In a first test of Trump’s administration’s ability to respond to an emergency from infectious disease, the leading health employee avoided one of the government’s most important tools, the experts said on Sunday: loudly and immediately encouraging their children.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Health Secretary, was widely criticized as minimizing the measles event in western Texas at a meeting of the cabinet on Wednesday. In a publication of social media on Friday, he took a new glue, saying that the outburst was a “top priority” for his department, health and human services.
He noted various ways in which the Department helps Texas, with each other by funding the state immune program and informing the advice that doctors give children vitamin A. But in no case does Mr Kennedy himself advise Americans to make sure their children have taken their plans.
The Disease Control and Prevention Centers, part of the HHS, did not send the first substantive notice of the epidemic until Thursday, almost a month after reporting the first cases in Texas.
“They have shouted with a whisper,” said Dr. Michael Osterholm, who is an epidemiologist at the University of Minnesota and a former official of the Ministry of Health.
“I’m afraid their hands are tied,” he added.
CDC employees did not immediately respond to request for comments.
The measles epidemic in western Texas has become ill for more than 140 inhabitants and killed a child, the first such death in a decade. The lukewarm approval of the immunization and rare federal updates are particularly concerned with scientists in the light of Mr Kennedy’s long history of sowing vaccines.
Over the years, he has suggested that the measles, mumps and red vaccine was associated with autism and that the measles stoves were mostly “made” to play the profits of the manufacturers.
If the Texas epidemic offers a window on Trump’s approach to public health, it causes problems in the future, some researchers said.
State health officials say they do not need extensive federal assistance, but future homes in other places may not be manageable without federal assistance. “You could call it a rehearsal dress,” said Catherine Troisi, an epidemiologist at the Uthealth Houston Public Health School.
He added: “In the theater, a bad rehearsal dress means a good performance. I am really sure that is not the case in public health.”
In earlier measles epidemics, the CDC often plays a leading role in public training in the risks of the presentation of virus conventions and the importance of MMR vaccinations.
At the height of an epidemic in New York in 2019, during the first term of President Trump, the Agency issued a press release urging healthcare providers to reassure patients about vaccine safety and critical groups that spread misleading information.
In an accompanying statement, Alex M. Azar II, the Minister of Health at the time, wrote that measles was a “extremely contagious, potentially life -threatening disease”.
“With a safe and effective vaccine that protects against measles, the hassle we see is avoided,” he added.
His message was part of an intense campaign to eliminate the largest outbreak since 2000, when the measles had been declared by the United States. Intense campaigns have led to more than 60,000 mmr immunities in the affected communities.
Health officials arrived at religious leaders, local doctors and defense groups. In parts of New York, officials declared emergency, identified immunerations, and prevented non -vaccinated children from public places.
The signals this time were much more implicit.
By the time the CDC published its first public statement on the epidemic, measles had spread to nine counties in Texas and nine additional cases had erupted at the limit of New Mexico.
The statement referring to vaccination once, saying that “remains the best defense against measles infection”.
When asked about the cases in Texas on Wednesday, Mr Kennedy said the outburst was “not unusual”, and falsely claimed that many people were hospitalized were “mainly for quarantine”.
He did not report vaccines. In his position in the social media, Mr Kennedy stressed that his department would “continue to fund the Texas immunization program”. But he did not explicitly ask the Americans to take the footage.
Instead, the vaccination campaign has been largely left to state and local officials. In Texas, there have been frequent news conferences, strongly promoting vaccines and violating misinformation.
Senator Bill Cassidy, a Republican of Louisiana, who is a doctor and who put a critical vote to confirm Mr Kennedy in his place, urged his states of state, which borders Texas, to make sure that he was informed.
But a virus as contagious as measles does not respect state boundaries and the CDC must provide greater national guidance and leadership, Dr. Osterholm said.
“Any location could be the next hot spot tomorrow” He said.
On Friday, Texas Capital, Austin, reported a case of measles in an unpaid infant exposed during international trips.
