Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said two died in measles outbreak. His agency says it was only one.

WASHINGTON – Sitting in the Cabinet Room of the White House during his first public appearance as the nation’s top health official on Wednesday, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said two people had died in an ongoing measles outbreak in Texas.

But national and local health officials − including the Department of Health and Human Services, the agency Kennedy heads − say only one person has died. The White House and health officials aren’t answering questions about the discrepancy.

A vaccine skeptic who founded the anti-vaccine group Children’s Health Defense, Kennedy also said at the same briefing that the measles outbreak was “not unusual.”

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said the one known death – a school-age child – is the first measles fatality in the U.S. since 2015. The child was not vaccinated, according to Texas health officials.

“We are following the measles epidemic every day. I think there’s 124 people who have contracted measles at this point, mainly in Gaines County, Texas, mainly, we’re told in the Mennonite community,” Kennedy said. “There are two people who have died, but we’re watching it.”

Kennedy said the latest outbreak is not out of the ordinary.

“Incidentally, there have been four measles outbreaks this year in this country,” he said. “Last year, there were 16. So it’s not unusual. We have measles outbreaks every year.”

So far,124 cases have been identified since late January, according to the Texas Department of Health. Out of those, only five people were vaccinated. The rest are unvaccinated, or their vaccination status is unknown. The outbreak in Gaines County, home to a large Mennonite community – whose members take religious exemptions from vaccinations – was the most pronounced, with 80 people infected.

Doctors want a different message

Dr. Manan Trivedi, an internist practicing in greater Washington D.C. area, was among the throngs of people who attended Kennedy’s contentious confirmation hearings to oppose his nomination. Kennedy’s measles comments, he said, should be different.

“The message here should be ‘get your children vaccinated — measles is deadly, it’s highly contagious, but it’s preventable with an extremely proven, effective vaccine’,” he said.

He also said the magnitude of the spread makes it “highly unusual.”

In 2023, for instance, there were only four outbreaks. The resurgence of measles, which was officially eliminated from the United States in 2000, points to lower parental vaccine confidence and local pockets of unvaccinated and under-vaccinated individuals, according to the paper published by the National Institutes of Health, which falls under HHS.

Laura Anderko, a registered nurse, from Annandale, Virginia, who holds a Ph.D. in public health and has 40 years of experience, said Kennedy was “dangerously uninformed.”

“When you look at the trends over time, you’ll notice the majority of kids getting measles are unvaccinated,” she said.

Contributing: Eduardo Cuevas

Swapna Venugopal Ramaswamy is a White House Correspondent for USA TODAY. You can follow her on X @SwapnaVenugopal

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Robert F. Kennedy, in first measles comments, says outbreak not unusual

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