美国卫生与公众服务部部长小罗伯特·F·肯尼迪首次就西德克萨斯和新墨西哥爆发的麻疹疫情发表公开评论。他是一位著名的疫苗怀疑论者，他抗击疫情的第一步将受到密切关注。他说，他的部门每天都在监控局势，但称之为“不寻常”
“顺便提一下，今年这个国家已经爆发了四次麻疹。去年有16个。因此，这并不罕见，我们每年都有麻疹爆发，”肯尼迪周三在白宫说。
然而，一些公共卫生专家很快指出，德克萨斯州的爆发无视美国近年来高度传染性疾病的历史。
在此次疫情爆发之前，自2015年以来，美国没有出现因麻疹死亡的病例。2000年，在美国实施两剂疫苗计划多年后，美国宣布消灭麻疹，这意味着该疾病已经停止在美国传播。
只是在最近几年，病例和疫情才开始上升，据资料显示来自疾病控制和预防中心。
根据疾病预防控制中心的最新数据，西德克萨斯州和新墨西哥州的疫情已经接近去年全国总病例的一半，当时至少有285例麻疹病例，这也是自2019年以来的最高数字。
虽然去年爆发了16次，但这是2023年爆发次数的四倍，当时只有4次爆发。美国已经接近2023年的数字，距离2025年仅两个月。
疫苗教育中心主任、费城儿童医院传染病科主治医师保罗·奥菲特(Paul Offit)博士称，肯尼迪关于麻疹病例“每年”都会发生的评论，是试图将一场绝不正常的疫情正常化。
“首先，我们在2000年之前在这个国家消灭了麻疹。麻疹卷土重来的原因是，有很大比例的父母选择不为他们的孩子接种疫苗，因为他们从像他和他的孩子的健康防御这样的人那里得到了错误的信息和虚假的信息，”奥菲特告诉ABC新闻。
肯尼迪创立的儿童健康保护组织反对推荐的儿童疫苗接种计划。
奥菲特说:“他这样做是很不合理的，但他有点儿圆滑地说，嗯，麻疹爆发每年都会发生——关键是它们根本不一定会发生，因为我们已经证明我们可以消除这种疾病。”
ABC新闻就小RFK的评论联系了HHS。
根据美国疾病预防控制中心的数据，过去几年病例和疫情的增加与全国幼儿园儿童麻疹疫苗接种覆盖率从2019-2020学年的95.2%下降到2023-2024学年的92.7%相吻合，这使约28万幼儿园儿童面临风险。
在担任HHS国务卿之前，Kennedy说，麻疹疫苗对预防麻疹有效，但他也暗示没有必要，因为死于麻疹的人通常都营养不良或患有其他共病。
“麻疹疫苗肯定会消除麻疹，或者，你知道，接近消除麻疹，”肯尼迪在2022年说。
但是他继续质疑这种疾病的致命性。
“1963年，每年只有400名儿童死于这种疾病。他们主要是营养不良或患有其他严重并发症的孩子，”肯尼迪说。“那些是垂死的孩子。”
肯尼迪还质疑，2019年萨摩亚有83人死亡，其中大多数是幼儿，是由麻疹引起的，尽管有广泛的证据表明，死亡是由于美国领土上疫苗接种不足引起的疾病爆发造成的。
“萨摩亚没有人死于麻疹。他们死于劣质疫苗，”肯尼迪去年告诉一位采访者。
德克萨斯州儿童医院疫苗开发中心的联合主任、贝勒医学院国家热带医学院院长彼得·霍特兹博士说，美国20%的麻疹儿童需要住院治疗，通常是因为麻疹肺炎、麻疹腹泻、麻疹脑炎或麻疹耳炎引起的耳聋，这是一种耳部感染，其中许多都可能危及生命。
“这是一个很坏很坏的演员。我真的很担心这件事会继续加速和扩大，”霍特兹周三晚上在MSNBC接受采访时说。
西德克萨斯的医生描述了在治疗一种他们认为已经成为过去的疾病时的震惊和恐惧。
“这是我第一次有麻疹爆发的专业经验，”拉腊·约翰逊博士告诉美国广播公司新闻，她是拉伯克圣约儿童和圣约健康的儿科医生兼首席医疗官，目前正在治疗西德克萨斯州爆发的麻疹患者。
她说:“我在医学院的时候，非常短暂地看到过一个与旅行有关的病例，但当时，大约在2000年，我们真的认为我们已经在美国根除了麻疹，没有想到会在这里爆发任何疫情。”
德克萨斯州的疫情是未接种疫苗社区面临风险的一个主要例子。在过去几年里，疫情中心盖恩斯县的儿童疫苗豁免量大幅增加。2013年，大约7.5%的幼儿园儿童申请了至少一种疫苗的豁免。10年后，这一数字上升到17.5%以上——州卫生数据显示，这是德克萨斯州最高的数字之一。
随着应对德克萨斯州和新墨西哥州疫情的工作继续进行，预计病例将大幅增加，霍特兹和奥菲特等公共卫生专家表示，他们正在关注作为国家卫生部门领导人的肯尼迪，以鼓励迅速监测和广泛接种疫苗。
奥菲特说:“我希望他对美国公众说，有一种安全的方法来防止这些疫情的发生，这样我们就不会发生像刚刚在西德克萨斯州发生的悲剧。”“医学中有太多你不知道的东西。我们不能做的事情太多了。这我们知道。这一点我们可以做到。”
Some experts question RFK Jr. calling measles outbreak 'not unusual'
In his first public comments on the measles outbreak hitting West Texas and New Mexico,Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a prominent vaccine skeptic whose first steps in combatting the outbreak will be closely watched, said his department was monitoring the situation daily but called it "not unusual."
