Robert F. Kennedy Jr., head of the Department of Health and Human Services, downplayed the seriousness of an ongoing measles outbreak in Texas, falsely claiming that people had been hospitalized “mainly for quarantine” and misleadingly stating that the situation is “not unusual.” The Texas outbreak is already larger than any single outbreak last year and has led to the first measles death in the U.S. since 2015.
Kennedy’s remarks on Feb. 26 were his first public comments about the outbreak, which appears to have already spread to New Mexico. During a Cabinet meeting, a reporter asked President Donald Trump whether he was concerned, given news earlier in the day that an unvaccinated school-aged child had died from the viral disease. Trump asked Kennedy, who was in the room, to respond.
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Offit said the typical death rate from measles is about 1 in 1,000. It could be a fluke, but such a high death rate at this point in the outbreak could mean that it is much bigger than is being recognized.
This is what’s really scary to me. Quite early in the pandemic Trump said we should stop testing for it to make the cases go down. We should absolutely believe in his second term he will do everything he can to implement that idea, especially with RFK Jr. at the helm of HHS. It’ll start with us hearing about the resurgence of many diseases we had eliminated from the US through vaccines. And then we’ll stop hearing about it, at least from government officials.
The next step after that is anyone’s guess, but if they follow the route Florida took during the COVID pandemic, they’ll start persecuting scientists who try to independently do the job the government is abdicating.
good job using “minimizes” instead of “downplays” in the title, wouldn’t want to make it more difficult for illiterate right-wing voters to feel validated about him or anything
