The U.S. government is pulling its funding for drugmaker Moderna to continue testing an mRNA vaccine intended to protect people from the bird flu.The move came a day after Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced the government would stop recommending the COVID-19 vaccine, which also commonly uses mRNA technology, for healthy children and pregnant women.

“After a rigorous review, we concluded that continued investment in Moderna’s H5N1 mRNA vaccine was not scientifically or ethically justifiable,” Health and Human Services spokesman Andrew Nixon said via an emailed statement. “This is not simply about efficacy—it’s about safety, integrity, and trust. The reality is that mRNA technology remains under-tested, and we are not going to spend taxpayer dollars repeating the mistakes of the last administration, which concealed legitimate safety concerns from the public.”

The government had awarded hundreds of millions of dollars to Moderna, including $590 million in January.

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What if we could outsmart a pandemic virus even before it emerges? With the rapidly evolving artificial intelligence (AI) landscape, this hypothetical is becoming a public health reality. From predicting which viral family the next pandemic may spill over from, to forecasting how a virus might evolve, AI is reshaping the way the world can prepare for and respond to pandemic threats.

As these growing capabilities gather pace, we also recognize the essential need to ensure their use is responsible, ethical and secure. The need to strike this balance is being recognized increasingly across the world.

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The Trump administration has delivered its latest blow to vaccines, canceling a nearly $600-million contract to the drugmaker Moderna that was intended to develop a shot for humans against bird flu.

The decision also forfeited the U.S. government’s right to purchase doses ahead of a pandemic, and canceled an agreement set up by the Biden administration in January to prepare the nation for a potential bird flu pandemic. The Moderna contract built on a previous government investment of $175 million last year.

The move was not entirely unexpected. The Department of Health and Human Services said earlier this year that it was reviewing the contract. And Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has repeatedly questioned the safety of mRNA technology, which is used in Moderna’s Covid vaccine.

First used for the Covid vaccines made by Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna, mRNA shots instruct the body to produce a fragment of the virus, which then sets off the body’s immune response.

Andrew Nixon, a Health and Human Services spokesman, said: “After a rigorous review, we concluded that continued investment in Moderna’s H5N1 mRNA vaccine was not scientifically or ethically justifiable.”

For several years, a type of avian flu known as H5N1 has circulated around the world, killing wild birds and domestic flocks, and spreading to a range of other species including bears and sea mammals.

It arrived in the United States in 2022, and has resulted in the culling of more than 173 million birds, frequently devastating commercial poultry flocks.

Last year, bird flu also spread to dairy cattle. It has since struck more than 1,000 herds in 17 states and sickened 70 people, most of them dairy or cattle workers. In January, Louisiana reported the death of an older adult who had interacted with sick backyard birds, the first such fatality in the United States.

So far, the virus does not seem to spread easily among people. But scientists have long worried about a bird flu pandemic because flu viruses can rapidly mutate and acquire new abilities.

The national stockpile holds a few million doses of an existing H5N1 vaccine to protect humans. But it is unclear whether the shots would continue to protect Americans if the virus were to change significantly. The government has three other avian flu contracts, according to the health department.

Many scientists regard mRNA vaccines, which can be quickly altered to match the newest versions of virus, as the best option for protecting Americans in a fast-moving outbreak.

“When the next flu pandemic occurs, there is not going to be enough vaccine for everyone who wants it unless we invest to broaden the types of flu vaccines being made and the number of companies that make them,” said Jennifer Nuzzo, director of the Pandemic Center at the Brown University School of Public Health.

“We shouldn’t let politically motivated attempts to unfairly brand mRNA vaccines as dangerous stand in the way of ensuring everyone who wants a pandemic vaccine can get one,” she said.

Moderna’s contract covered several types of flu viruses that have the potential to cause a pandemic. In response to the government’s decision, Moderna said it would explore alternatives for developing its vaccines.

