Washington D.C. – As reported by CNN: “The fast-growing measles outbreak in South Carolina is now the largest in the United States since the disease was declared eliminated in this country more than two decades ago. With 789 cases reported as of Tuesday, the South Carolina outbreak surpassed a massive outbreak in Texas and neighboring states, which reached 762 cases before it ended in August last year. Two children died during the outbreak in Texas.”
94 percent of measles cases in 2026 so far acknowledged by the CDC have been among the unvaccinated or those with unknown vaccine status, while 86 percent of the infections have impacted patients 19 and under. The woefully inept response from the anti-vax Trump administration to this worsening public health crisis has ranged from simply ignoring it, to callously brushing off the prospect of the U.S. losing its measles elimination status as “just a cost of doing business with our borders,” to further questioning the necessity of not only the measles vaccine but the polio vaccine too that has prevented paralysis in generations of American children.
“It’s called cause and effect. There’s a direct and bright line from RFK Jr using his power and influence to spread unfounded anti-vaccine information, to the U.S. now suffering through the worst measles outbreak in decades,” said Kayla Hancock, Director of Public Health Watch, a project of Protect Our Care. “Trump’s health secretary set out to prove that lower vaccination rates will somehow magically make America healthier, but his twisted experiment using our children as guinea pigs is failing miserably, and costing families dearly. Other than resign in disgrace, the least Secretary Kennedy can do to keep more children from contracting a preventable disease is to aggressively promote the use of vaccines that credible science has proven safe and effective, including the measles, hep B, and polio shots.”
Previously From Public Health Watch:
- Rhetoric vs. Reality: RFK Jr’s USA Today Interview a Master Class in Misinformation to Detriment of Public Health
- RFK Jr.’s Handpicked ACIP Chair Also Wants to Make Polio Great Again While Measles Crisis Worsens Under Anti-Vax Trump Administration
- Warnings Projected Onto Trump HHS Building, ‘Measles HQ’ and ‘RFK Jr.: Making America Sick Again’
- VIDEO: RFK Jr. Owns Measles Crisis: HI Gov. Green, Dr. Daskalakis, Dr. Annie Andrews Implore Anti-Vax Trump Health Secretary to Stop Making Matters Worse
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