As U.S. Measles Cases Hit a 35-Year High and Unvaccinated Children Died, the Health Secretary Trump Installed Over His Lifetime of Anti-Vaccine Activism — Robert F. Kennedy Jr. — Used His Office to Spread Debunked Falsehoods That the Measles Vaccine "Kills People Every Year" and Causes "Blindness and Deafness," and Suggested Two Pennsylvania Measles Deaths Had Been "Fabricated"
The United States is living through its worst measles outbreak in 35 years — 2,777 confirmed cases as of August 20, 2026, already eclipsing 2025's record with months to go, more than 5,000 since January 2025, and over 90% of cases among the unvaccinated. People are dying: three deaths nationally this year, including two children, all unvaccinated, with two of the deaths in Pennsylvania — that state's first measles deaths in 35 years — one of them a newborn baby in Lancaster County. Public-health experts trace the collapse in vaccination directly to the vaccine skepticism of the man Trump installed to run the nation's health, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a lifelong anti-vaccine activist. And rather than use the outbreak to urge vaccination — the single measure that would stop it — Kennedy has used his official standing to spread demonstrably false claims: on Fox News he asserted that the "measles vaccine kills people every year," that it "causes blindness and deafness," and that it "causes the same symptoms as measles," all of which are contradicted by decades of overwhelming evidence that the MMR vaccine is safe and highly effective. He went further, suggesting the two Pennsylvania deaths "may even have been altogether fabricated" by Governor Josh Shapiro or his staff. The official whose core job is to protect Americans' health is instead undermining the vaccine that would save lives, during an outbreak killing children — a catastrophe Trump made possible by handing him the department.