First measles death reported in Texas as Kennedy downplays the outbreak
Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on Wednesday appeared to downplay the seriousness of the West Texas measles outbreak that has killed a school-age child.
The child’s death, the first from the disease in a decade in the United States, was confirmed by Katherine Wells, director of public health at the health department in Lubbock, Texas. The child had not been vaccinated against the measles.
The outbreak has so far infected at least 124 people — mostly children — in rural West Texas.
The Texas Measles Outbreak Is Even Scarier Than It Looks
The news that an outbreak in Texas has caused the nation’s first confirmed measles death in a decade — an unvaccinated child — is as unsurprising as it is tragic. Spreading largely in rural Mennonite communities that typically have low vaccination rates, the outbreak has already grown to at least 146 cases since late January. Almost all of them are children.
Parents whose children got infected but survived are no doubt grateful that their family was spared. But startling research about the virus unfortunately tells a new and very different story, recasting what was previously known about how measles works and making clear why the Trump administration’s approach to vaccines is nowhere even close to meeting the moment.