Ousted FDA vaccine chief says U.S. measles elimination status under threat as cases climb
Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s “tepid endorsement” of measles vaccination puts the U.S. at risk of losing its elimination status of the disease as early as January, the Food and Drug Administration’s former top vaccine regulator said Tuesday.
Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s “tepid endorsement” of measles vaccination puts the U.S. at risk of losing its elimination status of the disease as early as January, the Food and Drug Administration’s former top vaccine regulator said Tuesday — as experts warn the Texas outbreak may become among the biggest on record.
“Given the current measles outbreak, anything less than a wholehearted full-court press to get many more children vaccinated against measles, above 90% across the country, is a public health failure,” Dr. Peter Marks, the former director of the FDA’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, who was ousted last month, told NBC News in an interview.
At a press briefing Tuesday, Texas health officials said the state’s outbreak had spread to 22 counties and continues to spread in Lubbock, where cases had jumped from 10 to 36. As of Tuesday, the number of measles cases in the state reached 505, up from 481 cases Friday. About 70% of the cases are children, said Katherine Wells, Lubbock’s director of public health. Six or seven kids at a day care in Lubbock have tested positive for measles, she added.
At least 57 people have been hospitalized in the area. On Saturday, a school-age girl being treated for measles-related complications died in Lubbock, becoming the second pediatric death in the fast-growing outbreak. Both children were unvaccinated.
More than 650 cases of measles have been reported in 21 states and the District of Columbia this year, more than double the number of U.S. cases in all of 2024, according to an NBC News tally.
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