WASHINGTON – Amidst a surge of measles cases across various U.S. states, a top health official has emphasized the critical need for vaccinations. The United States is currently at risk of losing its measles elimination status, making this call to action even more urgent.

“Please get the vaccine,” urged Dr. Mehmet Oz, the administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. His appeal comes despite skepticism from some officials about vaccine safety and necessity. “We have a solution to our problem,” he reassured the public.

Dr. Oz, who is also a heart surgeon, defended recent changes in federal vaccine guidelines as well as previous statements from President Donald Trump and health advocate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. regarding vaccine effectiveness. He delivered a clear message about the measles vaccine.

“Not all diseases pose the same threat, and not everyone is at equal risk,” he explained on CNN’s “State of the Union.” “But when it comes to measles, vaccination is essential.”

South Carolina is experiencing a significant outbreak, with cases surpassing those seen in Texas during its 2025 outbreak. Additionally, an outbreak has been reported along the Utah-Arizona border, and several other states have confirmed cases this year. Children are primarily affected, and experts attribute the spread to increasing public skepticism towards vaccines, which threatens to undo previous public health victories against diseases like measles.

When asked on television if measles should be a cause for concern, Oz responded emphatically, “Absolutely.” He confirmed that the measles vaccine will remain covered under Medicare and Medicaid insurance plans.

“There will never be a barrier to Americans get access to the measles vaccine. And it is part of the core schedule,” Oz said.

But Oz also said “we have advocated for measles vaccines all along” and that Kennedy “has been on the very front of this.”

Questions about vaccines did not come up later in a Kennedy interview on Fox News Channel’s “The Sunday Briefing,” where he was asked about what kind of Super Bowl snack he might have (probably yogurt). He also he eats steak with sauerkraut in the mornings.

Critics of Kennedy have argued that the health secretary’s longtime skepticism of U.S. vaccine recommendations and past sympathy for the unfounded claim that vaccines may cause autism may influence official public health guidance in ways contrary to the medical consensus.

Oz argued that Kennedy’s stance was supportive of the measles vaccine despite Kennedy’s general comments about the recommended vaccine schedule.

“When the first outbreak happened in Texas, he said, get your vaccines for measles, because that’s an example of an ailment that you should get vaccinated against,” Oz said.

The Republican administration last month dropped some vaccine recommendations for children, an overhaul of the traditional vaccine schedule that the Department of Health and Human Services said was in response to a request from Trump.

Trump asked the agency to review how peer nations approach vaccine recommendations and consider revising U.S. guidance accordingly.

States, not the federal government, have the authority to require vaccinations for schoolchildren. While federal requirements often influence those state regulations, some states have begun creating their own alliances to counter the administration’s guidance on vaccines.

U.S. vaccination rates have dropped and the share of children with exemptions has reached an all-time high, according to federal data. At the same time, rates of diseases that can be protected against with vaccines, such as measles and whooping cough, are rising across the country.

Kennedy’s past anti-vaccine activism

Kennedy’s past skepticism of vaccines has come under scrutiny since Trump first nominated him to lead the Department of Health and Human Services.

During his Senate confirmation testimony last year, Kennedy told lawmakers that a closely scrutinized 2019 trip he took to Samoa, which came before a devastating measles outbreak, had “nothing to do with vaccines.”

But documents obtained by The Guardian and The Associated Press undermine that testimony. Emails sent by staffers at the U.S. Embassy and the United Nations said that Kennedy sought to meet with top Samoan officials during his trip to the Pacific island nation.

Samoan officials later said Kennedy’s trip bolstered the credibility of anti-vaccine activists before the measles outbreak, which sickened thousands of people and killed 83, mostly children under age 5.

Mixed messaging on autism, vaccines

Oz’s comments mark a broader pattern among administration officials of voicing discordant and at times contradictory statements about the efficacy of vaccines amid an overhaul of U.S. public health policy.

Officials have walked a fine line in criticizing past U.S. vaccine policy, often at times appearing to express sympathy for unfounded conspiracy theories from anti-vaccine activists, while also not straying too far from established science.

During a Senate hearing Tuesday, Jay Bhattacharya, the director of the National Institutes of Health, said no single vaccine causes autism, but he did not rule out the possibility that research may find some combination of vaccines could have negative health side effects.

But Kennedy, in Senate testimony, has argued that a link between vaccines and autism has not been disproved.

He has previously claimed that some components of vaccines, like the mercury-containing preservative thimerosal, may cause childhood neurological disorders such as autism. Most vaccines for measles, mumps and rubella do not contain thimerosal. A federal vaccine advisory board overhauled by Kennedy last year voted to no longer recommend thimerosal-containing vaccines.

Administration public health officials often cite the need to restore trust in public health systems after the coronavirus pandemic, when vaccine policy and the general public health response to the deadly pandemic became a highly polarizing topic in American politics.

Misinformation and conspiracy theories about the public health system also spread during the pandemic, and longtime anti-vaccine activist groups saw a swell in interest from the wider public.

Kennedy, who for years led the anti-vaccine activist group Children’s Health Defense, has been criticized for ordering reviews of vaccines and public health guidelines that leading medical research groups have deemed settled science.

Public health experts also criticized the president for making unfounded claims about highly politicized health issues. During a September Oval Office event, Trump asserted without evidence that Tylenol and vaccines are linked to a rise in the incidence of autism in the United States.