Trump Repeats the Lie that Vaccines Cause Autism

 In The Politics of Autism, I analyze the myth that vaccines cause autism. This bogus idea can hurt people by allowing diseases to spread.    Examples include measles, COVID, flu, and polio.

A number of posts discussed Trump's support for the discredited notion.

Trump, yesterday:

We’re also going to be recommending — not recommending, demanding — the drug companies, with respect to a certain situation, maybe you want to mention that, discuss it — that the autism, that they make their doses in 20% shots. So you have shot one, shot two, shot three, shot four, shot five.

So instead of having a massive dose of 82 or 88 different vaccines pumped into your own, we’ll take out certain vaccines that people are a little worried about — and that have not — I mean, we would never even think about the polio vaccine, it’s been amazing, and so many others that have been so good. But we’re going to break it into 20% doses so that instead of a child going in and having a tremendous amount of different vaccines pumped into so big a proportion of the body, and then they wake up the next day and they’ve got a 109 temperature, and then the worst thing happens that can happen to a parent. The worst, actually. And I’ve seen it. I’ve seen it happen.

So we’re going to recommend that they do five doses marked one, two, three, four, five, and that they’d be given in six month intervals so that a small amount of the vaccine gets pumped into the body. And we’re going to be splitting up some of the vaccines. You’ll get everything that they want, everything that is recommended. We’re going to go a little bit with some of the European system in terms of the vaccines, but the biggest thing is certain vaccines were taken out because they’re not needed until a child would be much older.

No reason to do it so early. But the vaccine size will be much, much less, and I think you’re going to see a massive reduction in autism, and that’s a big deal. That’s a very big deal. So we’re going to be recommending that and actually demanding it. You’re going to have one, two, three, four, five. It’ll be spread out over six months, every six months. They’ll be fully vaccinated in much smaller doses. So I think it’s going to have a huge impact, and you’ll see that in the years to come. You have to actually see it, but you’ll see it in the years to come.

Deidre McPhillips and Meg Tirrell at CNN:

Such a plan would render vaccines ineffective and wouldn’t make them safer, said Dr. Paul Offit, director of the Vaccine Education Center at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia...Trump’s idea to split up the shots “is buffoonery,” said Offit, a vaccine inventor. He noted that vaccines are studied extensively so their dosing schedule is optimized for efficacy and safety, and he said that reducing the amount administered and giving more shots would make it so the vaccines don’t work while doing nothing to increase safety.

“When you create a vaccine, you do a dose response curve, and you’re trying to give the least amount of vaccine that induces an immune response that’s protective. So you don’t want to give too much, where you know you don’t need all that, and you don’t want to give too little, where it’s you know sub-immunogenic,” meaning it wouldn’t induce an immune response. Put more simply, Offit told CNN, “What he’s suggesting would not work. He’s basically saying he wants to give vaccines in a manner in which they wouldn’t be protective.”

Offit also pointed out that vaccines don’t overwhelm babies’ immune systems, as they expose us to much less than we encounter every day naturally.\

“You make a billion new B and T cells every day to handle the onslaught of viruses and bacteria from your environment,” Offit said. “Vaccines are literally a drop in the ocean of what you encounter and manage every day.

“The notion that vaccines in any way are overwhelming your immune system, causing chronic disease, is just fanciful.”

Mister Measles

 In The Politics of Autism, I analyze the myth that vaccines cause autism. This bogus idea can hurt people by allowing diseases to spread. Examples include measles, COVID, flu, and polio. A top antivaxxer is HHS Secretary RFK Jr. He is part of the "Disinformation Dozen." He helped cause a deadly 2019 measles outbreak in Samoa.  Last year, he lied about it under oath.

Since  Trump took office in 2025, the U.S. has recorded more confirmed measles cases than in the previous 20 years combined. 

CDC:

As of September 17, 2026, 3,471 confirmed* measles cases were reported in the United States in 2026. Among these, 3,454 measles cases were reported by 47 jurisdictions: Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York City, New York State, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia, Wisconsin, and Wyoming. A total of 17 measles cases were reported among international visitors to the United States.

There have been 39 new outbreaks** reported in 2026, and 95% of confirmed cases (3,296 of 3,471) are outbreak-associated (1,920 from outbreaks starting in 2026 and 1,376 from outbreaks that started in 2025).

