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public health
As RFK Pushes Vaccine Misinformation, Measles Cases Surge in South Carolina
The US is at risk of losing its measles-eradicated status early next year, according to Scientific American.
Dec 12, 2025
US Rep. Pramila Jayapal on Friday demanded that the Trump administration "stop lying and follow the science" as an outbreak of measles in South Carolina grew and officials warned that low vaccination rates in the affected area likely mean the crisis will continue worsening.
Since the outbreak began in October in Spartanburg County, near the state's northern border, the highly infectious disease has sickened at least 129 people. The vast majority of people who have been infected have not been inoculated against measles, which is 97% preventable via the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) shot—which has been erroneously attacked for years by anti-vaccine activists including Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
As President Donald Trump and Kennedy "push deadly anti-vaccine conspiracy theories, measles is making a comeback across America," said Jayapal (D-Wash.) on Friday. "People will die because of this."
At least three people, including two children, have already died this year in US measles outbreaks
More than 1,900 measles cases and 47 outbreaks have been reported across the country in 2025, compared with 285 cases across 16 outbreaks last year.
In South Carolina, more than 250 people have been exposed to the disease in schools, a healthcare facility, and a church, forcing dozens of unvaccinated children to quarantine for 21 days; some were exposed twice and had to be isolated for two separate three-week periods.
“That’s a significant amount of time,” Linda Bell, the state's epidemiologist, said at a recent press conference. “Vaccination continues to be the best way to prevent the disruption that measles is causing to people’s education, to employment.”
But Spartanburg County's ongoing outbreak is being driven by “lower-than-hoped-for vaccination coverage,” Bell said.
Public health experts consider a 95% vaccination rate to be the level at which the spread of measles can be eliminated in a community. Only about 90% of students in the county had all required childhood immunizations. South Carolina allows religious exemptions for school immunization requirements. Many of the schools where students have quarantined have vaccination rates "well below 90%," the New York Times reported.
Across South Carolina, MMR vaccination rates among schoolchildren has fallen significantly since 2020, from 96% to 93.5%.
Kennedy has been a longtime denier of vaccine science. In 2019, his anti-vaccine group, Children's Health Defense, tried to sue New York state over its vaccine requirement, which is one of just five in the country that doesn't allow for nonmedical exemptions.
In April, Kennedy visited a Texas community where two unvaccinated children had died of measles and acknowledged in a social media post that "the most effective way to prevent the spread of measles is the MMR vaccine."
“Vaccination continues to be the best way to prevent the disruption that measles is causing to people’s education, to employment.”
But during his visit he also promoted, without evidence, two therapeutic treatments that one vaccine expert told NPR are "valueless" in treating measles. In 2023 Kennedy told podcaster Joe Rogan that the vaccine was not linked to a decline in deaths.
He has recently continued fueling overall skepticism about immunizations, with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) panel he assembled advising that newborn babies whose mothers test negative for hepatitis B should not receive a dose of a vaccine for the disease—sparking fear among public health experts that major progress in reducing childhood cases of the disease over the past three decades will be reversed.
In November the CDC website was changed to say a link between vaccines and autism—a theory that has long been debunked—cannot be ruled out. Two months earlier, as measles cases surged in another outbreak around the Utah-Arizona border, Trump called for combination children's vaccines like the MMR to be split up into separate shots—a call made decades ago by Dr. Andrew Wakefield, who lost his medical license over his 1988 study that linked autism to the combination vaccine, which was later retracted.
High vaccine rates allowed the US to declare measles eliminated in 2000, but Scientific American reported Thursday that the current measles outbreaks are bringing the US "toward losing its measles-free status by early next year."
The worsening measles outbreak in South Carolina, said Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.), "is yet another horrifying consequence of Trump and RFK Jr.'s Make America Sick Agenda."
Republican Gov. Henry McMaster has urged residents to be vaccinated against measles, but said on Thursday, "We are not going to do mandates on people to go get vaccinated."
Andrew Nixon, a spokesperson for the US Health and Human Services Department, also continued to suggest that vaccination is principally a matter of personal liberty rather than public health, telling the New York Times that people in the affected community in South Carolina should talk to their doctors about "what is best for them."
