virus’ spread.
In an interview Wednesday with CBS News, Kennedy said the Trump administration was focused on finding ways to treat people who choose not to get vaccinated. However, there are no approved treatments for measles, which kills almost 3 out of every 1,000 people diagnosed.
Many medical experts have taken issue with his approach to the current measles outbreak, which has included emphasizing unproven treatments and framing vaccination as a personal choice (which some doctors view as a nod to his anti-vaccine supporters).
Kennedy also suggested that measles cases are inevitable in the United States because of ebbing immunity from vaccines — a notion doctors say is false.
“We’re always going to have measles, no matter what happens, as the vaccine wanes very quickly,” Kennedy said.
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