On Tuesday, Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was in Phoenix on his "Make America Healthy Again" tour. And he took questions from local reporters.
One reporter asked: “Hi Secretary, I wanted to know what your strategy is for stopping the measles outbreak in Texas that continues to grow?”
Kennedy responded: “Our strategy has been very successful. There are 640 cases now in Texas. The number continues to grow by the day, but the growth rate of the measles ... or 640 nationwide [and] about 440 in Texas.”
Actually, on the day of this event the measles count in Texas was 505. Getting this number right matters because he’s about to make more erroneous claims using these numbers.
Kennedy then said, “The growth rate has diminished substantially. I would compare it to what's happening in Europe now where ... we've had 640 cases here, they've had 127,000 cases and 37 deaths and so what we're doing right here in the United States is a model for the rest of the world.”
The growth rate of measles in the West Texas outbreak has not diminished substantially. That Tuesday measles number of 505 cases was a 24-case jump from the Texas Health and Human Services official number released on Friday April 4, with 481 confirmed cases and at least 59 new infections.
And on Friday, April 11, the number of reported cases jumped again by 36 to 541.
That’s a massive jump in the spread. Also, this week Texas, as part of the ongoing measles outbreak response, added new counties to the designated outbreak area.
And more importantly, Texas added another fatality to the measles toll.
Back to that MAHA event and the reporters asking questions. That reporter who asked about measles was not appreciated by the event organizers. It became clear that Kennedy did not want to talk about measles or the MMR vaccine.
The moderator of the event chastised the reporter saying, “Please make sure that the questions are relevant to the topic of the conversation today thank you,” and they called the next reporter who is from the Associated Press.
Then that reporter took a turn: “Thanks, Mr. Secretary. You said on Sunday that the MMR vaccine is the best way to prevent spread of. ...” He didn’t get a chance to finish his question and was shouted down.
Moderator: “Sir I'm going to I'm going to go ahead and cut you off right there because we're here to talk about what we are doing for these kids.”
Other people in the room also began to shout at the reporter: “No, no, no!”
The reporter tried to finish his question “Next CDC ... will the CDC be doing an effort on the ground in West Texas?”
The moderator: “Thank you very much, thank you, thank you.”
One person could be heard saying about the reporter, “He should be kicked out.”
The U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services was unwilling to answer questions about how he is dealing with a measles outbreak.
This event in Phoenix came just two days after Kennedy was in West Texas to attend the funeral of the latest measles fatality.
Tom Barlett is a reporter for The Atlantic Monthly magazine and wrote about that Kennedy visit.
He reports that Kennedy continued to spread anti-vaccination disinformation to the family of the child who just died of measles.
The Cost of an outbreak
There is a conversation to be had about how much dealing with a measles outbreak costs.
With two Texas deaths and one in New Mexico associated with the current outbreak, the health implications of measles are evident; perhaps less obvious is the economic burden when a child become infected and there are complications. And then there is an intense response to stop the spread. The costs add up.
Dr. Maria Sundaram is an infectious disease epidemiologist and researcher at Marshfield Clinic Research Institute.
