As the Trump administration fails to mitigate the measles outbreak, public health officials are choosing to resign.
Thomas Corry, the top Health and Human Services spokesperson, abruptly resigned on Monday in response to HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s lackluster response to the outbreak.
“I want to announce to my friends and colleagues that last Friday, I announced my resignation effective immediately. To my colleagues at HHS, I wish you the best and great success,” Corry, who held the position for less than a month, wrote on LinkedIn.
His announcement came just two weeks after he expressed gratitude to “be part of the team that is going to work to make America healthy again and to make healthcare more affordable and accessible” in another LinkedIn post.
From 2019 to 2020, Corry served in Trump’s first administration as senior adviser and communications director at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.
According to Politico, Corry had “grown uneasy” with RFK Jr.’s failure to respond to the measles outbreak that had knowingly infected 150 people and killed one child in Texas.
Cartoon by Tim Campbell
RFK Jr. recently changed his stance on vaccines and called for people to get vaccinated in a Fox News op-ed, leaving his “Make America Healthy Again” supporters raging.
“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 wrote.
RFK Jr. also called the outbreak “not unusual” during the first cabinet meeting, even though it has led to the first measles death in a decade.
The measles outbreak was in part due to residents in the Texas community not vaccinating their children after falling prey to right-wing vaccine misinformation. The most measles cases were confirmed in Gaines County, which is one of the least vaccinated counties in Texas.
Data from KFF, which researches health policy, shows that anti-vaccine sentiment and distrust in public health institutions has been on the rise in the United States since the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic, especially among Republicans.
RFK Jr. has long promoted debunked pseudoscience and lies about public health in podcast appearances, panel discussions, and his New York Times bestseller “The Real Anthony Fauci.”
Along with Trump and DOGE bro Elon Musk, RFK Jr. has joined in on the recent government gutting by laying off half of the public health workforce in February.
Corry’s abrupt resignation underscores the growing tension within the Trump administration over public health policy. And while RFK Jr.’s recent shift toward promoting vaccines could signal a course correction, it might be too little, too late.
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