CNN anchor Dana Bash was left in disbelief as one of the president’s top health goons claimed the MAGA administration was a top advocate for vaccines.
Addressing the record outbreak of measles in the U.S., particularly in South Carolina, Bash asked Dr. Mehmet Oz on State of the Union Sunday: “Is this a consequence of the administration undermining support for advocacy for measles and other vaccines?”
“I don’t believe so,” the Trump-appointed Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services Administrator responded. He then said, “We’ve advocated for measles vaccines all along. Secretary Kennedy has been at the very front of this.”
“Oh, come on!” an incredulous Bash interrupted, with 65-year-old Oz continuing: “He is. When the first outbreak happened in Texas, he said, ‘Get your vaccines for measles,’ because that‘s an example of an ailment that you should get vaccinated against.”
The TV physician then offered an explanation for Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s revamped child immunization schedule, which has cut the number of universally recommended vaccines from 17 to 11.
He began: “What happened with the core schedule that was released at the beginning of last month was to say, ‘Listen, we look at what happened in Europe.’ In Europe, if you give people 80 different vaccine doses to take, people start—”
Bash interrupted again, stating: “But I’m specifically talking about measles here. I mean, you talked about RFK Jr. The group ‘Children’s Health Defense’ that he founded and ran up until three years ago posted on X, ‘Despite the media‘s scare tactics, there’s no reason to fear measles.’”
She asked: “Should people fear measles?”
“Oh, for sure,” Dr. Oz responded. “And we actually are pretty aggressive at CMS. We fund any vaccine you want to take. There will never be a barrier to Americans get access to measles vaccine.”
Asked again about his “message to people about the measles vaccine” as a qualified doctor, Dr. Oz repeated his encouragement to take the measles vaccine—but offered some less transparent words about vaccines as a whole.
“Take the vaccine, please. We have a solution for a problem,” he said, before obliquely adding: “Not all illnesses are equally dangerous and not all people are equally susceptible to those illnesses. But measles is one you should get your vaccine.”
While Dr. Oz pushed the idea that the health secretary has always been “at the very front” of advocating for measles vaccinations, just last May, Kennedy appeared on Fox News to share a conspiracy theory about how the vaccines are made.
Defending vaccine refusal on religious grounds, Kennedy told host Brett Baier: “The MMR vaccine that we currently use has millions of particles that were created from aborted fetal tissue, millions of DNA fragments.”
Such messaging, alongside RFK Jr.’s longstanding—and scientifically unfounded—claims that vaccines cause autism, has been criticized during a current historic dip in vaccination rates.
MMR vaccination fell below the 95 percent herd immunity threshold in 2021, with flu vaccine uptake also falling. Total childhood vaccination rates are trending down, and are as low as 82.5 percent in some parts of South Carolina.