Mr. Kennedy’s ideas for containing bird flu are unorthodox. He has suggested that instead of culling birds when the infection is discovered, farmers should let the virus run through the flocks. Then, he has said, farmers should identify birds that survive the illness and study them to identify the source of their immunity. Many scientists assert that would be inhumane and dangerous.

Last week, Mr. Kennedy urged the Canadian authorities not to kill 400 ostriches that had been exposed to H5N1, and Dr. Mehmet Oz, who oversees Medicare and Medicaid, offered to relocate the birds to his ranch in Florida.

Mr. Kennedy has long waged a campaign against some vaccines, particularly those based on mRNA. He has incorrectly and repeatedly said that the Covid vaccines using mRNA were the “deadliest” vaccines ever made.

Experts said his views were out of step with the science.

“Pandemic preparedness is about being proactive, fast and adaptable — the mRNA vaccine platform is all of that,” said Dr. Amesh Adalja, an infectious disease physician and senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security.

“The rationale given is likely fabricated and more of a function of R.F.K. Jr.’s assault on vaccines, the value of which he evades,” he added. “Canceling this contract makes the world less safe.”

Apoorva Mandavilli reports on science and global health, with a focus on infectious diseases, pandemics and the public health agencies that try to manage them.

The post U.S. Cancels Contract With Moderna to Develop Bird Flu Vaccine appeared first on New York Times.

The federal government announced Wednesday that it is cancelling a contract to develop a vaccine to protect people against flu viruses that could cause pandemics, including the bird flu virus that's been spreading among dairy cows in the U.S., citing concerns about the safety of the mRNA technology being used.

The Department of Health and Human Services said it is terminating a $766 million contract with the vaccine company Moderna to develop an mRNA vaccine to protect people against flu strains with pandemic potential, including the H5N1 bird flu virus that's been raising fears.

"After a rigorous review, we concluded that continued investment in Moderna's H5N1 mRNA vaccine was not scientifically or ethically justifiable," HHS Communications Director Andrew Nixon said in a statement.

"This is not simply about efficacy — it's about safety, integrity, and trust. The reality is that mRNA technology remains under-tested, and we are not going to spend taxpayer dollars repeating the mistakes of the last administration, which concealed legitimate safety concerns from the public," Nixon said.

He added that "the move signals a shift in federal vaccine funding priorities toward platforms with better-established safety profiles and transparent data practices. HHS remains committed to advancing pandemic preparedness through technologies that are evidence-based, ethically grounded, and publicly accountable." The official did not provide any additional details.

Jennifer Nuzzo, the director of Brown University's Pandemic Center, said the decision was "disappointing, but unsurprising given the politically-motivated, evidence-free rhetoric that tries to paint mRNA vaccines as being dangerous."

"While there are other means of making flu vaccines in a pandemic, they are slower and some rely on eggs, which may be in short supply," Nuzzo added in an email. "What we learned clearly during the last influenza pandemic is there are only a few companies in the world that make flu vaccines, which means in a pandemic there won't be enough to go around. If the U.S. wants to make sure it can get enough vaccines for every American who wants them during a pandemic, it should invest in multiple types of vaccines instead of putting all of our eggs in one basket."

The cancellation comes even though Moderna says a study involving 300 healthy adults had produced "positive interim" results and the company "had previously expected to advance the program to late-stage development."

"While the termination of funding from HHS adds uncertainty, we are pleased by the robust immune response and safety profile observed in this interim analysis of the Phase 1/2 study of our H5 avian flu vaccine and we will explore alternative paths forward for the program," Stéphane Bancel, Moderna's chief executive officer, said in a statement. "These clinical data in pandemic influenza underscore the critical role mRNA technology has played as a countermeasure to emerging health threats."

The administration's move drew sharp criticism from outside experts.

"This decision puts the lives and health of the American people at risk," said Dr. Ashish Jha, the dean of the Brown School of Public Health, who served as President Biden's COVID-19 response coordinator.

