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\u2019t been \u201csafety tested\u201d and its protection is short-lived.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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 \u201cmost effective way\u201d to prevent the virus\u2019 spread.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In an interview<\/a> 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<\/a> for measles, which kills almost 3 out of every 1,000 people<\/a> diagnosed. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Many medical experts have taken issue with his approach<\/a> to the current measles outbreak, which has included emphasizing unproven treatments<\/a> and framing vaccination as a personal choice (which some doctors view as a nod to his anti-vaccine supporters). <\/p>\n\n\n\n Kennedy also suggested that measles cases are inevitable in the United States because of ebbing immunity from vaccines \u2014 a notion doctors say is false. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe\u2019re always going to have measles, no matter what happens, as the vaccine wanes very quickly,\u201d Kennedy said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Dr. Paul Offit, director of the Vaccine Education Center at Children\u2019s Hospital of Philadelphia, said two doses of the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine offer lifelong protection. That\u2019s because the vaccine stimulates the production of memory cells, he said, which can recognize the virus over a lifetime.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe eliminated measles from this country. That could never happen if immunity waned,\u201d said Offit, who serves on an independent vaccine advisory committee for the FDA.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Aside from occasional outbreaks, measles hasn\u2019t been constantly present in the United States since before 2000. It is introduced locally by international travelers, and from there it can spread among undervaccinated communities. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe federal government\u2019s position is, my position is, people should get the measles vaccine. But the government should not be mandating those,\u201d Kennedy told CBS News. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The federal government doesn\u2019t mandate childhood vaccines; rather, all 50 states require them for children attending public school. The FDA approves vaccines based on safety and efficacy, and the CDC makes recommendations about who should get them, which states often choose to follow. <\/p>\n\n\n\n According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, all 50 states have exemptions to vaccine mandates<\/a> for medical reasons, and all but five have additional exemptions for other reasons, such as religious or personal objections.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The current outbreak was fueled by transmission in a primarily Mennonite community in Gaines County, Texas, where vaccine hesitancy is prevalent. There have been 668 total cases since January, according to NBC News\u2019 tally, including two pediatric deaths and one suspected death in an unvaccinated adult<\/a>. Before those deaths, the United States hadn\u2019t had a measles death in a decade, and a child hadn\u2019t died of measles<\/a> since 2003.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Kennedy has pointed to higher case numbers in Europe<\/a> as evidence that the United States is responding appropriately to the outbreak. But the figure he has cited recently \u2014 roughly 127,000 measles cases in Europe \u2014 is the total for last year across 53 countries<\/a>. Low vaccination rates in southeastern Europe were a major contributor, according to the World Health Organization.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cHe has this way of kind of twisting things,\u201d said Dr. William Moss, director of the Johns Hopkins International Vaccine Access Center. \u201cWe should be comparing measles in the United States this year to measles in the United States and prior years. To say Europe has more cases over one year than we\u2019ve had in three months this year, it\u2019s just a false comparison.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n This year\u2019s count in the United States is the highest since 2019<\/a>, when there was a major outbreak in Orthodox Jewish communities in New York. Doctors fear the United States could be on the verge of losing its measles elimination status<\/a> as Kennedy continues to sow doubt about vaccine safety.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cRight now we don\u2019t know the risks of many of these products because they\u2019re not safety tested,\u201d Kennedy told CBS News. \u201cMany of the vaccines are only tested for three or four days with no placebo group.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Dr. Ofer Levy, director of the precision vaccines program at Boston Children\u2019s Hospital, said vaccine development usually takes 10 to 20 years, with the notable exception of Covid shots, which were brought to market in less than a year thanks to mRNA technology and a coordinated, worldwide effort. (Even then, the foundational research behind mRNA vaccines<\/a> dates to 1997.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n When it comes to childhood immunizations, many of which were approved decades ago, there may not have been placebo controls or long-term safety follow-ups for each one, Levy said. However, he noted that even after vaccines are approved, various government-led surveillance systems monitor for adverse reactions. And in the rare case they find anything<\/a>, that vaccine is pulled from the market, he added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Moss agreed that the types of clinical trials for vaccines have changed over time. However, \u201cI don\u2019t think there\u2019s any other product we use that\u2019s more rigorously evaluated for both safety and efficacy,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Offit said Kennedy \u201cjust keeps picking and picking\u201d at vaccine safety with statements that aren\u2019t scientifically valid \u2014 for instance, by suggesting that all childhood vaccines weren\u2019t tested against placebos<\/a>, when, in fact, many were.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe problem with RFK Jr. is his definition of \u2018placebo,\u2019\u201d Offit said. \u201cHis definition of placebo is either water or saline, meaning just normal sodium chloride, but that\u2019s not the FDA\u2019s definition. The FDA\u2019s definition is something that\u2019s inert.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n A spokesperson for the Department of Health and Human Services said Kennedy \u201craised valid concerns about vaccine trial practices, including the use of active comparators instead of inert placebos and short observation windows \u2014 issues backed by public data.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n But doctors said there\u2019s a legitimate reason to use active comparators \u2014 vaccines that have already been approved for given infections \u2014 instead of placebos: It would be unethical to withhold the benefit of a vaccine from study participants, so trials often test new vaccines against older versions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Levy said there\u2019s always room for more safety studies or longer-term follow-up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI think the secretary is right that we could do more to study vaccine safety,\u201d he said. \u201cBy all means, let\u2019s dig in. Let\u2019s see, did we miss anything? Should we learn more? But let\u2019s not forget that these vaccines in childhood have averted severe disease in children.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n