Experts say that federal officials who tense measles vaccinations
In a first test of the ability of the Trump government to react infectious to an emergency, the top health officer was spared by one of the most important instruments of the government, said experts on Sunday: loud and directly and directly encouraging their children.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the health secretary, was widely criticized as a minimization of the measles outbreak in West texas at a cabinet seats on Wednesday. In a social media post on Friday, he started a new pace and said that the outbreak was a “top priority” for his department, health and human services.
He noticed various ways of how the Texas department supports, including the state’s immunization program and the update of advice that doctors give children vitamin A. But on no opportunity, Mr. Kennedy himself advised the Americans to ensure that her children get the recordings.
The centers for the control and prevention of diseases, part of HHS, only reported in Texas almost a month after the first cases on Thursday, almost a month after the first cases in Texas on Thursday.
“You screamed with a whisper,” said Dr. Michael Osterholm, the epidemiologist at the University of Minnesota and former health department official.
“I’m afraid that her hands were bound,” he added.
CDC officers did not immediately respond to a request for comments.
The measles outbreak in West texas has ill with more than 140 inhabitants and killed a child, the first such death in a decade. The lukewarm confirmation of the immunization and less frequent updates of the federal government concerns the scientists, in particular in view of Mr. Kennedy’s long success story, to sow distrust of vaccines.
Over the years, he has proposed that the vaccine against measles, mumps and rubella was associated with autism and that measles outbreaks were mostly “produced” to fake the profits of the pharmaceutical manufacturers.
If the outbreak in Texas offers a window in the Trump management approach to public health, it means problems for the future, some researchers said.
Health officials in the state say that they did not need extensive federal aid, but future outbreaks in other places may not be manageable without federal aid. “You could call this as an event drive,” said Catherine Troisi, epidemiologist at the Uthealth Houston School of Public Health.
She added: “In the theater, a bad turning sample means good performance. I am actually quite sure that this is not the case with public health. “
In earlier measles outbreaks, the CDC often plays a leading role in the elucidation of the public about the dangers of the virus contract and the importance of MMR vaccinations.
At the height of an outbreak in New York in 2019, the agency published a press release during the first term of office by President Trump, in which the health service providers were asked to insure patients through the security of the vaccine and to criticize groups that spread the misleading information about it.
In an accompanying statement, Alex M. Azar II, the then health secretary, wrote a “highly contagious, potentially life -threatening illness”.
“With a safe and effective vaccine that protects against measles, the suffering we see is avoidable,” he added.
The messaging this time was far more steamed.
When the CDC published its first public explanation of the outbreak, the measles in Texas had spread to nine counties, and nine additional cases had broken out in the border between New Mexico.
The vaccination was mentioned once in the explanation and said that it remains “the best defense against measles infections”.
When Kennedy was asked in Texas on Wednesday after the cases, he said that the outbreak was “not unusual”, and wrongly claimed that many people were taken to the hospital, “mainly for quarantine”.
He did not mention vaccines. In his contribution to social media, Kennedy emphasized that his department would “continue to finance the Texas immunization program”. But he did not expressly ask the Americans to get the shots.
Instead, the vaccination campaign was largely left to the state and local officials. In Texas there were often news conferences that promoted vigorously and exposed vaccination clinics and exposed misinformations.
Senator Bill Cassidy, a Republican from Louisiana, who is a doctor and who gave a decisive vote to confirm Mr. Kennedy, asked the residents of his state who borders on Texas to ensure that they have their measles vaccinations up to date.
However, such a contagious virus as measles does not respect any state limits, and the CDC should offer greater national guidance and leadership, said Dr. Osterholm.
“Every place could be the next hotspot tomorrow, ”he said.
On Friday, Texas Capital, Austin, reported a case of measles in a child who had been unmasked during international trips.