"Bird Flu is a well known threat and the virus has continued to evolve. If the virus develops the ability to spread from person to person, we could see a large number of people get sick and die from this infection," Jha said. "The program to develop the next generation of vaccines was essential to protecting Americans. The attack by the Administration on the mRNA vaccine platform is absurd."

Michael Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota agreed.

"This decision will make our country far less prepared to respond to the next influenza pandemic," he said in an email. "This is a dangerous course to follow."

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the H5N1 flu virus has spread to 41 dairy herds, and 24 poultry farms and culling operations, and caused 70 human cases. While the virus has had a high mortality rate in other countries, so far H5N1 has only caused one death in the U.S. and has not shown any signs of spreading easily from one person to another. But infectious disease experts are concerned that the more the virus spreads, the greater the chance it could mutate into a form that would spread from person to person, which would increase the risk of a pandemic.

Five years after the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, and 82 days after the inauguration of President Donald Trump, dozens of people gathered in a Washington D.C. townhouse to celebrate Jay Bhattacharya, who had recently been confirmed as director of the National Institutes of Health, the world’s top agency for biomedical research. Most of the guests were not scientists or beltway insiders, but citizen-activists like Kelley Krohnert, a Georgia photographer and mother who gained an online following during the pandemic for her sharp criticism of public health policy. In a picture posted on Facebook, she stands next to Bhattacharya, who is dressed in a plaid shirt and gray blazer, smiling while holding what looks like a tall glass of ice water.

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Though countries across Africa, Asia, and Latin America, sometimes collectively called the Global South, are increasingly central to scientific research, disease surveillance, and public health innovation, they historically have had little say in the shaping of policies meant to keep international health crises at bay. They were to provide the pathogen samples, for example, so that wealthier countries could develop vaccines. Poorer countries, though, couldn’t expect equitable access to the knowledge and medicine that came from their contributions. During health scares, they have been last in line for access to life-saving technologies.

The COVID-19 pandemic laid bare the implications of this inequality: By late 2021, high-income countries, for example, were averaging more than one vaccine dose per person while low-income countries were administering fewer than four doses per hundred people. And while wealthy countries could develop and distribute vaccines, the African continent, by and large, could not. The recently adopted Pandemic Agreement, emphasizing thing like the need for stronger health systems, better resource sharing, and rapid local manufacturing of vaccines is a step in the right direction, but there is more that still needs to happen to address the world’s uneven ability to prepare for or respond to pandemics. Global health forums like the World Health Assembly, where the pandemic agreement was recently approved, need to fully incorporate the voices and expertise of young people in the Global South, where 90 percent of the world’s 15- to 24-year-olds live.

At the 2023 World Health Assembly, which is the governing body of the World Health Organization (WHO), only 13 of 194 member states included young delegates. That’s less than 7 percent of countries, most of which were high-income. Even when young people participate in these delegations, the roles are limited to advocacy or advisory input, risking a loss of ideas that could strengthen real-world preparedness and response. This absence is particularly striking given how acutely young people are affected by biological threats—from disrupted education and social well-being to long-term economic and mental health impacts.

Young people are already shaping how the world responds to biological threats and helping build the systems that support equitable public health. During COVID, an initiative in Micronesia tackled misinformation by helping shape a direct communication campaign that reached over 20,000 people and improved vaccine uptake by over 30 percent, blending tech-savviness with cultural insight. In Uganda, a group of young people mapped the underserved border districts hit hardest by COVID. Using an existing open-map database, they helped turn blank areas into usable data, supporting government and frontline responders in their efforts.

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Jennifer Nuzzo, director of the Pandemic Center and Professor of Epidemiology at Brown University, reviews depictions of epidemics in Twilight (2008), The Last of Us (2023), Outbreak (1995), and Contagion (2011), and discusses how they relate to real public health systems today.