For the full year of 2025, a total of 2,289 confirmed* measles cases were reported in the United States.

Jessica McDonald at FactCheck.org:

It’s difficult to directly compare measles outbreak responses across countries, experts told us, which makes Kennedy’s claim that the U.S. has done “better” than any other country a bit squishy. 

But a reasonable place to start is with the per capita rate over the same period of time, Ana Bento, an assistant professor of infectious disease ecology at Cornell University College of Veterinary Medicine, told us. And on that measure, the U.S. is nowhere near the best.

According to measles data from the World Health Organization, as of Sept. 14, the U.S. had 13.2 measles cases per 1 million people in 2026. That’s the 65th highest rate of measles in the world for 2026, out of 169 nations with data. That places it in the worst 38% of nations, and about as good as Russia.

For 2025, the U.S. did slightly better, but with the 86th highest measles rate out of 184 nations, it still ranked in the lower half of countries for the fewest measles cases per population.

 Melody Schreiber at The Guardian:

As the death toll from the worst measles outbreak in decades rises, Robert F Kennedy Jr headlined the Washington DC conference of the anti-vaccine organization Children’s Health Defense, which he led for nearly two decades.

“Let me be clear. You have a strong and steadfast friend at the White House,” Kennedy, now serving as secretary of the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), told anti-vaccine activists at the conference in a nearly hour-and-a-half-long speech. He urged patience, saying that he would’ve made sweeping changes “on day one” but that he had to follow the law in order to make permanent change.

“But as I said, you have friends in the White House, and we are doing this one day at a time,” Kennedy said.

He only addressed the measles outbreak, which recently killed four people in Pennsylvania, once.

“In our country we care about rare illnesses and deaths. We care about every child who dies from measles. They get headlines,” he said. “I’d ask you to care about children who are dying or suffering or being injured by vaccine injuries.”

Yet Another Measles Death

  In The Politics of Autism, I analyze the myth that vaccines cause autism. This bogus idea can hurt people by allowing diseases to spread. Examples include measles, COVID, flu, and polio. A top antivaxxer is HHS Secretary RFK Jr. He is part of the "Disinformation Dozen." He helped cause a deadly 2019 measles outbreak in Samoa.  Last year, he lied about it under oath.

Since  Trump took office in 2025, the U.S. has recorded more confirmed measles cases than in the previous 20 years combined.

 
Dani Blum at NYT:

Pennsylvania health officials announced on Tuesday that a fourth person in the state had died from measles, making 2026 the deadliest year for measles in the United States since the virus was declared eliminated in 2000.

The Mifflin County coroner’s office said an 18-year-old died from a rare neurological complication of measles. The person was not vaccinated, according to the state health department.

A coroner from another Pennsylvania county announced this week that a 40-year-old unvaccinated woman had died from measles complications. On Tuesday, that coroner, Greg Furlong, said that testing had confirmed the woman had contracted measles. Last month, state health officials reported the deaths of two infants who had measles.

Pennsylvania is facing a rapidly expanding measles outbreak that has sickened nearly 700 people and hospitalized more than 130 people. But there are likely to be many more measles cases that have not been reported, said Dr. Amesh Adalja, an infectious disease physician and senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security. There are roughly one to three deaths for every 1,000 cases of measles, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, suggesting that the true case count in Pennsylvania is higher.

Measles deaths have been very rare in the United States since the disease was declared eliminated from the country in 2000. But as measles has come roaring back, more deaths have occurred. In 2025, two children and an unvaccinated adult died of measles, the first such deaths in a decade.

 

Remember the tragic measles epidemic and recent deaths in Pennsylvania are still modest relative to what could be in store for us in February March April 2027. In the pre-vaccine era measles reliably peaked in late winter and early spring. And sure enough as antivaccine activism… pic.twitter.com/4zRVwJop6e

— Prof Peter Hotez MD PhD DSc(hon) (@PeterHotez) September 13, 2026

Another Measles Death

  In The Politics of Autism, I analyze the myth that vaccines cause autism. This bogus idea can hurt people by allowing diseases to spread. Examples include measles, COVID, flu, and polio. A top antivaxxer is HHS Secretary RFK Jr. He is part of the "Disinformation Dozen." He helped cause a deadly 2019 measles outbreak in Samoa.  Last year, he lied about it under oath.

Since  Trump took office in 2025, the U.S. has recorded more confirmed measles cases than in the previous 20 years combined.

