Healthcare

US, Kennedy Jr in Texas for funeral of second measles victim

The disease is also spreading to neighbouring states

7 April 2025Aggiornato il 7 aprile 2025, ore 10:34

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A second unvaccinated child died of measles in Texas

2' min read

The US Secretary of Health and Human Services, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., visited Seminole, the epicentre of the measles outbreak in Texas, on Sunday, the same day as the funeral of a second unvaccinated child who died of a measles-related illness.

Kennedy, a well-known advocate of anti-vaccination positions before becoming the country's highest-ranking health official at the beginning of the year, wrote in a social media post that he was working to 'control the epidemic' and travelled to Gaines County to comfort families who had buried two young children.

The secretary was seen on Sunday afternoon outside a Mennonite church where the funeral was held, but he did not attend the press conference held nearby by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention regarding the outbreak.

Seminole is the epicentre of the epidemic, which began in late January and continues to grow, with nearly 500 cases in Texas alone, in addition to outbreak-related cases believed to have spread to New Mexico, Oklahoma, Kansas and Mexico.

This is Kennedy's first visit to the area as health secretary, where he said he met with the families of the 6- and 8-year-old children who died.''The best way to prevent the spread of measles is the Mpr vaccine.

So Health Secretary Robert Kennedy Jr. backtracked from his previous no vax position after the second measles death in the US.

USA, Kennedy backs down: 'Yes to vaccine'

Two deaths both occurred in Texas, the state with the highest number of reported measles cases. As Kennedy himself wrote in 'X', 499 of the 642 confirmed cases were in Texas.

And it was here, in Gaines County, that the Health Secretary went in the past few hours to bring ''comfort'' to the two families mourning the loss of two children to measles. The latest is an eight-year-old girl, Daisy Hildebrand, whose funeral was held yesterday and attended by Kennedy himself.

Before her, 6-year-old Kayley Fehr died of measles in February. The victims belonged to the Mennonites, an Anabaptist Christian community that takes the Bible as its sole authority.

Kennedy recounted in 'X' that he also met two doctors in Texas, whom he described as 'extraordinary healers who cured about 300 Mennonite children with measles using budesonide and clarithromycin in aerosols'.

Stat News emphasises, however, that these are ''unorthodox and unproven'' measles treatments. However, Kennedy emphasised, among other measures he took, the deployment of a CDC team 'to strengthen local and state response capacity in several regions of Texas, provide Texas-run pharmacies and clinics with needed Mpr vaccines and other medicines and medical supplies'.

A second unvaccinated child has died of measles in Texas

A second unvaccinated eight-year-old child died of measles in Texas, against the backdrop of an increasing spread of the disease, which has recorded480 cases with 56 hospitalisations since January.

Another child had died in February, marking the first measles-related death in the US in a decade.

The disease is also spreading to neighbouring states, with 54 infections in New Mexico and 10 in Oklahoma.

Health Minister Robert Kennedy Jr., a well-known no-vax, is in the crosshairs of controversy for his failure so far to promote an awareness and vaccination campaign