On Thursday, Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee Ranking Member Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) said that along with the Republican Party's vote against extending Affordable Care Act subsidies, the Trump administration is raising questions about its push to "Make America Health Again" as it undermines "lifesaving vaccines and spark[s] disease outbreaks."
"The Trump administration," he said, "is endangering the health of the American people."
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Sanders Leads Call for Senate to Force RFK Jr. to Answer for 'War on Science'
"Failure to conduct an oversight hearing on Secretary Kennedy's actions would be an abdication of our responsibility—both from a moral perspective and as a matter of sound public health policy."
Dec 09, 2025
On the heels of a federal panel appointed by US Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. voting to reverse a recommendation that newborns receive the hepatitis B vaccine, Sen. Bernie Sanders led a Tuesday call for the HHS leader to be hauled before a relevant congressional committee to answer for his actions that "undermine the health and well-being of the American people and people throughout the world."
In a letter signed by Democrats on the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee and Sanders (I-Vt.), its ranking member, the lawmakers wrote to Republican Chair Bill Cassidy (La.), a medical doctor, to argue that "Kennedy has waged an unprecedented war on science and vaccines that have saved millions of lives," and demand his testimony.
The letter highlights Kennedy directing the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention "to publish false information on its website suggesting that childhood vaccines cause autism," ousting a CDC director "who refused to rubber-stamp his dangerous and unsubstantiated" recommendations, spreading misinformation about the measles vaccine during an outbreak, and defunding research "that will leave us woefully unprepared for future pandemics and public health emergencies."
Kennedy has also "packed a critical scientific body, the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP), with vaccine deniers, completely upending the rigorous scientific process for reviewing and recommending vaccines to the public despite a commitment he made to you that ACIP would be 'maintained without changes,'" the letter continues, citing last week's hepatitis B vote.
"Mr. Chairman: Holding an oversight hearing on Secretary Kennedy’s ill-conceived actions is more important now than ever," argued Sanders and Democratic Sens. Angela Alsobrooks (Md.), Tammy Baldwin (Wis.), Lisa Blunt Rochester (Del.), Maggie Hassan (NH), John Hickenlooper (Colo.), Tim Kaine (Va.), Andy Kim (NJ), Ed Markey (Mass.), Chris Murphy (Conn.), and Patty Murray (Wash.).
"Under Secretary Kennedy;s leadership, over 1,700 people have been infected with measles. Whooping cough cases are surging nationwide, and concerns about a severe flu season continue to grow. Vaccination rates across the country are falling. Children are dying from illnesses that vaccines could have prevented," the senators stressed.
"Secretary Kennedy's response to these crises has been to spread misinformation, end campaigns encouraging flu vaccinations, fire officials who disagree with him, and place individuals with significant conflicts of interest in positions of power—completely undermining Americans' faith in our nation's public health institutions," they wrote.
The senators pointed out that "dozens of scientific and medical groups" have called for Kennedy's resignation or removal, as have more than 1,000 current and former HHS staffers. They also noted a September warning from nine former CDC directors that the secretary "is endangering every American's health," a similar joint statement the following month by ex-surgeons general, and another this month from a dozen previous Food and Drug Administration commissioners.
The letter also references Cassidy's comments about ACIP, the safety and effectiveness of vaccines, and Kennedy's supposed commitment during the confirmation process to come before the HELP Committee on a quarterly basis, which hasn't happened.
"Failure to conduct an oversight hearing on Secretary Kennedy's actions would be an abdication of our responsibility—both from a moral perspective and as a matter of sound public health policy," the letter argues, calling for his testimony as soon as possible.
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'A Tragedy in the Making': CDC Panel Votes to Adjust Hepatitis B Vaccine Policy for Newborns
"This unfounded change to the childhood vaccine schedule will only lead to entirely preventable disease outbreaks in the years ahead," said the consumer advocacy group Public Citizen.
Dec 05, 2025
Sen. Bernie Sanders, ranking member of the top US Senate committee on public health, demanded on Friday that Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. explain to lawmakers why experts he convened had scrapped a policy that one academic recently called "one of the most significant public health achievements in US child health over the past several decades."
