Longtime Anti-Vaxxer RFK Jr. Writes ‘Call to Action’ as Measles Outbreak Grips Texas

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Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a longtime vaccine skeptic and now President Donald Trump’s Secretary of Health and Human Services, is voicing “deep concern” as Texas grapples with a deadly measles outbreak.

Kennedy penned a “call to action” in the form of an opinion editorial on Fox News Digital on Sunday over the spread of the disease, marking a stark departure from his downplaying of outbreaks as “not unusual” just last week.

The move comes as measles cases surge in Texas, where state health officials have reported 146 infections since late January, including the country’s first measles-related death in a decade.

The outbreak has been concentrated in a Mennonite community, where vaccination rates are low.

Kennedy, who has previously promoted widely circulated theories linking vaccines to autism, struck a different tone in his Fox News piece, writing: “Vaccines not only protect individual children from measles, but also contribute to community immunity, protecting those who are unable to be vaccinated due to medical reasons.”

He added that vaccination is “a personal decision.”

While Kennedy acknowledged that measles was once widespread in the U.S., he cited historical data on infection rates and fatalities to reinforce the importance of vaccines. Before the introduction of the MMR shot, he noted, “virtually every child” contracted measles, with hundreds dying annually.

The CDC warns that one in five unvaccinated patients who contract the illness ends up hospitalized, while one in 20 children with the virus develops pneumonia.