Second child dies of measles in Texas amid rising outbreak
The Guardian reports:
“A second child with measles has died in Texas amid a steadily growing outbreak that has infected nearly 500 people in that state alone.
The US health and human services department confirmed the death to NBC late Saturday, though the agency insisted exactly why the child died remained under investigation. On Sunday, a spokesperson for the UMC Health System in Lubbock, Texas, said that the child had been hospitalized before dying and was “receiving treatment for complications of measles” – which is easily preventable through vaccination.
The family of the child in question had chosen to not get the minor vaccinated against the illness.
Meanwhile, the New York Times described the child as an eight-year-old girl who had died from “measles pulmonary failure” early on Thursday. The outlet cited records it had obtained.
That marked the second time a child with measles had died since 26 February. The first was a six-year-old girl – also hospitalized in Lubbock – whose parents had not had her vaccinated.
NBC and Axios reported that the Trump administration health secretary, Robert F Kennedy Jr, was expected to attend the funeral of the second child, with the service scheduled for Sunday.
Kennedy for years has baselessly sowed doubt about vaccine safety and efficacy. In March, he sparked alarm among those concerned by the US’s measles outbreak when he backed vitamins to treat the illness and stopped short of endorsing protective vaccines, which he minimized as merely a “personal choice” rather than a safety measure that long ago was proven effective.
A third person to have died after contracting measles was an unvaccinated person in Lea county, New Mexico, officials in that state announced in early March, though the virus has not been confirmed as the cause of death.
Dr Peter Marks, who recently resigned as the Food and Drug Administration’s vaccine while attributing that decision to Kennedy’s “misinformation and lies”, blamed the US health secretary and his staff for the death of the child being buried on Sunday.
“This is the epitome of an absolute needless death,” Marks said Sunday during an interview with the Associated Press. “These kids should get vaccinated – that’s how you prevent people from dying of measles.”
Marks also told the AP that he had warned US senators that the country would endure more measles-related deaths if the Trump administration did not more aggressively respond to the outbreak. The Senate health committee has called Kennedy to testify before the group on Thursday.
One of that committee’s members is the Louisiana Republican and medical doctor Bill Cassidy, who frequently speaks about the importance of getting vaccinates against diseases but joined his Senate colleagues in voting to confirm Kennedy as the US health secretary.
Cassidy on Sunday published a statement saying: “Everyone should be vaccinated.”
There is “no benefit to getting measles”, Cassidy’s statement added. “Top health officials should say so unequivocally [before] another child dies.”
Measles, which is caused by a highly contagious, airborne virus that spreads easily when an infected person breathes, sneezes or coughs, had been declared eliminated from the US in 2000. But the virus has recently been spreading in undervaccinated communities, with Texas and New Mexico standing among five states with active outbreaks – which is defined as three or more cases.
The other states are Kansas, Ohio and Oklahoma.
Collectively, as of Friday, the US had surpassed 600 measles cases so far this year – more than double the number it recorded in all of 2024. Health officials and experts have said that they expect the measles outbreak to go on for several more months at least – if not for about a year.
Texas alone was reporting 481 cases across 19 counties as of Friday, most of them in the western region of the state. It registered 59 previously unreported cases between Tuesday and Friday. There were also 14 new hospitalizations, for a total of 56 throughout the outbreak.
More than 65% of Texas’s measles cases are in Gaines county, which has a population of just under 23,000, and was where the virus started spreading in a tightly knit, undervaccinated Mennonite community.
Gaines has logged 315 cases – in just over 1% of the county’s residents – since late January.”
My Commentary:
This second child’s death was completely preventable had she received even one dose of the highly effective and safe measles, mumps, rubella (MMR) vaccine when the outbreak began. A single does of MMR confirms immunity to 94% of a susceptible population while the standard two dose regime confirms 97% protection.
Again, Kennedy’s response has been totally inadequate and remains inadequate with him pushing cod liver oil, vitamin A supplementation, and chicken soup. This is not an effective treatment to prevent measles!
But as bad as Kennedy’s response has been, Senator (Dr.) Cassidy (R - Louisiana) should bear part of the blame. Many were looking to him to vote against confirming the unqualified RFK, Jr and when he voted to approve Kennedy the remaining Republicans all voted in favor of approval.
Cassidy clearly knew better! At the very least he should have spoken up much more strongly.
Although this outbreak has gotten the lion’s share of bad press regarding HHS under Kennedy, it is far from the only damage he has done and is continuing to do to Public Health and Preventative Medicine in the United States and abroad.
Kennedy and all the other unfit appointees tRUMP has made should resign or be fired and new highly qualified professionals who are properly vetted should be appointed—starting with Kennedy. If they don’t resign, then they should immediately be fired.
