‘Please get vaccinated,’ a top US health official said in an appeal as measles cases surged

WASHINGTON (AP) — A top U.S. health official urged people Sunday to get vaccinated against measles amid outbreaks in several states and the United States at risk of losing measles-eradication status.

“Please take the vaccine,” said Dr. said Mehmet Oz, the administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services whose boss has raised doubts about the safety and importance of vaccines. “We have a solution to our problem.”

Oz, a heart surgeon, defended some recently revised federal vaccine recommendations as well as past comments by President Donald Trump and the nation’s health chief, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., about the effectiveness of vaccines. From Oz, there was a clear message about measles.

“Not all diseases are equally dangerous and not all people are equally susceptible to those diseases,” he told CNN’s “State of the Union.” “But measles means you should get your vaccination.”

Outbreaks in the hundreds in South Carolina have surpassed the case count recorded in the 2025 outbreak in Texas, and there is also one on the Utah-Arizona border. Several other states have had confirmed cases this year. The outbreak has mostly affected children, and infectious disease experts have warned that growing public distrust of vaccines could contribute to the spread of the disease once public health officials declare eradication.

Asked in a television interview whether people should be afraid of measles, Oz replied, “Oh, sure.” He said Medicare and Medicaid will continue to cover the measles vaccine as part of the insurance program.

“There will never be a barrier to Americans getting access to the measles vaccine. And that’s part of the main agenda,” Oz said.

But Oz also said that “we’ve always advocated for the measles vaccine” and that Kennedy “was way ahead of it.”

Questions about vaccines did not come up during Kennedy’s interview on Fox News Channel’s “The Sunday Briefing,” where he was asked what kind of Super Bowl snack (presumably yogurt) he might have. He also eats steak with sauerkraut in the morning.

Kennedy’s critics have argued that the health secretary’s long-standing skepticism of U.S. vaccine recommendations and past sympathies for unfounded claims that vaccines can cause autism may have influenced official public health guidance contrary to medical consensus.

Oz argued in favor of the measles vaccine despite Kennedy’s general comments about Kennedy’s recommended vaccination schedule.

“When the first outbreak happened in Texas, he said, get the measles vaccine, because that’s an example of a disease you should be vaccinated against,” Oz said.

The Republican administration last month scrapped some vaccine recommendations for children, an overhaul of the traditional vaccination schedule that the Department of Health and Human Services had called for in response to Trump’s request.

Trump asked the agency to review how nations approach vaccine recommendations and consider revising U.S. guidance accordingly.

States, not the federal government, have the authority to vaccinate school children. While federal requirements often influence those state regulations, some states have begun forming their own coalitions to resist the administration’s guidance on vaccines.

According to federal data, U.S. vaccination rates have fallen and the share of children exempt has reached an all-time high. At the same time, rates of vaccine-preventable diseases such as measles and whooping cough are rising across the country.

Kennedy’s past anti-vaccination activism

Kennedy’s past skepticism about vaccines has come under scrutiny since Trump first nominated him to lead the Department of Health and Human Services.

During his Senate confirmation testimony last year, Kennedy told lawmakers that a closely scrutinized 2019 trip to Samoa, which came before a devastating measles outbreak, “had nothing to do with vaccines.”

But documents obtained by The Guardian and The Associated Press undermine that testimony. Emails sent by US Embassy and United Nations staff show that Kennedy sought to meet with top Samoan officials during his trip to the Pacific island nation.

Samoan officials later said Kennedy’s trip bolstered the credibility of anti-vaccination activists ahead of the measles outbreak, which sickened thousands of people and killed 83, mostly children under the age of 5.

Autism, mixed messages on vaccines

Oz’s comments mark a broader pattern of conflicting statements among administration officials about the effectiveness of vaccines amid an overhaul of U.S. public health policy.

Officials have walked a fine line in criticizing past U.S. vaccine policy, often appearing at times to express sympathy for baseless conspiracy theories from anti-vaccine activists, while not straying too far from established science.

During a Senate hearing Tuesday, National Institutes of Health Director Jay Bhattacharya said no single vaccine causes autism, but research did not rule out the possibility that a combination of vaccines could have negative health effects.

But Kennedy has argued in Senate testimony that the link between vaccines and autism has not been disproved.

He has previously claimed that some components of vaccines, such as the mercury-containing preservative thimerosal, can cause neurological disorders such as autism in childhood. Most measles, mumps, and rubella vaccines do not contain thimerosal. Last year the Federal Vaccine Advisory Board, revised by Kennedy, voted to no longer recommend thimerosal-containing vaccines.

Administration public health officials often cite the need to restore trust in public health systems after the coronavirus pandemic, when vaccine policy and the general public health response to the deadly pandemic became highly polarizing topics in U.S. politics.

Misinformation and conspiracy theories about the public health system also proliferated during the pandemic, and longtime anti-vaccination activist groups saw a surge in public interest.

Kennedy, who for years led the anti-vaccine activist group Children’s Health Defense, has been criticized for ordering a review of vaccine and public health guidelines that major medical research groups consider to be sound science.

Public health experts also criticized the president for making baseless claims about highly politicized health issues. At a September Oval Office event, Trump claimed without evidence that Tylenol and vaccines were linked to an increase in the incidence of autism in the United States.