Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the nation’s health secretary, attended the funeral Sunday of an 8-year-old girl who died of measles amid an outbreak that has burned through the region and called into question his ability to handle a public-health crisis.
The child’s death, at a hospital in Lubbock, Texas, early Thursday, is the second confirmed fatality from measles in a decade in the United States.
The girl died of “measles pulmonary failure,” according to records obtained by The New York Times. The hospital, part of UMC Health System, confirmed the death later Sunday, adding that the girl was unvaccinated and had no underlying health conditions.
Kennedy conferred with the girl’s family but did not speak at the funeral ceremony, according to people in attendance.
“My intention was to come down here quietly to console the families and to be with the community in their moment of grief,” Kennedy said in a message posted on X, formerly Twitter.
“The most effective way to prevent the spread of measles is the MMR vaccine,” he added, referring to the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine.
At the same time, Kennedy has stopped short of recommending universal vaccination in communities where the virus is not spreading.
And he has ordered a reexamination of whether the vaccine causes autism, a claim long ago debunked by research, to be conducted by a well-known vaccine skeptic.
Dressed in black, a crowd gathered Sunday in front of an unmarked church in Seminole, Texas. In an adjacent building, a group of women paced back and forth, some carrying babies in their arms.
Children ran about the parking lot outside, laughing and smiling while a white hearse awaited its departure. In the church, Kennedy spoke with the family before leaving on a narrow rural road but did not make a public statement.
“It’s not as bad as they show in the news,” said a woman in a nearby park, who did not wish to be identified. Children who are vaccinated are “not as healthy,” she added.
The first death in the West Texas outbreak was an unvaccinated child who died in February. Another unvaccinated person died in New Mexico after testing positive for measles, though officials have not confirmed that measles was the cause of death.
Since the outbreak began in late January, West Texas has reported 480 cases of measles and 56 hospitalizations. The outbreak has also spread to bordering states, sickening 54 people in New Mexico and 10 in Oklahoma.
If the virus continues to spread at this pace, the country risks losing its measles elimination status, a hard-fought victory earned in 2000. Public health officials in West Texas said that the outbreak is likely to persist for a year.
Shortly after the 8-year-old’s death, a figure in the anti-vaccine community blamed the death on the hospital, which he claimed had “improperly medically managed” the case.
Children’s Health Defense, an anti-vaccine group that Kennedy helped establish years before he became health secretary, earlier claimed that a “medical error” at a different hospital in Lubbock had led to the state’s first measles death.
These unfounded claims incensed experts, who emphasized that the MMR vaccine is extremely effective at preventing measles infections and their complications.
“These are not medical errors,” said Dr. Michael Osterholm, who is an epidemiologist at the University of Minnesota and a former official in the Department of Health and Human Services. “This sits squarely on the back of anti-vaccine voices that have continued to spread disinformation.”
Kennedy has faced strong criticism for his handling of the outbreak. A prominent vaccine skeptic, he has offered muted support for vaccination and has emphasized untested measles treatments, including cod liver oil.
According to doctors in Texas, Kennedy’s endorsement of alternative treatments has contributed to patients delaying critical care and ingesting toxic levels of vitamin A.
“This is a tragedy, an absolutely needless death,” said Dr. Peter Marks, who was the nation’s top vaccine regulator until he resigned last week from the Food and Drug Administration, in part because of Kennedy’s handling of the measles outbreak.
“To date, the federal response to the ongoing measles outbreak has been inappropriately focused on distracting and ineffective alternatives to the only truly effective prevention — measles vaccine,” he said.
Experts also fear that the Trump administration’s recent decisions to dismantle international public health safeguards and pull funding from local health departments have made large, multistate outbreaks more likely.
On Sunday, Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., who is a medical doctor and cast a critical vote to confirm Kennedy, encouraged the public on social media to get vaccinated, adding that “top health officials should say so unequivocally b/4 another child dies.”
Measles is one of the most contagious pathogens. The virus can linger in the air for up to two hours after an infected person has left the room and spreads when a sick person breathes, coughs or sneezes.
Within a week or two of being exposed, those who are infected may develop a high fever, cough, runny nose and red, watery eyes. Within a few days, a telltale rash breaks out as flat, red spots on the face and then spreads down the neck and torso to the rest of the body.
In most cases, these symptoms resolve in a few weeks. But in rare cases, the virus causes pneumonia, making it difficult for patients, especially children, to get oxygen into their lungs.
Measles may also cause brain swelling, which can leave lasting problems, including blindness, deafness and intellectual disabilities.
For every 1,000 children who get measles, one or two will die, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The virus also harms the body’s immune defenses, leaving it vulnerable to other pathogens.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
