RFK Jr. encourages people to get measles vaccine in first network TV interview since becoming health secretary
Robert Kennedy Jr. sat down exclusively with CBS News chief medical correspondent Dr. Jon LaPook for his first network TV interview since becoming Health and Human Services secretary. You can watch LaPook's interview with Kennedy on "
CBS Mornings
" and the "
CBS Evening News
" on Wednesday, April 9.
Health and Human Services Secreaty Robert F. Kennedy Jr. told CBS News he encourages people to get vaccinated against measles as an
outbreak primarily in West Texas
has killed two children and infected more than 500 people in the area.
"We encourage people to get the measles vaccine," Kennedy told CBS News chief medical correspondent Dr. Jon LaPook on Tuesday during his Make America Healthy Again tour in Arizona, marking the first time Kennedy has publicly urged people to get the measles vaccine since becoming HHS secretary.
Asked by LaPook what the federal government's official position on the vaccine is, Kennedy reiterated, "The federal government's position, my position, is that people should get the measles vaccine," but added, "The government should not be mandating those."
Kennedy had previously
acknowledged the vaccine's efficacy
in an opinion piece published by Fox News in March, in which he wrote that he was "deeply concerned about the recent measles outbreak" and said, "Vaccines not only protect individual children from measles, but also contribute to community immunity, protecting those who are unable to be vaccinated due to medical reasons."
And on social media last weekend, Kennedy wrote, "The most effective way to prevent the spread of measles is the MMR vaccine." But he stopped short of recommending people actually get the vaccine in both instances.
Prior to that piece, Kennedy had downplayed the growing number of cases and made several
false and misleading claims
about the safety of the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine. Kennedy, referring to the ongoing outbreak, had at one point called it "not unusual." However, with more than 600 cases nationwide just four months into 2025, the U.S. has seen the most measles infections in a single year since a 2019 outbreak, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Measles
is highly contagious and can cause
severe infections
in the lungs and brain that can lead to cognitive issues, deafness or death. But doctors and health officials say
the MMR vaccine
is extremely
safe and effective
.
Most people who develop measles will see their symptoms improve, but about 1 in 5 unvaccinated people will be hospitalized. About 1 out of every 1,000 children with measles will develop brain swelling that can lead to brain damage, and up to 3 of every 1,000 children who become infected will die, the CDC says.
Both of the children who died in this year's outbreak were unvaccinated, and health officials have said the overwhelming majority of people infected in West Texas are either unvaccinated or have unknown vaccination status.
Kennedy has insisted he is not anti-vaccine and says
his views
have been mischaracterized.
"I always said during my campaign and every part, every public statement I've made, 'I'm not gonna take people's vaccines away from them,'" Kennedy told LaPook. "What I'm gonna do is make sure that we have good science so that people can make an informed choice."
Taylor Johnston
and
Sara Moniuszko
contributed to this report.
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Among the eight people who Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced would make up his new group of outside vaccine advisers to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are an emergency physician who posted Islamophobic commentary on social media and two doctors who were paid to provide expert testimony in trials against a vaccine maker. Kennedy, who was himself an influential anti-vaccine advocate before taking the helm at the US Department of Health and Human Services this year, dismissed the previous 17-member Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, or ACIP, saying the group was 'plagued with conflicts of interest.' He pledged that their replacements wouldn't be 'ideological anti-vaxxers.' Some, though, have been accused of spreading false or misleading information about the safety of vaccines. 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Hibbeln is a former NIH researcher focused on nutrition and psychiatry, with a particular interest in seafood: He is an unpaid adviser to Positively Groundfish, a nonprofit trade association supporting the fishing industry. Though his vaccine views haven't been made clear, a paper he co-authored in 2018 notes that a connection between a form of mercury in vaccines, thimerosal, and autism 'has been largely repudiated.' Kennedy noted in his X post that, while at the NIH, Hibbeln 'led research on immune regulation, neurodevelopment, and mental health' and that his work has 'informed US public health guidelines, particularly in maternal and child health.' Hibbeln declined to comment when reached by email. Kulldorff was a prominent early critic of the US government's coronavirus response, namely broad shutdowns and school closures, and later the Covid-19 vaccines and what he has argued was federal collusion with social media companies to censor his and others' views. The Swedish epidemiologist and biostatistician teamed up with Oxford professor Dr. Sunetra Gupta and Stanford professor Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, now director of the National Institutes of Health, to write the October 2020 'Great Barrington Declaration,' which argued for fewer social distancing requirements for young, healthy people rather than broad lockdowns. That alliance carried on as Bhattacharya assumed his federal role. Kulldorff's name swirled in the early days of the second Trump administration as HHS officials discussed potential hires around the agencies and appointments to advisory panels, according to a personal familiar with the discussions who asked to remain anonymous because they were not authorized to speak with CNN. Kennedy also seemed to suggest in April that Kulldorff was part of the agency's effort to research the causes of autism. 