This video was created by BPR Producer Clara Baisinger-Rosen. The BPRM Video Team is led by Ayana Ahuja, and the BPR Multimedia Board is led by Solomon Goluboff-Schragger. Special Thanks to Jennifer Nuzzo, Amina Fayaz, Elliot Smith, Jordan Lac, and Grace Leclerc.

Find more at https://www.youtube.com/@BrownBPR

©Brown Political Review 2025

The Covid-19 virus in the U.S. has largely faded from view. But it hasn't faded away.

National wastewater data shows low Covid-19 activity, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The weekly reported Covid-19 deaths in April were slightly down compared with the same time a year earlier, federal data shows. Still, more than 300 Covid-19-related deaths were reported weekly as recently as mid-April.

Some infectious-disease specialists said they expect more cases this summer, as there have been somewhat regular summertime increases in the past. Others cautioned that Covid-19 can still surprise us, more than five years after it spurred a global pandemic that killed more than 1.2 million Americans.

"It is at our lowest levels it has been since the beginning of the pandemic," said Michael Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota. "Our challenge is we don't know what that means for tomorrow."

The Trump administration on Tuesday released a more stringent set of guidelines for approving Covid-19 vaccines , requiring randomized controlled trials for new Covid-19 vaccines for many children and adults. The Food and Drug Administration expects it will be able to approve shots for adults older than 64 and other high-risk groups based on antibody testing.

The original Covid-19 shots were tested in large, randomized trials with placebos. The vaccines updated to match newer versions of the virus have been tested with antibody testing to ensure that they triggered an immune response.

As of May 10, the CDC projected that 70% of cases were caused by a version of the virus called LP.8.1. It is an offshoot of the Omicron variant, which first appeared in late 2021, and is related to the JN.1 variant, which was the target of last season's booster shots. The LP.8.1 version has picked up new mutations but hasn't yet led to an increase in cases or hospitalizations.

"Because there are so many people who have been vaccinated and infected, there is a high amount of immunity in the population," said Andrew Pekosz, director of the Center for Emerging Viruses and Infectious Diseases at Johns Hopkins University. "I think we're also seeing that as a way to dampen the spread of the virus."

Surveillance and monitoring for changes in the virus are continuing, Pekosz said, but at much lower levels than before, so there is more reliance on modeling to suss out variant spread. Hospitalization and death data remains the most reliable, though that data is now slower to arrive, some researchers said. All hospitals were no longer required to report data as of the close of April 2024, one of several data changes made at the end of the public health emergency.

Deaths from the virus are heavily concentrated among adults ages 65 and above, with more than 81% of Covid-related deaths occurring in that group, according to the CDC. But people of all ages can get seriously ill from a Covid-19 infection, the agency said, especially those with underlying medical conditions.

Covid-related hospitalizations in the U.S. are currently on the decline. There were some 1.3 hospitalizations per 100,000 people during the week ended April 26, down from a winter peak of 4.2 per 100,000 people for the week ended Jan. 4, CDC data shows. That rate is down from the winter of 2023-24, when hospitalization rates peaked at 7.8 per 100,000 people. The data is from a surveillance network of acute-care hospitals across 13 states.

Most years, the U.S. has experienced additional Covid-19 waves in late spring or summer, in addition to wintertime surges. Last year, a summertime wave peaked at around the week of Aug. 31, with more than 1,300 deaths reported, CDC data shows. Still, the virus has yet to fall into a fully predictable seasonal pattern, infectious-disease experts said.

"While we're in a better place this year than we were in previous years, I cannot tell you we will always continue to be in a better place," said Jennifer Nuzzo, director of the pandemic center at Brown University. "There's still a lot of questions we don't have answers to."

Write to Brianna Abbott at brianna.abbott@wsj.com

By Brianna Abbott

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Copyright 2025 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

The termination letter arrived in Sabra Klein’s email inbox on March 25, telling her to immediately stop all work on a $10.9 million, five-year grant to research variations in people’s immune responses to COVID-19.