 Teddy Rosenbluth at NYT:

A 40-year-old unvaccinated woman in Pennsylvania died Saturday, most likely because of measles complications, the Jefferson County coroner, Greg Furlong, said Sunday.

The news comes as Pennsylvania faces a rapidly expanding outbreak that has already sickened more than 670 people and hospitalized 124. The state department of health reported two deaths related to the outbreak last month, which set off a frenzied debate over whether the deaths were a result of measles or merely coincided with the infection.

In this woman’s case, the immediate cause of death was respiratory failure “due to suspected measles,” according to a preliminary death certificate viewed by The Times. Mr. Furlong said that testing had not yet confirmed the woman had measles, though she had many of the symptoms of the virus — including the telltale rash that often starts as flat red spots on the face and travels down the body — and had recently been exposed to someone with measles. A nasal swab will be sent to the state laboratory to be tested for measles, Mr. Furlong said.

The woman had several chronic medical conditions that made her vulnerable to severe complications from measles. She had chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, or C.O.P.D., and was on 24/7 supplemental oxygen.

The state health department has not included the death in its official tally but has been in close contact with Mr. Furlong, he said.

While most measles cases are mild, roughly one in five unvaccinated people in the United States who contract the virus lands in the hospital, often for complications such as pneumonia, severe dehydration and brain swelling. The virus is especially dangerous for young children, adults older than 20 and those who have a compromised immune system.

3,294 Measles Cases

 In The Politics of Autism, I analyze the myth that vaccines cause autism. This bogus idea can hurt people by allowing diseases to spread. Examples include measles, COVID, flu, and polio. A top antivaxxer is HHS Secretary RFK Jr. He is part of the "Disinformation Dozen." He helped cause a deadly 2019 measles outbreak in Samoa.  Last year, he lied about it under oath.

Since  Trump took office in 2025, the U.S. has recorded more confirmed measles cases than in the previous 20 years combined.

From CDC:

As of September 10, 2026, 3,294 confirmed* measles cases were reported in the United States in 2026. Among these, 3,278 measles cases were reported by 47 jurisdictions: Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York City, New York State, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia, Wisconsin, and Wyoming. A total of 16 measles cases were reported among international visitors to the United States.

There have been 38 new outbreaks** reported in 2026, and 95% of confirmed cases (3,123 of 3,294) are outbreak-associated (1,748 from outbreaks starting in 2026 and 1,375 from outbreaks that started in 2025).

For the full year of 2025, a total of 2,289 confirmed* measles cases were reported in the United States.

Autism and the Amish

In The Politics of Autism, I analyze the myth that vaccines cause autism. This bogus idea can hurt people by allowing diseases to spread. Examples include measles, COVID, flu, and polio. A top antivaxxer is HHS Secretary RFK Jr. He is part of the "Disinformation Dozen." He helped cause a deadly 2019 measles outbreak in Samoa.

Since President Trump took office in 2025, the U.S. has recorded more confirmed measles cases than in the previous 20 years combined.

Carmen Paun at POLITICO:

This time, Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro and the Lancaster County coroner agree: An infant died of measles in the state, the first confirmed death in 35 years.

Shapiro cited the coroner’s confirmation Friday on X and took another jab at Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who said last week the Democrat’s staff might have fabricated the death to make Kennedy look bad.

“Instead of listening to the real doctors and public health experts, RFK chose to sow doubt, play politics, direct the CDC not to acknowledge these deaths, and even accuse me of fabricating these tragedies,” Shapiro posted on the social media platform.

The county coroner, Stephen Diamantoni, has previously said he disagreed with Shapiro about the cause of death of another newborn, an Amish boy who died soon after birth last month. Diamantoni said the baby, who had measles, died of a ruptured spleen and that he did not believe measles contributed.

Shapiro and his health department said last week that two Pennsylvanians had died of “measles-associated” causes.

Diamantoni said earlier Friday a 6-week-old girl from the county’s Amish community died of measles at home last month. The baby had microcephaly, a condition that usually leads to death by six months of age, but measles was the cause of death, Diamantoni said, according to local media reports.

When contacted by POLITICO, Pennsylvania’s health department did not directly say the baby is the second measles-associated death it reported last week, but Press Secretary Neil Ruhland reaffirmed there were two deaths in an email statement. “The Lancaster County Coroner has now publicly confirmed a second infant death involving measles,” Ruhland said.

