Examining RFK Jr.’s Role in the Measles Outbreak

Measles cases have reached a 35-year high while Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the nation’s most prominent vaccine skeptic, is leading the Department of Health and Human Services, raising questions about what role he has played in the outbreak.

Before the measles vaccine was introduced in 1963, the U.S. experienced millions of cases per year. Children who came down with the disease were often left with lifelong ailments and hundreds of American kids died every year. Cases steadily declined throughout the rest of the century, then tumbled in the 1990s when a second dose of the vaccine was recommended. By 2000, measles was declared eradicated.