"Incidentally, there have been four measles outbreaks this year in this country. Last year there were 16. So, it's not unusual, we have measles outbreaks every year," Kennedy said Wednesday at the White House.
However, some public health experts were quick to point out that the outbreak in Texas has defied America's recent history with the highly contagious disease.
Prior to this outbreak, the U.S. had not seen a death from measles since 2015. And in 2000, years after the U.S. implemented a two-dose vaccine schedule, measles was declared eliminated from the U.S., meaning that the disease had stopped spreading within the country.
Only in recent years have cases and outbreaks been rising,according to datafrom the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The outbreak in West Texas and New Mexico is already drawing close to the halfway mark of total cases seen nationally last year, when there were at least 285 cases of measles – which were also the highest numbers since 2019, according to the CDC's latest figures.
And while there were 16 outbreaks last year, that was a four-time increase from the number of outbreaks in 2023, when there were just four outbreaks. The U.S. has nearly hit that 2023 number already, just two months into 2025.
Dr. Paul Offit, director of the Vaccine Education Center and an attending physician in the Division of Infectious Diseases at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, called Kennedy's comments about measles cases happening "every year" an attempt to normalize an outbreak that has been anything but normal.
"First of all, we eliminated measles from this country by the year 2000. The reason measles have come back is because a critical percentage of parents have chosen not to vaccinate their children, because they've gotten misinformation and disinformation
Children's Health Defense, a group founded by Kennedy, advocates against the recommended vaccine schedule for children.
"It's unconscionable enough that he's done that, but that he sort of glibly says, well, measles outbreaks occur every year — the point is they don't have to occur at all, because we've shown we could eliminate this disease," Offit said.
ABC News has reached out to HHS about RFK Jr.'s comments.
The increase in cases and outbreaks over the last few years coincides with decreasing vaccination coverage for measles among kindergarteners nationally from 95.2% during the 2019-2020 school year to 92.7% in the 2023-2024 school year – leaving about 280,000 kindergartners at risk, according to the CDC.
Kennedy, prior to taking his role as HHS secretary, said the measles vaccine is effective at preventing measles, but has also suggested that it's not necessary because people who die from measles are typically malnourished or have other comorbidities.
"The measles vaccine definitely eliminates measles, or, you know, close to eliminates it," Kennedy said in 2022.
But he went on to question the deadliness of the disease.
"In 1963, it was killing only 400 kids a year. Mainly, they were kids who had malnutrition, or had some other devastating co-morbidity," Kennedy said. "Those were the kids who were dying."
Kennedy has also questioned that the deaths of 83 people – mostly young children – in Samoa in 2019 were caused by measles, despite widespread evidence that the deaths were due to an outbreak of the disease caused by under-vaccination in the American territory.
"Nobody died in Samoa from measles. They were dying from a bad vaccine," Kennedy told an interviewer last year.
Twenty percent of kids with measles in the U.S. require hospitalization, said Dr. Peter Hotez, co-director of the Texas Children's Hospital Center for Vaccine Development and dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine, often for measles pneumonia, measles diarrhea, measles encephalitis or deafness from measles otitis, an ear infection — many of which can be life-threatening conditions.
"This is a bad, bad actor. And I'm really concerned that this thing is continuing to accelerate and expand," Hotez said Wednesday night in an interview on MSNBC.
Doctors in West Texas have described shock and fear over treatingng a disease they thought was something of the past.
"This is the first time I've had any professional experience with a measles outbreak," Dr. Lara Johnson, pediatrician and Chief Medical Officer at Covenant Children's and Covenant Health in Lubbock, who is currently treating measles patients from the outbreak in West Texas, told ABC news.
"I saw one travel-related case when I was in medical school, very briefly, but at that time, back in around 2000, we really thought that we'd eradicated measles from the United States and didn't have any anticipation of seeing any outbreaks here," she said.
The outbreak in Texas is a prime example of the risk posed to unvaccinated communities. Vaccine exemptions among children in Gaines County, the epicenter of the outbreak, have grown dramatically in the past few years. Roughly 7.5% of kindergarteners had filed an exemption for at least one vaccine in 2013. 10 years later, that number rose to over 17.5% – one of the highest in all of Texas, state health data shows.
As the response to the outbreak in Texas and New Mexico continues, with cases expected to significantly rise, public health experts like Hotez and Offit say they're watching Kennedy, as leader of the nation's health department, to encourage swift surveillance and widespread vaccination.
"I want him to say to the American public that there's a safe way to prevent these outbreaks from happening so that we don't have the tragedy like what just happened in West Texas," Offit said. "There's so much in medicine you don't know. There's so much we can't do. This we know. This we can do."