Shapiro’s X post, referencing the coroner’s office, implied that this case is the second one he referred to last week.

The Amish community has long had low vaccination rates. Neither of the two babies was old enough to receive a measles vaccine, which is typically given at age 1.

Alice Gibbs at Newsweek:

David Mandell, the director of the Penn Center for Mental Health and a professor of psychiatry and pediatrics at the University of Pennsylvania whose research focuses on autism services and policy, told Newsweek that claims that Amish communities do not experience autism are inaccurate.

"It's untrue to say that Amish communities have no autism," Mandell said.

He said measuring autism prevalence in Amish communities can be particularly difficult because diagnoses often depend on parental reporting and access to specialists.

"Autism is behaviorally determined and highly reliant on parent report," Mandell said, adding that prevalence studies can be challenging in communities where families may be less likely to discuss developmental concerns with outsiders.

The Amish are often cited in vaccine debates because some communities have lower immunization rates than the wider U.S. population.

An article published by the American Academy of Pediatrics found that Amish communities generally have lower vaccination uptake, although vaccination practices vary significantly between settlements and families.

Experts caution against treating the Amish as a single, uniform population. Different communities can have different health care practices, levels of engagement with doctors and attitudes toward vaccination.

That distinction is important because claims about "the Amish" often imply that all Amish children are unvaccinated, when vaccination practices can differ considerably among communities and households.

Mandell likewise cautioned against treating Amish communities as uniformly unvaccinated.

"Amish people do get vaccinated," he said. "While the vaccination rates are much lower than the surrounding populations, more than half of Amish children do get vaccinated

 

Measles, Early September 2026

 In The Politics of Autism, I analyze the myth that vaccines cause autism. This bogus idea can hurt people by allowing diseases to spread. Examples include measles, COVID, flu, and polio. A top antivaxxer is HHS Secretary RFK Jr. He is part of the "Disinformation Dozen." He helped cause a deadly 2019 measles outbreak in Samoa.  Last year, he lied about it under oath.

Since  Trump took office in 2025, the U.S. has recorded more confirmed measles cases than in the previous 20 years combined.

CDC:

As of September 3, 2026, 3,134 confirmed* measles cases were reported in the United States in 2026. Among these, 3,118 measles cases were reported by 47 jurisdictions: Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York City, New York State, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia, Wisconsin, and Wyoming. A total of 16 measles cases were reported among international visitors to the United States.

There have been 38 new outbreaks** reported in 2026, and 95% of confirmed cases (2,969 of 3,134) are outbreak-associated (1,594 from outbreaks starting in 2026 and 1,375 from outbreaks that started in 2025).

For the full year of 2025, a total of 2,289 confirmed* measles cases were reported in the United States.

American Oversight:

Thursday, American Oversight launched an investigation into the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) apparently manipulated reporting surrounding two measles-associated deaths reported by the Pennsylvania Department of Health. The alterations reportedly came at the command of Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

We filed Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests with HHS and CDC seeking records that could shed light on why the agency departed from its normal classification practices and altered its public reporting on the deaths following Secretary Kennedy’s demands as well as unsubstantiated claims that the data may have been “manipulated” by Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro.

The investigation comes amid a nationwide rise in measles cases, including in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, home to the largest current outbreak in the country. On August 25, the Pennsylvania Department of Health confirmed two measles-associated deaths of unvaccinated residents, the state’s first deaths linked to the virus in 35 years. One of the deaths involved a newborn who died shortly after birth. The baby’s mother had reportedly been severely ill with measles during her pregnancy. Under standard CDC practice, deaths reported by state health departments — including deaths that occurred in Texas and New Mexico during last year’s outbreak — are included in the agency’s national tally and the CDC does not challenge the state’s determination.

According to reporting by multiple outlets, newly confirmed CDC Director Erica Schwartz directed agency staff to exclude the two Pennsylvania deaths from its measles outbreak web page, which is typically updated each Friday. The demanded change reportedly came directly from Kennedy. The web page update was delayed until Sunday, August 30, and the dashboard’s national death total changed several times over the weekend before the agency added a note stating, “At this time, available information does not establish whether measles caused or contributed to the deaths or whether the individuals died from other causes while infected with measles.” CDC employees reportedly said the repeated changes stemmed from confusion among staff about what they were supposed to do.

