The Highwire with Del Bigtree - RFK JR ADDRESSES TEXAS MEASLES OUTBREAK

Episode Date: March 7, 2025

As the news cycle applies the usual scare tactics on this most recent measles outbreak in Texas, automatically implicating the unvaccinated, Jefferey shows the real numbers and what a calm, sensible response looks like from the new Secretary of HHS.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-highwire-with-del-bigtree--3620606/support.

Tonight in Texas, the worst outbreak of measles to hit the state in more than 30 years is getting worse. All the officials have confirmed 48 different cases. Officials reporting 58 new cases. More than 90 cases. Nearly 100 people. Health officials have confirmed the first death from measles during a worsening outbreak. A person hospitalized with the measles has died. The Texas Department of State Health Services says a school-aged child has died.

The department says the child was not vaccinated. This is a measles outbreak that began in a very close-knit, rural community, Mennonite community, that has very low vaccination rates. We have seen vaccination rates, exemptions, rather, for vaccination rates, really sore in Texas in recent years. Mr. Kennedy, as well as people within his anti-vax movement, that they believe this vaccine isn't effective, but that's not true. It's highly effective, and that measles itself isn't a bad illness.

It is considered one of the most. contagious disease is known to humans. If you have one person infected with the measles and there are 10 unvaccinated individuals around that person, nine out of 10 of them will get the measles. It's almost 100% hit rate. And this is a tragic side of circumstances because we know that measles is very preventable. The vaccine, 97% effective. The best protection for our children is vaccination.

There's a lot of moving data points here. And one of the things I just want to focus on was they're blaming kind of Kennedy's shadow for this possible outbreak. Well, this outbreak started in... It's three days at office and, you know, go ahead and take away the vaccine status of Texas. I mean, it is what it is. And this started in Texas in January,

this particular outbreak. So Kennedy was appointed HHS had in February 13th. So it has really nothing to do, obviously, with him directly or his policy as HHS had. But he was asked that Trump had his first open capital, meeting and Kennedy was present. So reporters did ask him about that just yesterday. Take a listen to this. All right. We are following the measles epidemic every day. I think there's 124 people who have contracted measles at this point, mainly in Gaines County, Texas, mainly, we're told in the

Mennonite community, there are two people who have died. But the, we're told, we're in the Mennonite community, there are two people who have died, but we're watching it, and there are about 20 people hospitalized, mainly for quarantine. We're watching it. We put out a post on it yesterday, and we're going to continue to follow it. Incidentally, there have been four measles outbreaks this year in this country last year that we're 16. So it's not unusual. We have measles outbreaks every year.

Now, what he's actually quoting there is the CDC's own numbers? There was 16 outbreaks last year. An outbreak is really considered three or more, so that's pretty low bar. And also he mentions there's two deaths there. Right now, there's publicly only one. So unless he's looking at numbers or he has evidence or information that the public doesn't have as of yet, we don't know. I think they came out. I think HHS came out and corrected that and said it's actually one at the moment.

Okay. Okay. So let's go to Texas Department of Public Health and let's look at their numbers. Now this, this is their latest updates. I believe they're updating tomorrow on Friday. It says here, 124 cases have been identified since late January. 18 of the patients have been hospitalized. Five of the cases are vaccinated. The rest are unvaccinated or their vaccination status is unknown. So put another way, five of the cases are vaccinated. The rest are either unvaccinated or we just don't know, but they all could be vaccinated. We actually don't know or they could be unvaccinated. So it's kind of a slippery way to say that. But looking at the actual age ranges of these measles

cases from the DPH website here in Texas, you can see from zero to four years old. There's about 39, five to 17. That's the bulk, really, the bulk of cases, which is 62, which is an interesting because it's not in the young children. I guess, thank God, but it's moved up to, I mean, almost 17-year-olds. And then 18 years plus. And then, pending. So that's that's kind of the breath of what you're seeing here in this Texas outbreak. And again, this update will be tomorrow from that website as well.