RFK Jr. Tells Parents to Get the Measles Vaccine After US Cases Hit a 35-Year High

Measles is spreading in the US at a rate not seen since 1991. The CDC confirmed 2,371 cases so far this year as of its most recent weekly update, already surpassing the 2,289 cases recorded in all of 2025. Put the last two years together and the US has logged more measles infections than the rest of the 21st century combined, according to the CDC's data as reported by CIDRAP's Lisa Schnirring.

Thirty-seven separate outbreaks have been reported this year. Of the confirmed cases, 94% are tied to those outbreaks, and all but 16 were locally acquired across 45 US jurisdictions, meaning this isn't primarily a story about travelers bringing measles in from abroad. It's spreading person to person on American soil. The CDC has warned the country risks losing its measles elimination status, a designation it has held since 2000.

Against that backdrop, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. appeared on CNN's "State of the Union" Sunday and, under direct pressure from host Dana Bash, told parents to vaccinate their children. "Parents should get their children vaccinated for measles. A measles vaccine is effective, it stops measles in about 97% of the cases. People should get vaccinated," Kennedy said, according to The Guardian. He also endorsed the combined MMR shot specifically.

The measles vaccine is one of the most effective vaccines ever developed, and two doses provide roughly 97% protection according to CDC figures cited in the interview. Parents who are unsure should talk to their pediatrician, not social media.

Kennedy is the same man who has spent close to two decades as one of the country's most visible vaccine skeptics, including specifically targeting the MMR shot with claims that have been repeatedly debunked. He now runs the agency responsible for the nation's vaccine policy and public health messaging. When Bash asked him directly whether he bears any responsibility for the current outbreak, he said: "Absolutely not." He instead pointed to religious communities that decline vaccination and to global health conditions.

Vaccine hesitancy in specific religious and cultural communities is real and documented, and it has driven several of the outbreaks CDC has tracked, including clusters in Texas and other states this year. Kennedy isn't wrong that localized refusal is a direct driver of transmission. But that fact doesn't erase the years he spent as chairman of Children's Health Defense, an organization that promoted the thoroughly discredited claim linking the MMR vaccine to autism, or the skepticism he continued to voice even after taking over HHS. Local vaccine refusal spreads measles, and a health secretary with a long public record of undermining confidence in that exact vaccine doesn't get a clean pass by pointing at other people.

The interview didn't stop at measles. Kennedy also went after Dr. Anthony Fauci by name, blaming him for the toll of Covid-19 and arguing that protecting constitutional rights has to take priority in any future public health response, according to Kaiser Family Foundation's health news summary. Separately, Kennedy confirmed that President Trump wants him to investigate a possible link between vaccines and autism, telling Bash that Trump "certainly" supports the probe, after she asked him about Wall Street Journal reporting on the matter.

No credible, replicated study has found a causal link between vaccines and autism, a fact established across decades of research including a 2019 Danish cohort study of over 650,000 children. If HHS opens a formal review, the question isn't whether Kennedy is allowed to ask it. He runs the department. The question is whether the review is conducted by independent scientists using real data, or becomes another vehicle for the same conclusions Kennedy has been drawing for twenty years regardless of what the evidence shows. No such investigation has been formally launched as of this reporting, and HHS has not released a scope, timeline, or lead investigators.

Meanwhile, on the international side, the US has started rebuilding some global health funding it slashed after Trump took office, sending $600 million to the vaccine alliance Gavi last week, per KFF Health News. That's a partial reversal after roughly eighteen months of cuts to global health partnerships, and it matters because measles doesn't respect borders. Whether Kennedy's domestic message and HHS's funding decisions actually move vaccination rates before more outbreaks hit will be the real test.