Health and Human Services Secretary RFK Jr. accused immigrants of being responsible for the country’s multiple infectious disease outbreaks — dodging his own responsibility as the voice of U.S. health policy who regularly rails against the very vaccines that prevent such outbreaks.
The secretary made the xenophobic comment at a House Energy and Commerce Committee hearing on Tuesday about his agency’s 2027 budget. Rep. Debbie Dingell (D-Mich.) expressed concern to Kennedy, a longtime anti-vaxxer, over the rising number of infectious disease cases such as measles and polio.
“Every patient, every child with measles should be treated with compassion. But I had seven cases just in the last couple of weeks in my county. The contagious spots have been grocery stores and colleges, you can’t stop it,” Dingell said of measles, the highly contagious disease that U.S. officials announced they eliminated in 2000.
“I’ve met with the family of one of them, and I said, ‘Why didn’t you get immunized?’” she continued. “And they said, ‘We’re listening to our government.
Our government tells us not to.’”
The U.S. is at great risk of losing its measles elimination status, as several states fight to contain outbreaks that originated in Texas last year. Public health experts have always maintained that the best way to prevent infection is to receive the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine.
But despite Kennedy being the most vocal source of vaccine misinformation, the secretary tried to blame the outbreaks entirely on immigrants who come to the U.S. from countries where measles is not eliminated — framing the issue as a global epidemic rather than a national public health crisis.
“It has nothing to do with me,” he told lawmakers. “If you’re worried about polio and tuberculosis, you should look at the immigration policies in this country. ’Cause the place where it’s occurring are the place[s] where the immigrants are going, because they’re not vaccinated.”
A spokesperson for the HHS did not immediately respond to HuffPost’s request for evidence to support the secretary’s claim.
Dingell rejected Kennedy’s answer, reminding him that many Americans have stopped getting vaccinated. While measles cases are surging globally — with Canada having recently lost its elimination status — the U.S. is rapidly declining in its ability to protect Americans from the disease.
The secretary blamed the drop in inoculation rates on the U.S. government’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic, during which Kennedy parroted misinformation and confusion over vaccine safety and efficacy. Notably, efforts to inaccurately pin the spread of COVID-19 on Chinese people led to increased hatred, racism and violence against members of the broader Asian community in the U.S.
“You may think that you’re pro-vaccine, but people aren’t hearing that — and I’m talking to the people that are actually sick right now. So that’s worrying me,” Dingell said. “And you’re hiring people that are vaccine-skeptic health appointees, and they are spreading, quite frankly, lies about vaccine safety.”
Public health experts say it takes a 95% vaccination rate to prevent outbreaks. In the 2024-25 school year, national rates fell to 92.5%, according to data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.