RFK Jr.’s Policies Didn’t Worsen the South Carolina Measles Outbreak, but His Views Did

On the menu today: You’re going to see a lot of criticism of U.S. of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy for the ongoing measles outbreak in Spartanburg County, S.C. But Kennedy was only sworn in February 13, and for most of the more than 100 South Carolinians catching measles now, their parents made their decisions about vaccinating years and years ago. Kennedy is a relatively new fan of vaccinating for measles, and this fall the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices made only one minor adjustment to the recommendations on vaccinating for measles. (More on that decision below.)

With that said, vaccine skepticism didn’t just come out of nowhere, and while it’s possible that some people preferred to take their medical advice from the 1994 Playboy Playmate of the Year (don’t worry, it’s a discreet photo of Jenny McCarthy at that link), the most likely suspect for the national vaccine skepticism that is now having serious consequences in the Palmetto State starts with the HHS Secretary who, as of his confirmation hearings, did not know which one was Medicare and which one was Medicaid. Read on.

Outbreak in the Palmetto State

The CDC states, “The measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine is very safe and effective. When more than 95 percent of people in a community are vaccinated most people are protected through community immunity (herd immunity) However, vaccination coverage among U.S. kindergartners has decreased from 95.2 percent during the 2019–2020 school year to 92.7 percent in the 2023–2024 school year, leaving approximately 280,000 kindergartners at risk during the 2023–2024 school year.”

In 2000, the United States declared the measles eradicated, meaning there had been no sign of the continuous spread of disease for more than one year. Ah, the good old days. The CDC reports that as of December 10, the U.S. has seen 47 outbreaks reported in 2025, and 88 percent of confirmed cases (1,673 of 1,912) are outbreak-associated. (The CDC defines an outbreak as three or more related cases.) For comparison, 16 outbreaks were reported during 2024 and 69 percent of cases (198 of 285) were outbreak-associated.

On Tuesday, the South Carolina Department of Public Health reported 27 new cases of measles in the state since Friday, which brings the total number of cases in the state related to the upstate outbreak to 111 and the total number reported this year to 114.

A whole bunch of children in Spartanburg County are currently quarantined.

Linda Bell, South Carolina’s state epidemiologist, said at a news conference on Wednesday that the state “has identified public exposures at one new school, which is Inman Intermediate School, and we have 43 students in quarantine at Inman Intermediate. Additionally, students remain in quarantine at the following schools: Hendrix Elementary, Mabry Middle School, Chapman High School, Tyger River Elementary School, Fair Forest Elementary, Rainbow Lake Middle, Fair Force Middle, Dorman High Freshman Campus. Students from those nine schools who quarantine successfully without becoming ill are scheduled to be able to return to classes between December 11th and December 15th, depending on the school they attend.”

Bell continued, “Unfortunately, we have students who need to be quarantined a second time due to new cases in their schools. If people are willing to be vaccinated, receiving an MMR vaccine within 72 hours of exposure has been shown to prevent measles infections or anyone vaccinated beyond that period could avoid future quarantine if exposed again and most importantly be protected from the disease. Of our 111 outbreak related cases, 105 were unvaccinated.”

The state of South Carolina requires children attending school to have either a valid state certificate of immunization or a valid exemption. Those exemptions can be medical or religious. Medical exemptions must be provided by a licensed doctor or their authorized representative (a physician’s assistant or advanced practice registered nurse). Under state regulations, “a religious exemption may be granted to any student whose parent, guardian, or person in loco parentis signs the appropriate section of the South Carolina Certificate of Religious Exemption stating that one or more immunizations conflicts with their religious beliefs,” and the document must be notarized.

In the 2024-25 school year, about 90 percent of students in Spartanburg County had all the required childhood immunizations, including the measles, mumps, and rubella shot. Remember, herd immunity kicks in when the vaccination rate exceeds 95 percent.

In the county, the vaccination rate ranges from 100 percent at several schools to 17 percent at the Global Academy of South Carolina, a charter school in Spartanburg.

As far as vaccines go, Kennedy is comparably supportive of the one for measles, at least since stepping into his role at HHS. Back on March 2, he wrote an op-ed for Fox News about measles, in response to an outbreak in Texas’s South Plains region:

Measles is a highly contagious respiratory illness with certain health risks, especially to unvaccinated individuals. The virus spreads through direct contact with infectious droplets when an infected person breathes, coughs, or sneezes. Early symptoms include high fever, cough, runny nose, and red, watery eyes, followed by a characteristic body rash. Most cases are mild, but rare complications can be severe, including pneumonia, blindness, and encephalitis. Prior to the introduction of the vaccine in the 1960s, virtually every child in the United States contracted measles. For example, in the United States, from 1953 to 1962, on average there were 530,217 confirmed cases and 440 deaths, a case fatality rate of 1 in 1,205 cases. . . .

