As measles cases reach a 35-year high, a former Centers for Disease Control and Prevention official sounded the alarm, saying the deadly outbreak is not being taken seriously and warning that the country is not “prepared for global health threats” under Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
Former CDC Chief Medical Officer Debra Houry told MS NOW’s Ali Velshi on Tuesday that the severity of the disease — which in 2000 was declared eliminated in the United States — has been dangerously underestimated as childhood vaccination rates have fallen, driven in part by unfounded conspiracy theories promoted by Kennedy and others.
“I think there’s just been a really kind of a misconception that it’s a harmless childhood disease,” she said, adding, “Children are hospitalized with it. People can die from it. And even after you recover from measles, years later, people can die from a brain infection. … It’s a really concerning disease, and this is not a record that we want to be having.”
Houry, who resigned last year in protest of Kennedy’s “politicized” leadership at the CDC, said that health leaders typically speak “about the importance of vaccines” during outbreaks. But she said the health secretary has bucked that tradition, instead spreading misinformation about the measles vaccines and promoting “unproven treatments, like steroids and antibiotics.”