The grant funded the Serological Science Center of Excellence, which Klein, PhD ’98, MS, MA, a professor in Molecular Microbiology and Immunology (MMI), had to shut down that day, along with her fellow investigators across the National Cancer Institute’s Serological Sciences Network (SeroNet), which encompassed 25 research institutions. Klein and her co-principal investigator, Infectious Disease Professor Andrea L. Cox, MD, PhD, supported 40 workers across the schools of Public Health and Medicine. Klein had no choice but to immediately let go of four people from her team.

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Health officials are making a renewed call for vigilance against bird flu, but some experts are puzzling over why reports of new human cases have stopped.

Has the search for cases been weakened by government cuts? Are immigrant farm workers, who have accounted for many of the U.S. cases, more afraid to come forward for testing amid the Trump administration’s deportation push? Is it just a natural ebb in infections?

“We just don’t know why there haven’t been cases,” said Jennifer Nuzzo, director of the Pandemic Center at Brown University. “I think we should assume there are infections that are occurring in farmworkers that just aren’t being detected.”

The H5N1 bird flu has been spreading widely among wild birds, poultry and other animals around the world for several years, and starting early last year became a problem in people and cows in the U.S.

Early last month, after two Texas children had died of measles, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. acknowledged that the MMR vaccine prevents the spread of that virus. But later that day, he posted photos of himself with anti-vaccine doctors, calling them "extraordinary healers" and promoting unproven treatments.

In a television interview three days later, Kennedy, the nation's top health official, encouraged vaccination for measles. In the same conversation, he cast doubt on whether one of the children had actually died of measles-related complications.

And in an interview with Phil McGraw at the end of April, Kennedy said of the measles vaccine: "HHS continues to recommend that vaccine. But there are problems with the vaccine."

With the nation in the grip of the deadliest measles outbreak in decades, Kennedy is equivocating with a worried U.S. public, health experts said. His mixed message appeals to vaccine believers and skeptics, muddying public health instructions at a time when clarity is essential.

Elevated from longtime anti-vaccine activist to guardian of the nation's health, Kennedy is trying to appeal to both sides: the public, which largely supports vaccination, and the anti-vaccine hard-liners who helped propel his rise. His "doublespeak," as public health experts and academics who follow the anti-vaccine movement call it, gives him cover with both groups, allowing him to court public opinion while still assuaging his anti-vaccine base.

At least half of adults are uncertain whether to believe false claims about measles, its vaccine and its treatment, according to an April poll by the health-care think tank KFF.

"It's confusing, and maybe that's part of the strategy," said Bruce Gellin, who oversaw HHS's vaccine program in the Bush and Obama administrations. Gellin noted that confusion could lead parents to opt out of vaccination — exactly what health officials don't want in an outbreak.

In a statement about vaccination, HHS said: "Secretary Kennedy's HHS has pledged radical transparency to the American public. This means being honest and straightforward about what we know — and what we don't know — about medical products, including vaccines."

Vaccines go through several stages of clinical trials, are tested on thousands of people, and are monitored after they are rolled out for any adverse events. Medical experts say they are safe, effective and considered one of the best tools for protecting public health.

When asked about the unproven treatments Kennedy had promoted, an HHS spokesperson said Kennedy will be enlisting the scientific community and the department to "activate a scientific process to treat a host of diseases, including measles, with single or multiple existing drugs in combination with vitamins and other modalities." It is unclear what that will entail, but Kennedy has long advocated the use of vitamins and supplements.

Kennedy is scheduled to appear Wednesday before the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, where he is expected to face questions on his vaccine policies.

The outbreak in Texas has spread across the state and beyond, including a significant uptick of cases in El Paso. Experts worry the United States this year will record the largest number of cases since measles was declared eliminated a quarter-century ago. A recent study showed that if U.S. vaccination rates continue to decline, the nation could face millions of cases over the next 25 years.

