WASHINGTON — Late Wednesday, Rep. Kim Schrier (D-Wash.) tore into Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. for downplaying a child’s death in a measles outbreak in Texas, saying she blames Kennedy for the tragedy because of his long record of spreading disinformation about vaccines.
State health officials confirmed Wednesday that an unvaccinated child in rural West Texas had died amid the outbreak, becoming the first U.S. death from measles since 2015. Measles is highly contagious but preventable with vaccines. Asked later in the same day about the unnamed child’s death during the first Cabinet meeting of President Donald Trump’s new administration, Kennedy said only that measles outbreaks are “not unusual” and that “we have measles outbreaks every year.”
Schrier, who is a pediatrician, said she was stunned by Kennedy’s response.
“He’s full of, you can put four letters there,” she told HuffPost. “Starts with an ‘S.’”
The fact that a child has died from a vaccine-preventable disease is “devastating,” Schrier said. “And by the way, I do blame him and others like him who, for the past 20 years, have been spreading lies about vaccines, which are safe and effective. And that has been proven time and again. This is settled science.”
A spokesperson for the Department of Health and Human Services did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
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As of Tuesday, the Texas Department of State Health Services has reported 124 cases of measles since late January, the largest outbreak the state has seen in nearly 30 years. The vast majority of these cases are children, and all but five of these cases are in people who are unvaccinated or with an unknown vaccination status.
Measles vaccines were first developed in the 1960s and then combined with vaccines for mumps and rubella in the 1970s. Measles was considered eradicated in the U.S. in 2000. But there have been outbreaks from time to time, and Schrier said it is because of people like Kennedy, who has a high profile and has denigrated vaccines dozens of times.
He has repeatedly promoted the false claim that vaccines cause autism, something he did as recently as 2023 in a Fox News interview. In a podcast interview that same year, Kennedy said, “There’s no vaccine that is safe and effective.” In 2021, he urged people to “resist” guidelines issued by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on when children should get vaccinated.
During a 2019 measles epidemic in Samoa that left 80 children dead, Kennedy wrote to the country’s prime minister, falsely claiming the measles vaccine was probably causing the deaths.
“People like him keep telling vulnerable parents that there’s something wrong with vaccines,” Schrier said. “They are preying on these parents, and that has a direct line to the death of this child.”
The Washington state congresswoman also took aim at senators who voted this month to confirm Kennedy to his powerful post atop HHS, despite knowing he spent decades rejecting science and pushing conspiracies about childhood vaccines causing autism. Kennedy was confirmed on a party-line vote, except for one Republican who voted no: Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), a childhood polio survivor.
Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.), who is a physician and chairs the Senate’s top health committee, briefly waffled on whether he would support Kennedy’s nomination. He specifically raised concerns about Kennedy’s record of spreading lies about vaccine safety. But in the end, he supported him.
A Cassidy spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment about Kennedy downplaying the measles epidemic in Texas.
“Every Republican senator who voted to confirm him as secretary of Health and Human Services knew that this was going to happen,” Schrier said, referring to the child who died from measles.
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Scientists are already on edge about the possibility of Kennedy using his position to sow doubts about vaccines. On Wednesday, a panel of scientific experts that advises the Food and Drug Administration on vaccine policy learned that its upcoming meeting to discuss next year’s flu vaccines had been canceled. No reason was given.
Schrier said measles is “one of the most contagious diseases I have ever dealt with” as a pediatrician. The Texas outbreak is particularly worrisome, she noted, as it has spread into New Mexico and has health officials on high alert in Louisiana ― Cassidy’s home state.
“There have been outbreaks, but this is a big one,” she said. “And [Kennedy] has contributed to it.”