The Texas Health and Human Services department announced on Tuesday, that the state now has 223 confirmed measles cases, an increase of 25 since the last update on Friday. Twenty-nine people have been hospitalized, and tragically, a 6-year-old child has died—the first measles death in the United States since 2015.
The outbreak, which began in Gaines County, in western Texas, exploded in the school-age population in the area due to the county’s low vaccination rates among kindergarteners—one of the lowest rates in the state. New Mexico’s HHS reports 30 confirmed cases, all in Lea County, which borders Texas, and includes one death of an unvaccinated person who tested positive for the measles postmortem.
Meanwhile, on Monday, it was reported that the National Institutes of Health will be canceling or cutting back on more than 40 important scientific grants for research in the fields of vaccine hesitancy. According to the Washington Post, the language in the termination email for the grants is telling.
“It is the policy of NIH not to prioritize research activities that focuses gaining scientific knowledge on why individuals are hesitant to be vaccinated and/or explore ways to improve vaccine interest and commitment. … Therefore, the award is terminated.”
All of this news comes as the deadline for layoffs, directed at departments at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and coming from the Trump administration, approaches on March 13. Under Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the HHS has already laid off thousands of its employees, with programs such as the Epidemic Intelligence Service being deeply gutted by the layoffs. The esteemed training program run by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention investigates disease outbreaks.
In order to achieve the drastic cuts to our public health workforce demanded by President Donald Trump, Bloomberg reports that the HHS is increasing their voluntary buyout offer. In addition to a $25,000 lump sum buyout, some employees will also be offered two months of paid severance.
Last week, Kennedy did a 35-minute interview with Fox Nation that aired only online, shortly before Trump’s terribly boring address to a joint session of Congress. The interview—behind a not very transparent paywall—gave Fox viewers more of the anti-vaccine rhetoric the public knows him for. And while Kennedy’s March 2 emergency op-ed in response to the measles outbreak suggested some support for the MMR vaccine, the Fox Nation viewers got the good-old crazy stuff.
“It’s very, very difficult for measles to kill a healthy person,” Kennedy said. (Texas’ HHS says that the 6-year-old child who died from measles was not vaccinated and did not have any underlying conditions.) “We see a correlation between people who get hurt by measles and people who don’t have good nutrition or who don’t have a good exercise regimen,” Kennedy asserted in the interview while pushing unproven holistic remedies like cod liver oil.
Kennedy has also paused an effort to develop a new oral COVID-19 vaccine, as well as abruptly cancelling the FDA’s meeting to discuss next season’s flu vaccine. If there was any question that Kennedy was unsuitable for this job, his actions are sadly proving it.
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