Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who has faced heavy criticism over the latest turmoil at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, on Tuesday said he will work to make sure the agency restores Americans’ trust, while touting his response to the largest measles outbreak in the U.S. in three decades as a shining example of “what a focused CDC can achieve.”
In an opinion piece published in The Wall Street Journal, Kennedy accused the agency of failing its mission.
The CDC “was once the world’s most trusted guardian of public health,” he writes. “Its mission — protecting Americans from infectious disease — was clear and noble. But over the decades, bureaucratic inertia, politicized science and mission creep have corroded that purpose and squandered public trust.”
Kennedy, one of the country’s most prominent vaccine skeptics, slammed the CDC’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic, claiming the agency “produced irrational policy” during the crisis, citing its promotion of “cloth masks on toddlers, arbitrary 6-foot distancing, boosters for healthy children, prolonged school closings, economy-crushing lockdowns, and the suppression of low-cost therapeutics in favor of experimental and ineffective drugs.”
Kennedy, who assumed office in February, said that during his time at the top of the Department of Health and Human Services, which oversees the CDC, he has demonstrated what a “focused CDC can achieve,” citing its response to a large measles outbreak in Texas earlier this year.
“When measles flared this year in Texas, we brought vaccines, therapeutics and resources to the epicenter. The outbreak ended quickly, proving the CDC can act swiftly with precision when guided by science and freed from ideology. That response was neither ‘pro-vax’ nor ‘antivax.’ It wasn’t distracted by ‘equity outcomes’ or politically correct language like ‘pregnant people.’ It was effective. And effectiveness — not politics — will be the watchword of our leadership,” he said.
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The number of measles cases reported in the U.S. in 2025 was higher than in any other year since the disease was declared eliminated in the country a quarter-century ago, according to the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health’s U.S. Measles Tracker. The largest outbreak was reported in West Texas, which was the origin of the later flare-ups across the country.
The Texas Department of State Health Services last month declared the outbreak, during which nearly 100 people were hospitalized with the disease and two unvaccinated children died, officially over.
Over the course of the outbreak, Kennedy, who has no formal medical training, offered inconsistent and tepid support for the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine — which is over 97% effective at preventing the disease at two doses — and encouraged untested treatments, including the use of vitamin A and cod liver oil.
Experts told Scientific American that the drop in measles cases in the state could be due to a number of factors, including summer school breaks. Angela Rasmussen, a virologist at the University of Saskatchewan, told the magazine the state may still be susceptible to future outbreaks of the disease because of how prevalent anti-vaccine efforts have been there.
Kennedy’s opinion piece failed to mention a recent shooting at the agency’s headquarters in Atlanta as well as the high-profile departures of key officials from the CDC last week. Susan Monarez was terminated as CDC director by the Trump administration. Monarez’s lawyers said she was removed from the role because she defended science.
Earlier this week, nine former leaders of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, who served under both Democratic and Republican presidents, accused Kennedy of putting Americans’ health at risk in a New York Times opinion essay.
“The men and women who have joined the C.D.C. across generations have done so not for prestige or power but because they believe deeply in the call to service,” they wrote. “They deserve a health and human services secretary who stands up for health, supports science and has their back. So, too, does our country.”
Kennedy is expected to testify before the Senate Finance Committee later this week.
Read the full opinion piece in The Wall Street Journal.