“A second child with measles has died in Texas amid a steadily growing outbreak that has infected nearly 500 people in that state alone.
The US health and human services department confirmed the death to NBC late Saturday, though the agency insisted exactly why the child died remained under investigation. On Sunday, a spokesperson for the UMC Health System in Lubbock, Texas, said that the child had been hospitalized before dying and was “receiving treatment for complications of measles” – which is easily preventable through vaccination.
The family of the child in question had chosen to not get the minor vaccinated against the illness.
Meanwhile, the New York Times described the child as an eight-year-old girl who had died from “measles pulmonary failure” early on Thursday. The outlet cited records it had obtained.
That marked the second time a child with measles had died since 26 February. The first was a six-year-old girl – also hospitalized in Lubbock – whose parents had not had her vaccinated.
NBC and Axios reported that the Trump administration health secretary, Robert F Kennedy Jr, was expected to attend the funeral of the second child, with the service scheduled for Sunday.
Kennedy for years has baselessly sowed doubt about vaccine safety and efficacy. In March, he sparked alarm among those concerned by the US’s measles outbreak when he backed vitamins to treat the illness and stopped short of endorsing protective vaccines, which he minimized as merely a “personal choice” rather than a safety measure that long ago was proven effective.
A third person to have died after contracting measles was an unvaccinated person in Lea county, New Mexico, officials in that state announced in early March, though the virus has not been confirmed as the cause of death.
Dr Peter Marks, who recently resigned as the Food and Drug Administration’s vaccine while attributing that decision to Kennedy’s “misinformation and lies”, blamed the US health secretary and his staff for the death of the child being buried on Sunday.
“This is the epitome of an absolute needless death,” Marks said Sunday during an interview with the Associated Press. “These kids should get vaccinated – that’s how you prevent people from dying of measles.”
Marks also told the AP that he had warned US senators that the country would endure more measles-related deaths if the Trump administration did not more aggressively respond to the outbreak. The Senate health committee has called Kennedy to testify before the group on Thursday.
One of that committee’s members is the Louisiana Republican and medical doctor Bill Cassidy, who frequently speaks about the importance of getting vaccinates against diseases but joined his Senate colleagues in voting to confirm Kennedy as the US health secretary.
Cassidy on Sunday published a statement saying: “Everyone should be vaccinated.”
There is “no benefit to getting measles”, Cassidy’s statement added. “Top health officials should say so unequivocally [before] another child dies.”
Measles, which is caused by a highly contagious, airborne virus that spreads easily when an infected person breathes, sneezes or coughs, had been declared eliminated from the US in 2000. But the virus has recently been spreading in undervaccinated communities, with Texas and New Mexico standing among five states with active outbreaks – which is defined as three or more cases.
The other states are Kansas, Ohio and Oklahoma.
Collectively, as of Friday, the US had surpassed 600 measles cases so far this year – more than double the number it recorded in all of 2024. Health officials and experts have said that they expect the measles outbreak to go on for several more months at least – if not for about a year.
Texas alone was reporting 481 cases across 19 counties as of Friday, most of them in the western region of the state. It registered 59 previously unreported cases between Tuesday and Friday. There were also 14 new hospitalizations, for a total of 56 throughout the outbreak.
More than 65% of Texas’s measles cases are in Gaines county, which has a population of just under 23,000, and was where the virus started spreading in a tightly knit, undervaccinated Mennonite community.
Gaines has logged 315 cases – in just over 1% of the county’s residents – since late January.”
My Commentary:
This second child’s death was completely preventable had she received even one dose of the highly effective and safe measles, mumps, rubella (MMR) vaccine when the outbreak began. A single does of MMR confirms immunity to 94% of a susceptible population while the standard two dose regime confirms 97% protection.
Again, Kennedy’s response has been totally inadequate and remains inadequate with him pushing cod liver oil, vitamin A supplementation, and chicken soup. This is not an effective treatment to prevent measles!
But as bad as Kennedy’s response has been, Senator (Dr.) Cassidy (R - Louisiana) should bear part of the blame. Many were looking to him to vote against confirming the unqualified RFK, Jr and when he voted to approve Kennedy the remaining Republicans all voted in favor of approval.
Cassidy clearly knew better! At the very least he should have spoken up much more strongly.
Although this outbreak has gotten the lion’s share of bad press regarding HHS under Kennedy, it is far from the only damage he has done and is continuing to do to Public Health and Preventative Medicine in the United States and abroad.
Kennedy and all the other unfit appointees tRUMP has made should resign or be fired and new highly qualified professionals who are properly vetted should be appointed—starting with Kennedy. If they don’t resign, then they should immediately be fired.
