{"id":23092,"date":"2025-03-02T19:48:37","date_gmt":"2025-03-02T20:48:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/medexperts.pro\/?p=23092"},"modified":"2025-03-02T21:23:18","modified_gmt":"2025-03-02T21:23:18","slug":"federal-officials-underplaying-measles-vaccination-experts-say","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/?p=23092","title":{"rendered":"Federal Officials Underplaying Measles Vaccination, Experts Say"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Robert F. Kennedy Jr. described the outbreak in West Texas last week as a \u201ctop priority.\u201d But he did not explicitly encourage Americans to get vaccinated.<\/p>\n

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In a first test of the Trump administration\u2019s ability to respond to an infectious disease emergency, its top health official has shied away from one of the government\u2019s most important tools, experts said on Sunday: loudly and directly encouraging parents to get their children vaccinated.<\/p>\n

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the health secretary, was widely criticized as minimizing the measles outbreak<\/a> in West Texas at a cabinet meeting on Wednesday. In a social media post on Friday<\/a>, he took a new tact, saying that the outbreak was a \u201ctop priority\u201d for his department, Health and Human Services.<\/p>\n

He noted various ways in which the department is aiding Texas, among them by funding the state\u2019s immunization program and updating advice that doctors give children vitamin A. But on neither occasion did Mr. Kennedy himself advise Americans to make sure their children got the shots.<\/p>\n

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, part of H.H.S., did not send its first substantive notice about the outbreak until Thursday, almost a month after the first cases in Texas were reported.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cThey\u2019ve been shouting with a whisper,\u201d said Dr. Michael Osterholm, who is an epidemiologist at the University of Minnesota and a former health department official.<\/p>\n

\u201cI fear that their hands have been tied,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

C.D.C. officials did not immediately respond to a request for comment. <\/p>\n

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Robert F. Kennedy Jr. described the outbreak in West Texas last week as a \u201ctop priority.\u201d But he did not explicitly encourage Americans to get vaccinated.In a first test of the Trump administration\u2019s ability to respond to an infectious disease emergency, its top health official has shied away from one of the government\u2019s most important tools, experts said on Sunday: loudly and directly encouraging parents to get their children vaccinated.Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the health secretary, was widely criticized as minimizing the measles outbreak in West Texas at a cabinet meeting on Wednesday. In a social media post on Friday, he took a new tact, saying that the outbreak was a \u201ctop priority\u201d for his department, Health and Human Services.He noted various ways in which the department is aiding Texas, among them by funding the state\u2019s immunization program and updating advice that doctors give children vitamin A. But on neither occasion did Mr. Kennedy himself advise Americans to make sure their children got the shots.The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, part of H.H.S., did not send its first substantive notice about the outbreak until Thursday, almost a month after the first cases in Texas were reported.\u201cThey\u2019ve been shouting with a whisper,\u201d said Dr. Michael Osterholm, who is an epidemiologist at the University of Minnesota and a former health department official.\u201cI fear that their hands have been tied,\u201d he added.C.D.C. officials did not immediately respond to a request for comment. We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and\u00a0log into\u00a0your Times account, or\u00a0subscribe\u00a0for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber?\u00a0Log in.Want all of The Times?\u00a0Subscribe.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":23094,"comment_status":"close","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23092","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lifestyle"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23092","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=23092"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23092\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23095,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23092\/revisions\/23095"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/23094"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=23092"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=23092"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=23092"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}