Measles death in Texas puts Kennedy's vaccine views to the test

By Julie Steenhuysen and Chad Terhune

(Reuters) - A growing measles outbreak in Texas, where one unvaccinated child died and nearly 20 others have been hospitalized with serious complications, marks the first major test for U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr, a longtime vaccine skeptic.

Kennedy's immediate response to news of the measles death, the first in the U.S. since 2015, was to say that such outbreaks are a commonplace event. He incorrectly alluded to two deaths and said that hospitalized patients were being kept "mainly for quarantine" reasons.

Public health experts said the Trump administration should be encouraging vaccination at the national level to help curb one of the largest U.S. outbreaks of measles in the past decade.

Overall, more than 130 cases have been reported in Texas and neighboring New Mexico. State officials said additional cases are likely to occur because measles is so contagious.

“There have been four measles outbreaks this year in this country. Last year there were 16. So it's not unusual," Kennedy said on Wednesday. "We have measles outbreaks every year."

Texas hospital officials, however, said all children who had been admitted were unvaccinated and had serious respiratory problems, including some requiring intensive care, and that they do not keep patients solely for quarantine. 

They urged the public to ensure that they are up to date with their measles vaccines, and described their own dismay at the re-emergence of a virus that had been declared eradicated in the U.S. in 2000, largely due to widespread vaccination against the disease that can be particularly serious for young children.

A Health and Human Services Department spokesman later corrected Kennedy and confirmed only one death. The agency did not respond to a question about issuing a public call for measles vaccination during a spreading outbreak.

"This virus can have severe and deadly consequences," Dr. Amy Thompson, a pediatrician and chief executive of Covenant Children's Hospital in Lubbock, Texas, said at a Wednesday press conference about the death of a school-age child. 

Dr. Lara Johnson, the hospital's chief medical officer, said the “best way to contain a measles outbreak is through vaccination." 

"Having two doses of the measles vaccine confers 97% lifetime immunity," she added.

Johnson said she graduated from medical school in 2002, and assumed she would never see a measles outbreak unless she worked internationally. "At that time, we were confident we had eradicated measles from the United States," she said. "Obviously, that has changed."

Several experts noted that growing vaccine skepticism, driven in part by Kennedy's efforts over years to sow doubt about the safety and efficacy of immunization, has resulted in pockets of unvaccinated or under-vaccinated individuals who are fertile ground for infection.

Kennedy founded the anti-vaccine group Children's Health Defense, which has sued in state and federal courts over common inoculations, including measles.

At his contentious Senate confirmation hearings, Kennedy vowed that he was not opposed to vaccines. "I believe that vaccines play a critical role in healthcare. All of my kids are vaccinated," he told lawmakers last month. 

'GET VACCINATED'

Dr. Ali S. Khan, former director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Office of Public Health Preparedness and Response, said: "This measles death is a reminder that there are deadly consequences from broadcasting anti-vaccine messages. There should be zero cases of this preventable childhood disease among Americans, let alone deaths."

"The political leadership at the national, state, and local level have to tell the public to go out and get vaccinated," added Khan, now dean of the University of Nebraska's public health college. 

Currently, state and local health departments in Texas and New Mexico are handling the outbreak response, while the CDC is providing technical assistance, laboratory support, and vaccines as needed, according to HHS spokesman Andrew Nixon.

Dr. Amesh Adalja, a senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, said just because measles outbreaks now occur every year does not mean they don't warrant a vigorous response. 

"Particularly with a death, there is an opportunity here to emphasize the value of the measles vaccine," he said. 

(Reporting by Julie Steenhuysen in Chicago and Chad Terhune in Los Angeles; Editing by Michele Gershberg and Bill Berkrot)