The CDC’s break from standard practice came after Secretary Kennedy publicly accused Governor Shapiro of “manipulating” the truth and suggested on social media, without evidence, that the two deaths may even have been “fabricated” by Shapiro’s staff. The repeated dashboard revisions raise the question of whether the CDC’s public data was reshaped to align with Secretary Kennedy’s demands and political messaging rather than with the agency’s own longstanding classification practice.

State health officials, who classified the deaths as “measles-associated,” have stood by their findings.

2,903 Measles Cases in 2026

In The Politics of Autism, I analyze the myth that vaccines cause autism. This bogus idea can hurt people by allowing diseases to spread. Examples include measles, COVID, flu, and polio. A top antivaxxer is HHS Secretary RFK Jr. He is part of the "Disinformation Dozen." He helped cause a deadly 2019 measles outbreak in Samoa.  Last year, he lied about it under oath.

Since  Trump too office in 2025, the U.S. has recorded more confirmed measles cases than in the previous 20 years combined.

From CDC:

As of August 27, 2026, 2,903 confirmed* measles cases were reported in the United States in 2026. Among these, 2,887 measles cases were reported by 47 jurisdictions: Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York City, New York State, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia, Wisconsin, and Wyoming. A total of 16 measles cases were reported among international visitors to the United States.

There have been 37 new outbreaks** reported in 2026, and 94% of confirmed cases (2,737 of 2,903) are outbreak-associated (1,362 from outbreaks starting in 2026 and 1,375 from outbreaks that started in 2025).

For the full year of 2025, a total of 2,289 confirmed* measles cases were reported in the United States.

IACC: Bad Stuff

 In The Politics of Autism, I discuss the Interagency Autism Coordinating Committee and research priorities.

Ed Pilkington at The Guardian:

Autism groups and researchers have reacted with alarm to a federal research roadmap drawn up by advisers handpicked by the US health secretary, Robert F Kennedy Jr, fearing it will promote unproven fringe therapies at the expense of promising genetic research.

A slew of scientific bodies and groups within the autism community are warning that the 336-page plan risks deflecting federal dollars away from potentially groundbreaking genetic research in favor of unreliable alternative therapies.

There is little or no evidence, they say, that many of the proposed treatments work, or that they even fit the definition of autism.

“So much of the plan is fringe science that is absolutely not ready for prime time,” said Helen Tager-Flusberg, an emeritus professor at Boston University and founder of the Coalition of Autism Scientists.

Alliances of autistic people are especially worried that the plan could make it easier for them to be sent to institutions. The plan calls for government agencies to try out “supported-living models” such as “farmstead or campus-based communities”, which the groups fear could revive forms of institutional confinement.

The strategic plan is the work of the Interagency Autism Coordinating Committee (IACC), a body that for 25 years has advised US health secretaries on federal efforts related to autism.

Alison Singer at MedpageToday:

Parents report that children with autism lose skills at all ages, including during toddlerhood, and through adolescence into adulthood. The new plan puts considerable emphasis on finding medical causes of early childhood regression (immune, metabolic, mitochondrial, infectious, gastrointestinal) but does not give comparable prominence to regression as a manifestation of the underlying genetics and neurodevelopmental biology of autism itself.

We can read between the lines. Committee members' comments make clear that this framing is intended to justify further research into vaccines as a cause of autism, despite decades of research and dozens of studies finding no causal link between vaccines and autism.

Also, despite a significant number of public comments calling for substantial revisions to the plan, and the fact that thousands of pages of public comments were not distributed to committee members until the night before the meeting, the IACC chair completely shut down efforts by committee members to delay voting on the plan until all the comments could be read and considered.

 

Measles and RFK Jr's Lies

In The Politics of Autism, I analyze the myth that vaccines cause autism. This bogus idea can hurt people by allowing diseases to spread. Examples include measles, COVID, flu, and polio. A top antivaxxer is HHS Secretary RFK Jr. He is part of the "Disinformation Dozen." He helped cause a deadly 2019 measles outbreak in Samoa.

Since  Trump took office in 2025, the U.S. has recorded more confirmed measles cases than in the previous 20 years combined.

Michelle R. Smith at The Guardian:

A senior Democratic senator is calling for a criminal investigation into the US health secretary, Robert F Kennedy Jr, following reporting by the Guardian that indicated he lied during Senate confirmation hearings last year.