The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP), said Sanders, "in strong disagreement with the medical and scientific community, voted to end a decades-long recommendation that newborns receive the hepatitis B vaccine. This vaccine saves lives."
Since 1991, when the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) adopted a policy of recommending the hepatitis B vaccine for all newborn babies in the US, the number of children who test positive for the disease has plummeted by 99%, from nearly 20,000 annually to the single or low-double digits.
On Friday, ACIP—whose 17 previous members were all fired and replaced by Kennedy—voted to potentially erase that progress, which, as Kelly Gebo, dean of the George Washington University Milken Institute School of Public Health, said this week, has "prevented tens of thousands of deaths, and remains a safe, effective, and essential measure."
The panel voted 8-3 that women who test negative for hepatitis B should work with their healthcare provider to decide "when and if" their children will be vaccinated against the virus, which causes an infection of the liver and can be transmitted through blood or other bodily fluids. The disease can cause a chronic infection and eventually lead to cirrhosis, liver failure, or liver cancer.
Under the new guidance, parents will be advised to “consider vaccine benefits, vaccine risks, and infection risks” and administer the shot at two months of age at the earliest.
At Stat News, Helen Branswell noted that while the revised policy, as stated, is only a recommendation in cases of a pregnant person who is at low risk for hepatitis B, the across-the-board recommendation helped ensure babies would not slip "through the safety net meant to protect them against infection at birth."
"All pregnant people are supposed to be tested for hepatitis B during pregnancy," wrote Branswell. "But testing doesn’t always occur, some test results are faulty, and some pregnant people become infected later in pregnancy, after being tested."
The ACIP members who voted to change the policy repeated claims made by Kennedy throughout the debate—that babies in general are at low risk and that hepatitis largely affects sex workers, drug users, and people from countries with high hepatitis B rates.
But critics of the decision said it will place unvaccinated infants at risk of being exposed to the virus, especially since as many as 70% of the roughly 2 million Americans who have hepatitis B are not aware of their diagnosis.
James Campbell, vice chair of the American Academy of Pediatrics’ infectious diseases committee, told Stat News about a 15-year-old girl he cared for who had not been vaccinated against hepatitis B in infancy because she was not believed to be at risk. She developed a chronic infection and ultimately died after two failed liver transplants.
“This is a very dangerous decision. It will certainly cause harm,” Campbell told Stat News.
Consumer advocacy group Public Citizen added that the vote is a "tragedy in the making."
In Massachusetts, Democratic Gov. Maura Healey indicated she plans to take action to circumvent ACIP's new guidelines and ensure parents are given the data about hepatitis B infection and the benefits and safety of the vaccine that's been recommended for more than three decades.
"RFK, that panel, they are not doing their jobs," Healey told CNN on Thursday night, ahead of the vote. "And in the face of that, as governor, I'm going to do mine, which is to take actions to make available science-based information. To give people real truth, real information, not conspiracy theories or ideologies, and we're going to continue to make available vaccines that people want."
Kennedy has spread misinformation about the measles vaccine and angered senators from both sides of the aisle earlier this year when the Food and Drug Administration, under his leadership, limited access to Covid-19 vaccines—leading Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee Chair Bill Cassidy (R-La.) to accuse him of "denying people vaccine" after Kennedy had pledged he would not restrict Americans' ability to be immunized.
Cassidy, a physician, grilled Kennedy during his confirmation hearing about his plans for vaccine policies—but ultimately voted in favor of his confirmation.
On Friday, Cassidy said ACIP's new recommendation for the hepatitis B vaccine was "a mistake" and urged CDC Director Jim O'Neill to retain "the current, evidence-based approach."
But Charles Idelson, former communications strategist at National Nurses United, said Cassidy and the other senators who voted to confirm Kennedy to serve as the nation's top health official "own him."
"If you had the political courage to back up this position," said Idelson, "you would surely now call for Kennedy to resign for his lies to you, for his malfeasance, for his reckless advocacy of conspiracy theories, and for endangering the health of all Americans."
On Friday, Aaron Siri, a lawyer who specializes in vaccine injury cases, was scheduled to present to ACIP regarding the broader childhood vaccine schedule and potential changes to recommendations.
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