Once an outbreak begins, health officials have only a short time to convince the U.S. public that vaccination is the proven way to save lives, said Chrissie Juliano, executive director of the Big Cities Health Coalition. The MMR vaccine — which protects against measles, mumps and rubella — is safe and effective, public health experts say.

"The public's confused, and local and state health officials on the ground are really having to carry a whole lot of water without having … all that backup that they're used to," Juliano said.

Some vaccine skeptics say they are also frustrated about Kennedy's mixed messaging because he has not gone far enough to condemn immunization. But they are urging followers to stick with him.

After Kennedy's social media post encouraging vaccination, the chief executive of the anti-vaccine group Kennedy founded said in a video message posted to X: "What he says does not speak for Children's Health Defense in any way at this point." But, Mary Holland said, "we have to respect the role that he's in."

In an interview, Holland said she didn't believe Kennedy considered his statement sufficient. "I don't think he probably thinks that's the whole story. So we have gone out with additional information," she said.

On the day she posted that message, her group reached out to its subscribers: "HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is breaking down the government-sanctioned roadblocks erected to protect Big Pharma's profits and keep people in the dark about childhood vaccines," her email read.

Another Kennedy ally, Del Bigtree, an anti-vaccine activist who served as Kennedy's communications director during his presidential run, said the secretary "is trying to speak to all sides."

With Kennedy as head of HHS, President Donald Trump has offered more tepid support for vaccination than he did during his first term. HHS has largely silenced the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention during the outbreak. And HHS has appointed a vaccine skeptic to investigate the debunked link between vaccination and autism.

The fact that anti-vaccine activists still count Kennedy as an ally shouldn't be a surprise, said Dorit Reiss, a professor at the University of California College of the Law at San Francisco, whose research focuses on public health law and anti-vaccine forces.

"Our health and human services secretary has been anti-vaccine for 20 years and has been the secretary for two months," she said in April. "He's still an anti-vaccine activist."

In response, HHS said, "Secretary Kennedy is not anti-vaccine — he is pro-safety, pro-transparency, and pro-accountability."

Following the second child's death in Texas, Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-Louisiana), leader of the Senate health committee, called on "top health officials" to promote vaccination. Shortly thereafter, Kennedy wrote in an X post that "the most effective way to prevent the spread of measles is the MMR vaccine."

Hours later in a separate X post, he went on to praise the work of two local doctors who have criticized measles vaccination, and their treatment of measles patients with unproven therapies — budesonide and clarithromycin. Neither has been proved effective as measles treatments and both could have serious side effects, medical experts have said.

The media "don't notice how he de-emphasizes [vaccination] by just burying it in with a bunch of the other stuff about vitamin A, steroids, better diet, etc.," said David Gorski, managing editor of Science-Based Medicine, a website run primarily by physicians that debunks medical misinformation. "It's like they've learned nothing."

Between those two statements, Kennedy drew headlines that portrayed him as a supporter of vaccines, including "Kennedy announces support for measles vaccine amid outbreak" in Politico and "RFK Jr. makes new push for vaccine after 2nd child dies of measles" on Today.com.

After a CBS News interview released a few days later, Kennedy received similar coverage. An initial clip highlighted Kennedy saying he "encourages" vaccination — but left out the context of his saying he was unsure whether the second child's death was due to measles. Kennedy also falsely stated again that vaccines are not properly safety-tested, a claim he has made repeatedly.

In the interview with McGraw, better known as Dr. Phil, Kennedy claimed that one of his top three priorities is "making sure the vaccines are safe." He said, erroneously, that the mumps portion and the combination MMR vaccine were never safety-tested. Medical experts said the MMR vaccine has been monitored for decades.

In response to questions about these claims, HHS said Kennedy would institute placebo testing for all "new vaccines," but it did not fully clarify what that would mean. Medical experts say if that form of testing is applied to already approved vaccines, it could be unethical in some cases.

