RFK Jr. MMR vaccine support spurs backlash: 'So much for MAHA'

[BumRushDaShow]

Source: USA Today

Published 10:22 a.m. ET April 7, 2025 | Updated 4:59 p.m. ET April 7, 2025


Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has been widely maligned – and celebrated, depending who you ask – as a vaccine skeptic. So when he wrote in a post on X on Sunday that "the most effective way to prevent the spread of measles is the MMR vaccine" – after visiting West Texas shortly after a second unvaccinated child there died of the measles – public opinion flipped as social media users reacted to his support for the vaccine.

One user wrote: "This is so disappointing.. Who has you compromised?!"

"SELL-OUT," another X user shared. But infectious disease clinician-scientist Dr. Neil Stone appreciated Kennedy's words: "Words I never thought I would hear Robert F Kennedy Jr say," he wrote, "He's absolutely 100% correct, and I'm relieved to hear him say it." Still, many in the pro-vaccine community long-ago wrote off Kennedy and this shift is unlikely to win him much favor. "RFK is too little too late," one person tweeted. "Two kids have already died."

RFK Jr. and his "MAHA" movement's popularity appears to be at least in slight jeopardy with vaccine-skeptical supporters. But given the severity of the current outbreak, it seemed inevitable that he'd eventually need to endorse the science-backed solution to measles: the highly effective MMR vaccine.


Read more: https://www.usatoday.com/story/life/health-wellness/2025/04/07/rfk-jr-measles-vaccine-backlash/82972685007/