Ron Wyden of Oregon said: “RFK’s platform is built on lies and grifts that leave a trail of dead children in their wake. There are consequences for lying to Congress.”

The Guardian’s reporting was based on letters that were obtained – by this news outlet and the Associated Press – following a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit.

Wyden said in a statement to the Guardian that he would be pressing Republican colleagues, who currently control the Senate, to issue a criminal referral of Kennedy to the Department of Justice for a criminal investigation. “And when Democrats retake the majority in the Senate, RFK will be at the top of the list of Trump officials the finance committee will hold accountable for endangering American families,” he said. Wyden currently serves as the top Democrat on the finance committee.

Also on Thursday, the government watchdog group American Oversight sent a letter to the justice department requesting that it immediately open an investigation into whether Kennedy violated the law by making false statements to Congress.

Michelle R. Smith at The Guardian:

Newly obtained documents indicate that the US health secretary, Robert F Kennedy Jr, lied during two congressional hearings last year, when he told lawmakers who held the key to his confirmation that a 2019 visit to Samoa had “nothing to do with vaccines”.

Letters obtained by the Guardian and the Associated Press contradict that testimony. In one he wrote to the Samoan prime minister before the trip, Kennedy explicitly said he wanted to study the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine in the Pacific island nation. In it, he used the words “vaccine” or “vaccination” eight times.

“I am writing this letter to you in the hope that we might be helpful to the people of your great nation,” he wrote, adding that he believed the deaths of two children there after an MMR vaccine could have resulted from manufacturing issues.

“I would propose my team conduct detailed health informatics assessment in Samoa of what happened with your MMR vaccines,” Kennedy wrote.

Kennedy’s Samoa visit – just months before a measles outbreak swept through the island, killing 83 people – has become one of the most controversial events in his career. At the time, he was leading a non-profit known for its anti-vaccine activism. The visit was seen by critics as having emboldened anti-vaccine activists in Samoa.

Beyond shedding light on the intent of Kennedy’s visit, the letter raises questions about the health secretary’s integrity and how truthful he was in testimony before Congress. During the confirmation process, Kennedy also pledged to maintain vaccine policies that, once in office, he moved to change.

Measles Deaths

In The Politics of Autism, I analyze the myth that vaccines cause autism. This bogus idea can hurt people by allowing diseases to spread. Examples include measles, COVID, flu, and polio. A top antivaxxer is HHS Secretary RFK Jr. He is part of the "Disinformation Dozen." He helped cause a deadly 2019 measles outbreak in Samoa.

Since  Trump took office in 2025, the U.S. has recorded more confirmed measles cases than in the previous 20 years combined.

Antivaxxers downplay the human and economic costs of measles.

Lena H. Sun and Rachel Roubein at WP:

Two Pennsylvania residents have died after contracting measles, the first such deaths in the state in 35 years and the first reported in the United States this year. The deaths prompted Gov. Josh Shapiro (D) to sharply confront the nation’s health secretary over federal vaccine messaging that he said is confusing and harmful.

Both the people who died were residents of Lancaster County. The Pennsylvania Health Department declined to release their ages or other information, citing the privacy of the people and their families.

Pennsylvania has confirmed 393 measles cases in 28 counties this year, including 86 in the past week. Nearly half of the cases are in Lancaster County, authorities said. Seventy people, nearly 20 percent of those infected, have been hospitalized, Shapiro said, and every confirmed case has occurred in someone who was not fully vaccinated.

“We hope and we pray that those deaths will be the last,” Shapiro said at a news conference Tuesday.

Shapiro, widely seen as a presidential contender, said he was late to the news conference because he had been speaking by phone with Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

“I was very, very blunt with him,” the governor said. “Made very clear that his actions and the rhetoric that’s coming from this administration are having a negative impact on communities across America, particularly right here in Pennsylvania.”

Shapiro said Kennedy’s statements were confusing parents and making it harder for them to know whom to trust. “There’s real-life consequences to spreading misinformation. There’s real-life consequences to scaring people and not relying on actual doctors, actual medical professionals, to provide unbiased information to parents so that we can make reasonable decisions for our kids,” he said.

The federal government’s public health decisions are not driven by facts and science, Shapiro said. That makes it even more confusing for parents. “All we want to do as parents is what is right for our kids,” he said.