Kennedy also told an audience member he's looking into whether children develop autism after they receive the MMR vaccine — a link that has been thoroughly debunked. More than a dozen studies in peer-reviewed top journals in recent decades have rejected this link.

When Kennedy talks, he "mixes a blend of fact and fiction, and since he is the highest health official in the country, that's dangerous," said Tom Frieden, CDC director under President Barack Obama and president and chief executive of the nonprofit Resolve to Save Lives. "Health advice is best provided by doctors who are deeply experienced with the facts about vaccines, and anything that undermines trust in measles and other vaccines undermines the health and safety of our kids."

When it comes to news about measles, Kennedy allies have released information to develop a narrative around the illness before others can debunk it.

On April 5, controversial scientist Robert Malone was the first to write that "Another Texas Child Dies a Tragic Death After Recovering from Measles."

According to Malone, medical mismanagement was to blame. In a Substack post to his hundreds of thousands of followers, Malone said he wrote after hearing from a physician he said had knowledge of the child's care.

The press was amplifying the measles outbreak for the "political purposes" of smearing Kennedy, Malone told The Post. Malone previously sued The Post, alleging defamation over the newspaper's reporting on his advocacy against the coronavirus vaccine. The case was dismissed in 2023.

A day after Malone's Substack account, the Texas Department of State Health Services reported the "second measles death" in a "school-aged child who tested positive for measles." The child died of what "doctors described as measles pulmonary failure. The child was not vaccinated and had no reported underlying conditions."

Craig Spencer, an associate professor of public health and emergency medicine at Brown University, who monitors the rhetoric of the anti-vaccine movement, said he was struck by Kennedy's post endorsing vaccines as the most effective way to prevent measles' spread. He took note that the phrase came in the third paragraph of a long post. And he said the post on X was edited to add language suggesting the measles outbreak was "flattening," which independent fact-checkers and experts have said is misleading.

Spencer interpreted the message and its revision as an attempt to speak to two audiences.

"If you look at all the replies, it was a mix of basically, 'Look, he says vaccines are really important' and 'Oh, my God, I can't believe you are betraying us,'" Spencer said. "It was fascinating to see how people saw this moment different."

Children's Health Defense, Kennedy's former organization, also has published information about the ongoing measles outbreak. Some of it has highlighted the doctors Kennedy praised. The organization's advocates have argued that measles may not have killed them, suggesting poor medical treatment and other medical conditions might have.

The group, along with others, has sued The Post and other news organizations on antitrust grounds alleging suppression of what it claims is "wholly accurate and legitimate reporting" about vaccine danger.

On CBS News, Kennedy also argued that the second child that Texas health officials said died due to measles succumbed to other medical conditions.

This is all part of the playbook for Kennedy and his allies, said Tara Smith, an epidemiologist who follows anti-vaccine groups.

"It's just something that they have really gotten good at over the years, is a kind of doublespeak," she said.

Caitlin Gilbert, Fenit Nirappil, Rachel Roubein and Lena H. Sun contributed to this report.

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Copyright WP Company LLC d/b/a The Washington Post May 11, 2025

LOOSENING UP — The continued spread of measles throughout the country isn’t stopping some states from trying to make it easier for parents to skirt school vaccine requirements for their children, POLITICO’s Lauren Gardner reports.

Idaho and West Virginia lawmakers recently loosened rules on vaccine mandates, while lawmakers from Florida, Louisiana and Texas are weighing measures that would make it more difficult for health providers to deny care — from organ transplants to pediatric well visits — to people who aren’t vaccinated.

Why it matters: The state efforts, among others that would crack down on the use of certain vaccines, come amid longtime vaccine skeptic Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s ascent to power in Washington as HHS secretary.

Texas, which has been the cradle of domestic vaccine resistance for the past decade, is now the epicenter of an exploding measles outbreak.

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