As measles cases reach a 35-year high, a former Centers for Disease Control and Prevention official sounded the alarm, saying the deadly outbreak is not being taken seriously and warning that the country is not “prepared for global health threats” under Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
Former CDC Chief Medical Officer Debra Houry told MS NOW’s Ali Velshi on Tuesday that the severity of the disease — which in 2000 was declared eliminated in the United States — has been dangerously underestimated as childhood vaccination rates have fallen, driven in part by unfounded conspiracy theories promoted by Kennedy and others.
“I think there’s just been a really kind of a misconception that it’s a harmless childhood disease,” she said, adding, “Children are hospitalized with it. People can die from it. And even after you recover from measles, years later, people can die from a brain infection. … It’s a really concerning disease, and this is not a record that we want to be having.”
Houry, who resigned last year in protest of Kennedy’s “politicized” leadership at the CDC, said that health leaders typically speak “about the importance of vaccines” during outbreaks. But she said the health secretary has bucked that tradition, instead spreading misinformation about the measles vaccines and promoting “unproven treatments, like steroids and antibiotics.”
Houry said the measles surge is only part of the broader erosion of the nation’s public health infrastructure under the Trump administration, arguing that staffing cuts at the CDC and the country’s withdrawal from the World Health Organization have left the U.S. less prepared for future outbreaks.
“With about 30% of the workforce being cut, 80% of senior leaders at CDC being gone, we’re seeing now that we’re not able to track foodborne outbreaks as much,” she said. “And certainly if you can’t have visibility into other countries, because we have withdrawn from the World Health Organization, we are not prepared for global health threats, either.”
You can watch Houry’s full interview in the clip at the top of the page.
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