The U.S. could soon lose its official designation as a nation that has eliminated measles as outbreaks intensify under President Donald Trump’s health secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
Eight independent public health experts are meeting in Washington, D.C., this week to assess whether the country has experienced at least a year of uninterrupted measles transmission, the threshold for losing its elimination status.
The review comes as the U.S. faces its worst year for measles since 1991, raising scrutiny of Kennedy’s leadership and his efforts to reshape federal vaccine policy. Eight people have died from measles in the U.S. since the beginning of 2026, among them six in Pennsylvania, one in New York, and one in Wisconsin.
RFK Jr. is pushing to overhaul federal vaccine policy under Donald Trump.
Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/AFP via Getty Images
The panel advises the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO), the World Health Organization’s regional office. Its recommendations will inform a final decision by the PAHO director.
The U.S. achieved measles elimination in 2000 following decades of vaccination efforts. International travel and growing vaccine hesitancy are thought to be behind its resurgence.
Kennedy, who leads the administration’s Make America Healthy Again initiative, has repeatedly cast doubt on vaccine safety. Since taking office last January, he has continued to promote misleading claims, including that the measles vaccine contains “aborted fetus debris.”
Anti-vaxxers have linked the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccination for children to autism.
Patrick T. Fallon/AFP via Getty Images
Public health experts warn that such rhetoric undermines confidence in a vaccine backed by decades of safety and effectiveness research.
Measles is among the world’s most contagious diseases, and vaccination coverage of about 95 percent is needed to protect communities against outbreaks. Yet coverage among U.S. kindergarteners fell to 92.4 percent in the 2025–26 school year, Politico reported.
The nation has recorded 5,400 confirmed measles cases this year as of Nov. 6, according to Johns Hopkins University’s U.S. measles tracker.
Kennedy has urged parents to “do your own research” before vaccinating children, a message that health experts fear compounds uncertainty as infections mount.
“We’ve never been in a situation where the head of a prominent government health agency was a science denier,” James Colgrove, a professor at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health, told Politico.
Jane Seward, a former senior CDC official who served under Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama, said the country risks undoing decades of progress.
“We always prided ourselves on essentially having the best control in the world, or close to that,” she told Politico. Now, she warned, “we’re on a path to have endemic transmission re-established and see more and more measles cases.”
The Daily Beast has contacted the Department of Health and Human Services for comment.
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