{"id":468418,"date":"2026-02-09T11:53:13","date_gmt":"2026-02-09T11:53:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/468418\/"},"modified":"2026-02-09T11:53:13","modified_gmt":"2026-02-09T11:53:13","slug":"take-the-vaccine-please-dr-oz-urges-amid-rising-measles-cases-in-us-trump-administration","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/468418\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Take the vaccine, please,\u2019 Dr Oz urges amid rising measles cases in US | Trump administration"},"content":{"rendered":"

A senior US public health official called on Americans to get vaccinated against measles as outbreaks continue<\/a> in multiple states<\/a> and concerns grow that the country could lose its measles elimination designation. Dr Mehmet Oz, a cardiothoracic surgeon, spoke in support on Sunday of the measles vaccine.<\/p>\n

\u201cTake the vaccine, please,\u201d said Oz, the administrator of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. \u201cWe have a solution for our problem.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNot all illnesses are equally dangerous and not all people are equally susceptible to those illnesses,\u201d he told<\/a> CNN\u2019s State of the Union. \u201cBut measles is one you should get your vaccine.\u201d<\/p>\n

His boss, health secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr<\/a>, has a long history of questioning both the safety and necessity of vaccines.<\/p>\n

The remarks come as South Carolina<\/a> is experiencing an outbreak<\/a> involving hundreds of cases, exceeding the number recorded in Texas\u2019 measles outbreak earlier in 2025. Another outbreak has been identified along the Utah-Arizona border, and several additional states have reported confirmed cases this year. Children have been the most affected.<\/p>\n

Public health specialists say the resurgence<\/a> is occurring as skepticism toward vaccines grows, potentially fueling the return of a disease that officials had previously declared eliminated in the US.<\/p>\n

In January alone, the US saw 25% of the total cases<\/a> confirmed in all of last year, and the outbreak shows no sign of slowing as federal officials mostly stay silent on vaccination.<\/p>\n

The vast majority of patients are not vaccinated, but there have been no national campaigns announced, with Oz being the first major statement from the federal government. Last year, Kennedy positioned measles vaccines as a personal choice<\/a> and recommended unproven treatments for the highly contagious illness.<\/p>\n

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Oz has previously leaned into Kennedy\u2019s campaign to \u201cmake America healthy again\u201d (Maha), an effort to redesign the country\u2019s food supply, reject vaccine mandates and cast doubt on some long-established scientific research. He cast doubt<\/a> on how well flu vaccines work in an interview with Newsmax last year. \u201cEvery year, there\u2019s a flu vaccine. It doesn\u2019t always work very well. That\u2019s why it\u2019s been controversial of late,\u201d Oz said. He instead recommended that Americans \u201ctake care\u201d of themselves, so they can \u201coverwhelm\u201d the flu when they encounter it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A senior US public health official called on Americans to get vaccinated against measles as outbreaks continue in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":468419,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,44,41,39,42,40],"class_list":["post-468418","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/468418","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=468418"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/468418\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/468419"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=468418"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=468418"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=468418"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}