Parents play a pivotal role in safeguarding their children’s health. All parents should consult with their healthcare providers to understand their options to get the MMR vaccine. The decision to vaccinate is a personal one. Vaccines not only protect individual children from measles, but also contribute to community immunity, protecting those who are unable to be vaccinated due to medical reasons.

In a post on X in April, Kennedy wrote, “The most effective way to prevent the spread of measles is the MMR vaccine.”

There are two ways to get vaccinated against measles. One is the MMR vaccine — “measles, mumps, and rubella,” and the other is the MMRV vaccine — measles, mumps, rubella, and varicella. (Varicella is more commonly known as chickenpox.)

Basically, the decision boils down to having the child vaccinated with one shot or two separate shots. Both options include a small risk of febrile seizures; the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention states that children who experience a febrile seizures “generally have an excellent prognosis, witnessing this type of event can be very distressing for parents and caregivers and often results in a trip to the emergency room for the child.” These seizures usually occur “5-12 days after vaccination.” Children who get the MMR and varicella vaccinations separate have a febrile seizure rate of “about 4 out of every 10,000 children vaccinated”; children who get it in one shot have a febrile seizure rate of “about 8 out of every 10,000 children vaccinated.”

The CDC recommends, “Unless the parent or caregiver expresses a preference for MMRV vaccine, MMR vaccine and varicella vaccine should be administered as separate injections for the first dose in children 12-47 months of age.”

According to the University of Minnesota’s Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy, “The MMRV vaccine was licensed in 2005 and is designed to streamline vaccine administration and boost overall vaccine uptake. The first dose of the live-attenuated vaccine is usually given from 12 to 15 months of age, with the second dose given from four to six years of age. Currently, only 15 percent of parents opt for the combined vaccine for children ages 12 to 15 months.”

And yet, in September, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices voted “to stop recommending the MMRV for children before the age of 4 years, while three voted against the measure and one member abstained.”

It is worth noting that this advisory panel did not recommend that any child should not be vaccinated for any of those four diseases; it merely recommended separating the varicella/chicken pox vaccine from the other three, and administered during the same visit.

The ongoing measles outbreak in the northwestern corner of South Carolina is not a result of Kennedy’s actions as Secretary of Health and Human Services. But this outbreak is continuing, in part, because of subpar measles vaccination rates among the population in that part of the state, and Kennedy has been fanning the flames of vaccine skepticism for a long, long time — including the one for measles.

In June 2024, Kennedy appeared on Joe Rogan’s program and contended that measles was of minor consequence for those in good health. “If you look at the kids in Africa who die from measles or these other infectious diseases, they’re all malnourished.” While malnourishment definitely is a problem for anyone attempting to fight off measles, the measles viral infection “causes pneumonia in about 6 percent of healthy children and sometimes more frequently among malnourished children. More rarely, it can cause encephalitis, or swelling of the brain. Measles can also suppress the immune system, making children vulnerable to other diseases.”

In 2019, Kennedy appeared at rallies against requirements that students attending school in the state of Washington receive the combined measles, mumps, and rubella vaccine. And that year, he filed a lawsuit arguing that the state of New York did not have a “compelling state interest” in ensuring every student was vaccinated against measles.

That same year, Kennedy wrote to the president of Samoa and suggested the local measles outbreak may have been caused by the vaccine:

He claimed that the vaccine might have “failed to produce antibodies” in vaccinated mothers sufficient to provide infants with immunity, that it perhaps provoked “the evolution of more virulent measles strains” and that children who received the vaccine may have inadvertently spread the virus to other children.

So Kennedy has been a supporter of vaccinating against measles . . . very, very recently.

In 1967, in the Peanuts comic strip, Linus was not enthused about getting a vaccination shot for measles. If Linus can do it, so can you.

ADDENDUM: Our Jeff Blehar writes about the Republican-dominated Indiana State Seante voting to reject a mid-decade GOP gerrymandering map that would have made the state’s current 7–2 Republican majority into a theoretical 9–0 clean sweep. “It is as clear-cut a rebuke as possible from the state’s Republicans to Donald Trump and his national concerns.”

I would add just one more point to Jeff’s cogent analysis. I’ll bet a lot of Indiana Republicans in and out of that legislative chamber have some sort of relationship with the state’s longtime representative, former governor and former vice president, Mike Pence.

You know, the vice president who Trump either wanted to see hung or was nonchalant about threats to him.

I don’t know, if you shrug off an attempt to kill a guy like Pence, maybe Pence’s old friends and former colleagues just aren’t going to be so eager to obey your orders.