{"id":206796,"date":"2026-04-23T01:35:17","date_gmt":"2026-04-23T01:35:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/206796\/"},"modified":"2026-04-23T01:35:17","modified_gmt":"2026-04-23T01:35:17","slug":"rfk-jr-says-his-department-advises-all-children-to-get-measles-vaccine-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/206796\/","title":{"rendered":"RFK Jr. Says His Department Advises All Children to Get Measles Vaccine"},"content":{"rendered":"

Over four days and nearly 20 hours of testimony, under harsh questioning from Democrats, Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has repeatedly backed away from<\/a> his longstanding criticism of the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine. On Wednesday, he made his strongest statement yet \u2014 albeit on behalf of his department and not himself.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe promote the M.M.R.,\u201d Mr. Kennedy told the Senate Finance Committee on Wednesday morning, referring to the combined vaccine for measles, mumps and rubella. \u201cWe have advised every child to get the M.M.R. That\u2019s what we do.\u201d<\/p>\n

The comment stands in stark contrast to Mr. Kennedy\u2019s past advice, and senators wondered aloud why he hasn\u2019t told the public what he said on Capitol Hill this week. Last week, he conceded the measles vaccine is \u201csafe and effective\u201d<\/a> for most people.<\/p>\n

When measles broke out in Texas last year, Mr. Kennedy did not recommend vaccination; he said it should be \u201ca personal choice.\u201d Last year, asked if he would advise parents to vaccinate newborns, he said it was not up to him to provide medical advice. His advice, he said, was: \u201cDo your own research.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

But even as he shifted on measles, Mr. Kennedy stuck by his longstanding assertion that improvements in hygiene and sanitation, and not vaccination, fueled the decline in deaths from infectious diseases during the 20th century.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you want to talk about what, why disease mortality has disappeared in the 20th century, it was not vaccines,\u201d he said, testifying before the Senate health committee Wednesday afternoon.<\/p>\n

As proof, Mr. Kennedy cited a study published<\/a> in the journal Pediatrics in 2000. But he failed to note that the study also reported that vaccines introduced in the second half of the 20th century had \u201cvirtually eliminated\u201d deaths from diseases including polio and measles. In 1999, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention listed vaccination as one of \u201cten great public health achievements\u201d<\/a> of the 20th century.<\/p>\n

After Mr. Kennedy made the assertion, Senator Bill Cassidy, the Republican chairman of the Senate health committee, asked about the author of the study; Mr. Kennedy gave him the author\u2019s name. Later in the hearing, Mr. Cassidy produced the paper and told Mr. Kennedy he had taken it out of context.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Over four days and nearly 20 hours of testimony, under harsh questioning from Democrats, Health Secretary Robert F.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":206778,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[4671,75,84,83,16081,9,24,63,4672,1876,70440],"class_list":{"0":"post-206796","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-manhattan","8":"tag-kennedy","9":"tag-manhattan","10":"tag-manhattan-headlines","11":"tag-manhattan-news","12":"tag-measles","13":"tag-new-york","14":"tag-new-york-city","15":"tag-nyc","16":"tag-robert-f-jr","17":"tag-united-states-politics-and-government","18":"tag-vaccination-and-immunization"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/206796","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=206796"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/206796\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/206778"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=206796"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=206796"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=206796"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}