Rep. Byron Donalds, a Republican from Florida who is running for governor, has blamed “rampant illegal immigration” during the Biden administration for measles outbreaks. But we found no link to illegal immigration in several recent large outbreaks, and infectious disease experts told us that the main driver of the cases is falling measles vaccination rates in the U.S.
After the Pennsylvania Department of Health announced two cases of measles-related deaths in one county, the local coroner appeared to contradict the account. And in an ongoing spat with Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has alleged that a Shapiro staffer may have even “fabricated” the deaths. We’ll lay out what we know.
Following an executive order that called for breaking up the combination measles, mumps and rubella, or MMR, vaccine, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said that a “recent” study “just came out” that “very strongly supports” the idea. But there’s no evidence of any such credible study, past or present.
During the signing of an executive order on vaccines, President Donald Trump and Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. made a deluge of false and misleading claims about the U.S. childhood vaccine schedule.
In signing an executive order about childhood vaccines, President Donald Trump falsely suggested that the measles, mumps and rubella, or MMR, vaccine was unsafe and that splitting up the combination shot would reduce the number of children with autism. There’s no evidence for those claims, and the vaccine has been well-studied for several decades.
In a contentious interview on CNN’s “State of the Union,” Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. made several false, misleading and baseless claims about the origins of Lyme disease and the respiratory syncytial virus, the COVID-19 pandemic, and what the science shows about autism, vaccination and acetaminophen use during pregnancy.
In defending his record on measles, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. twice said during a recent Senate hearing, “We promote” the measles vaccine. While it’s true that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention continues to recommend the shot, Kennedy has rarely made an unequivocal endorsement of it, even as the nation has seen an alarming rise in measles cases.
It’s a common, misleading refrain in anti-vaccine circles: Childhood vaccines may be unsafe because few if any have been tested in placebo-controlled trials before being approved. But that claim misunderstands the vaccine safety testing process and takes advantage of a narrow definition of a placebo, scientists told us.
Elon Musk this week amplified an unfounded claim, based on a distortion of vaccine safety monitoring data, that COVID-19 vaccines killed tens of thousands of people in Germany. The vaccines saved millions of lives worldwide during a deadly pandemic, and serious side effects or deaths from vaccination are rare.
During her confirmation hearing to become surgeon general, Dr. Casey Means had various back-and-forths with senators, who pressed her on topics related to vaccines, her qualifications and disclosure of her conflicts of interest. We looked into the sometimes-dueling claims from Means and the senators.