'This is all being run by Jay Bhattacharya and by, I think, Martin Kulldorff, maybe also working on this, on designing the grant proposals,' Kennedy said April 16. Asked by reporters a few days later about Kulldorff's level of involvement in the autism initiative, Bhattacharya declined to discuss 'any personnel decisions specifically' but added that 'this is public knowledge. I'm very close friends with Martin, and we talk all the time.' Kulldorff wrote in a commentary in the urban policy magazine City Journal that 'vaccines are a vital medical invention' but that clinical trials for Covid-19 shots were not properly designed. He also said he has 'spent decades studying drug and vaccine adverse reactions without taking any money from pharmaceutical companies.' Levi is a professor of operations management at MIT and trained as a mathematician. His bio on the MIT website says he studies food supply chains. He also spent nearly 12 years as an intelligence officer in the Israeli Defense Forces. In an email to CNN, Levi said that he has nearly '19 years of extensive work with healthcare systems and health data,' including 'work on quality and safety of manufacturing of biologic drugs, post marketing safety signal detection, epidemiological models and more generally data driven and statistical/AI enabled frameworks and decision support tools to manage and optimize risk-benefit tradeoffs.' 'I also have been conducting research specifically on the COVID-19 vaccines,' he wrote. In 2022, Levi co-authored a study that looked at the relationship between Covid-19 vaccination rates in Israel and emergency calls for heart problems in teens and young adults. Levi and his co-authors reported a 25% increase in these heart-related emergencies in the early months of 2021 compared with 2019 through 2020. They concluded that this increase was not due to a wave of Covid-19 illnesses — which can cause heart problems — but instead was associated with the timing of the first and second doses of mRNA vaccines in this age group. Observational studies like this one can be misleading because while they may show that two things happen at the same time, they can't prove that one caused the other. In order to prove that vaccines caused an increase in heart-related emergencies in Israel, the researchers would have needed to know the vaccination status of patients in the study and to show that heart-related emergencies increased in vaccinated compared with unvaccinated individuals. The study authors didn't have that information, according to an independent fact check of the study's claims. More recently, Levi has co-authored a study with Florida's surgeon general, Dr. Joseph Ladapo, who in 2024 called for a halt in the use of the Covid-19 vaccine in the state, even for adults over age 65. This new study, which was posted as a preprint — meaning it hadn't been scrutinized by outside experts or published in medical journal — compared death risks in 1.4 million Florida adults who received either the Pfizer or Moderna Covid vaccines in the year after vaccination. The study authors say that they found a higher risk of dying from any cause, and from heart-related causes, in Floridians who received Pfizer's Covid-19 vaccines than in those who received shots from Moderna and that this indicates the vaccines have different 'non-specific' effects. In an email, Levi said that nonspecific effects relate to 'health outcomes broader than and beyond the target virus,' such as deaths from any cause or heart-related deaths. But the study didn't compare death rates in the vaccinated groups with those in people who were unvaccinated. Other studies have found that Covid-19 contributed to excess deaths during the years of the pandemic and to heart-related deaths specifically. The study also didn't account for different dosages in the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines, noted Dr. Peter Hotez, a pediatrician and infectious disease expert who is co-director of the Center for Vaccine Development at Texas Children's Hospital. Moderna's shots had a higher dose of mRNA than Pfizer's: 100 micrograms vs. about 30 micrograms. If the excess deaths were caused by Covid, greater protection from the Moderna vaccines might explain the higher death risk in the Pfizer-vaccinated group, Hotez said. When asked whether the different dosing of mRNA in the vaccines might account for the findings, Levi wrote, 'I think that the hypothesis that Moderna has protective effects against non-COVID deaths and even against cardiovascular deaths, while cannot be fully dismissed, is highly implausible, and not supported by evidence.' In fact, Hotez said, it is supported by evidence. Hotez said in an email that this kind of messaging 'cherry picks a weakly supported factoid, and blows it up until it defies reality but supports their false narrative, while simultaneously ignoring a mountain of counter evidence.' The study authors used the findings to try to sow doubt about the vaccines. In a social media post, Ladapo wrote, 'Did your doctor tell you that you might be more likely to die if you took Pfizer instead of Moderna? That's what we found in Florida, and other studies have shown similar results. The system is rotten and we need more honest scientists.' Although Malone made some key early innovations in mRNA and its potential use in drug therapies, the biochemist has argued in recent years that mRNA-based Covid-19 vaccines are risky and that drug regulators too rapidly authorized their use. In 2023, Malone told House representatives during an event on Covid-19 vaccine injury led by Georgia Republican Marjorie Taylor Greene that he believes mRNA shots can cause cancer, a claim that is not backed by peer-reviewed scientific literature and the FDAand the National Cancer Institute say there is no evidence of a link. Malone's criticisms extend beyond mRNA immunizations. In