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WASHINGTON — Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. argued Wednesday that the media should pay more attention to diabetes and autism –- not measles outbreaks –- as an “existential threat” to the nation’s health.
“I want to say this, we’ve had four measles deaths in this country in 20 years. We have 100,000 autism cases a year. We have 38% of our kids now are diabetic or pre-diabetic. That should be in the headlines,” the HHS head said at a NewsNation town hall hosted by Chris Cuomo.
Kennedy said the media “never” covers the rates of autism or diabetes increasing, and they “only want to cover measles.”
“What I’ve been saying to people is, let’s pay attention to other illnesses as well, the illnesses that are really, really damaging our country, that are existential for our country.”
“Seventy-four percent of our kids cannot qualify for military service, so this is an existential threat to our national security,” the HHS secretary explained of the risks of rising chronic disease.
There are over 660 measles cases in Texas alone amid a recent outbreak of the previously eradicated disease as some Americans continue to be skeptical of vaccines.
Kennedy visited Gaines County in West Texas earlier in April to comfort two families whose young children died and said he made inroads with the Mennonite community, who haven’t taken MMR vaccines due to religious convictions.
“Our numbers have plateaued, so you’re still seeing added measles cases, but the rate of growth has gone down,” Kennedy said of the measles rates.
“There are populations in our country like the Mennonites in Texas were most afflicted, and they have religious objections to the vaccination, because the MMR vaccine contains a lot of aborted fetus debris and DNA particles, so they don’t want to take it,” he said.
“We ought to be able to take care of those populations when they get sick, and that’s one of the things that CDC has not done.”
Pressed by sportscaster Stephen A. Smith about recent layoffs at his department, Kennedy also fired back that under the Biden admin HHS “grew by 38% and Americans got sicker.”
“It’s not throwing money at it or hiring people that is solving the problem,” he said, before explaining the massive bureaucratic bloat at his agency.
“We have 100 communications departments. We have 40 IT departments, we have 40 procurement departments,” Kennedy rattled off.
“When my uncle was president, 3% of Americans had chronic disease. Today it’s 60%. It’s costing us $1.6 trillion a year.”
Earlier this month, the cabinet official announced that HHS would also undertake a “massive testing and research effort” to find the cause of the “autism epidemic” by September.
