HHS Dismantlement Under RFK Jr. Fuels Worst Measles Outbreak in 30 Years

What Happened

In 2025, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. — a long-time vaccine skeptic — systematically dismantled the federal public health infrastructure. The cuts were sweeping: approximately 20,000 positions eliminated (10,000 layoffs plus 10,000 voluntary departures), over $12 billion in public health funding clawed back, the entire CDC vaccine advisory committee fired, and the agency's ability to respond to disease outbreaks severely degraded.

This dismantlement occurred during the worst measles outbreak in the United States in over 30 years.

The Scale of Destruction

In March 2025, RFK Jr. ordered 10,000 layoffs across HHS, affecting the CDC, FDA, NIH, and CMS. In a single action later described as the "Friday night massacre," over 1,000 CDC employees were let go. Combined with 10,000 earlier voluntary departures, HHS lost approximately a quarter of its total workforce.

The cuts went far beyond personnel. Over $12 billion in COVID-era public health grants were clawed back — funding that had been repurposed to strengthen measles surveillance, vaccination programs, and general public health capacity. The FY 2026 budget proposed an additional 26% cut to HHS discretionary spending, including $18 billion from NIH and $3.6 billion from the CDC.

In June 2025, RFK Jr. took the unprecedented step of firing all 17 members of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP), the expert body that had advised the CDC on vaccine schedules for decades. He also asked the CDC to develop new measles treatment guidance based on his unfounded claims about vaccine safety.

The Measles Crisis

The consequences were immediate and measurable. In 2025, the United States recorded 2,285 confirmed measles cases — the most in over 30 years. At least three people died: two unvaccinated children in Texas and one unvaccinated adult in New Mexico. A child in Los Angeles County died from measles-related complications.

ProPublica reported that the CDC buried an internal measles forecast that stressed the urgent need for vaccinations. The agency's social media accounts went silent during the outbreak, leaving an information void that was filled by misinformation. The Trump administration impeded the CDC's ability to assist West Texas during the first critical weeks of its outbreak and slowed the release of federal emergency funds.

By January 2026, the United States stood poised to lose its measles elimination status — a designation earned through decades of public health work. RFK Jr.'s newly appointed CDC deputy, Ralph Abraham, publicly downplayed the significance of this loss.

Why This Matters

The dismantlement of federal health agencies during an active disease outbreak represents a deliberate degradation of the state's capacity to protect public health. The right to health is enshrined in multiple international instruments, including the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (Article 12) and the Convention on the Rights of the Child (Article 24).

The measles deaths — all among unvaccinated individuals — occurred in the context of a Health Secretary who has spent decades promoting vaccine skepticism, fired the expert advisory committee, buried the CDC's own warnings, and cut the funding and staff needed to respond. This is not a natural disaster. It is a policy-induced public health catastrophe.

Update: 2026 Outbreak Doubles, Death Count Disputed, Vaccine Guidance Vacuum (July–October 2026)

Measles transmission accelerated in 2026. As of October 1, the CDC reported 3,887 confirmed cases in 2026, with cases among U.S. residents reported by 47 jurisdictions and 95% of them outbreak-associated, with 42 new outbreaks reported during the year. Through mid-September the 2026 total was more than double the 2025 count at the same point, according to a Global Biodefense analysis of CDC data, with South Carolina, Pennsylvania and Utah each reporting more than 500 cases.

How deaths are counted became contested. After Pennsylvania confirmed two measles-associated deaths on August 25, Secretary Kennedy publicly suggested they "may even have been altogether fabricated," and the CDC declined to add them to its dashboard. The agency then shifted to counting measles deaths from National Center for Health Statistics mortality data rather than state reports; on September 29 it listed two U.S. measles deaths for 2026 while Pennsylvania alone had reported four (Reuters). That episode is documented in its own entry.

Federal vaccine guidance also lapsed. A federal court order nullified the 2025 votes of the advisory committee Kennedy had reconstituted after firing its members and blocked his changes to the immunization schedule, and Healio reported in September that ACIP "has not met in 2026 and has not reviewed new or updated vaccines approved by the FDA this year." The CDC posted guidance carrying forward the prior year's flu and COVID-19 recommendations rather than mounting its usual fall campaign, while Moderna's mRNA flu vaccine, approved by the FDA in August for adults 50 and older, had not been reviewed by ACIP. Four medical societies — the American Academy of Pediatrics, American Academy of Family Physicians, American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists and Infectious Diseases Society of America — published their own 2026–27 recommendations in JAMA to fill the gap.