April, he suggested that a number of measles cases in the current outbreak were caused by the vaccines themselves – although the CDC says they are rare breakthrough cases due to community spread, not cases from shots. In December, he wrote that early polio shots caused cancer because of contamination with the simian 40 virus. The CDC has said that although that virus has caused cancer in some animals, there is no evidence that it caused human cancers. More recently, Malone served as a senior medical adviser to Independent Medical Alliance, formerly known as the Frontline COVID-19 Critical Care Alliance, a nonprofit that pushed back on vaccine requirements and touted unproven coronavirus treatments such as ivermectin. The group celebrated Malone's appointment to the panel Wednesday. Asked whether it had any input with HHS on the new ACIP members, IMA President and Chief Medical Officer Dr. Joseph Varon said in an email that the group 'regularly communicates with HHS on public health issues, including vaccine policy. While specifics aren't disclosed, it's part of their mission to guide such processes.' Of all the new appointees, Dr. Cody Meissner has the most vaccine expertise. He is a pediatric infectious disease expert at Dartmouth University who also has a long history of government service. He previously served on ACIP from 2008 to 2012 and served on the group of independent experts who advised the FDA on its vaccine decisions during the pandemic. He's also been a member of vaccine advisory boards, including for the American Academy of Pediatrics, and was the chair of the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program. He has co-authored dozens of studies and position statements on vaccines. During the pandemic, he co-authored an editorial in The Wall Street Journal with Dr. Marty Makary, who is now commissioner of the FDA, arguing against the use of masks for kids. He recently told Reuters that he supports Kennedy's decision not to recommend Covid-19 vaccines for pregnant women and healthy children. In a social media post, infectious disease expert Dr. Michael Mina called Meissner a 'rigorous scientist and has defended vaccines' and a 'terrific choice.' Meissner did not respond to CNN's request for comment for this story. Kennedy's post about Pagano notes that he's a board-certified emergency medicine physician with more than 40 years of experience, including service on hospital committees, and is a strong advocate for evidence-based medicine. He appears to be licensed in both California and Florida. In posts on a blog linked to the X account with his name, Pagano wrote in 2017 that it was a 'disappointment' that Republicans failed to repeal and replace Obamacare, and he advocated for 'transparent, cost-based pricing' in health care. Pebsworth is a registered nurse and has a doctorate in health services organization and policy. She has worked in health care for more than 45 years, according to a brief bio that Kennedy posted to X. She's a regional director for the National Association of Catholic Nurses. She has served as a consumer representative to the FDA's Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee, or VRBPAC, and on subcommittees for HHS's National Vaccine Advisory Committee, along with other federal and congressional appointments. She has been a board member of the National Vaccine Information Center, a group that says it 'is dedicated to preventing vaccine injuries and deaths through public education and advocating for informed consent protections in medical policies and public health laws.' Articles and videos on its website say that vaccine injuries are common while the benefits of immunizations are questionable, call for more study of vaccines on the childhood schedule and promote the false idea that vaccines cause autism. As part of that group, Pebsworth made 'Ask Nurse Vicky' videos talking about vaccine injuries and informed consent. In one of the videos, she shared that she believes her son was injured by vaccines he received during a routine doctor's visit when he was 15 months old. In 2009, disgraced British physician Andrew Wakefield introduced Pebsworth's son before he sang and played keyboards at an autism dinner. Wakefield helped cause a worldwide panic in 1998 after he published a study suggesting that vaccines cause autism, but many subsequent studies have disproven the link. He was stripped of his medical license in 2010. Wakefield called Pebsworth 'my great friend.' Pebsworth did not respond to CNN's request for comment. Kennedy listed Dr. Michael Ross as a clinical professor at George Washington University and Virginia Commonwealth University, although Ross is not currently employed at either institution. A VCU spokesperson told CNN that Ross was an affiliate faculty member with the School of Medicine's Inova Campus from 2006 to 2021, when the VCU and Inova partnership ended. A spokesperson for GWU said Ross began working at the university in 1979, but he has not had a faculty appointment there since 2017. His LinkedIn lists his work there ending in May 2025. The Virginia-based obstetrics and gynecology physician announced a month ago that he had joined Manta Pharma, a Maryland biotech firm focused on AI-based delivery of therapies for autoimmune diseases, diabetes, drug addiction and HIV/AIDS. Ross' other current employer, private equity group Havencrest Capital Management, describes him as a 'serial CEO' who has served on the boards of multiple private health care companies. On his LinkedIn page, Ross says that while CEO of a generic pharmaceutical company, he engineered the acquisition of a stem cell company 'and an investment in a vaccine company.' Ross previously served as president of CPL Inc., the North American division of Indian generic drugmaker Cadila Pharmaceutical, and was a board member of the Generic Pharmaceutical Association. Ross did not respond to a request for comment on the vaccine company investment and potential recusals while serving on ACIP. CNN's Andrew Kaczynski and Em Steck contributed to this report.
