‘Take the Vaccine, Please,’ Federal Health Official Warns as US Could Lose Measles-Free Status

The United States is facing a measles crisis that health officials say could cost the country a public health milestone decades in the making. Active outbreaks are spreading across multiple states, vaccination rates are falling, and childhood exemptions from required vaccines have reached an all-time high, according to federal data. Officials now warn the country is at risk of losing its measles elimination status, a designation earned through sustained immunization efforts after the disease was declared eradicated.

Dr. Mehmet Oz, administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, issued an unusually direct call to action on Sunday. “Take the vaccine, please,” he told CNN’s “State of the Union,” adding, “We have a solution for our problem.” Oz, a heart surgeon by training, confirmed that Medicare and Medicaid will continue covering the measles vaccine and that it remains part of the core immunization schedule.

Oz left little ambiguity about the stakes when asked whether Americans should fear measles. “Oh, for sure,” he replied. He pushed back on the idea that every illness carries the same risk. “Not all illnesses are equally dangerous, and not all people are equally susceptible to those illnesses. But measles is one you should get your vaccine,” he told CNN.

Outbreaks Span Multiple States and Are Hitting Children Hardest

A measles outbreak in South Carolina has reached the hundreds, surpassing the case count recorded during Texas’ 2025 outbreak. A separate outbreak is also active along the Utah-Arizona border, and multiple other states have confirmed cases this year. The outbreaks have mostly impacted children, the Associated Press reported, as infectious disease experts warn that growing public distrust of vaccines may be contributing to the resurgence of measles and other vaccine-preventable diseases like whooping cough across the country.

The outbreaks are arriving at a complicated moment for federal vaccine policy. Last month, the Trump administration dropped several vaccine recommendations for children, an overhaul the Department of Health and Human Services said was carried out at the president’s request. Trump had asked the agency to review how peer nations approach immunization guidance and consider revising U.S. recommendations accordingly, according to the Associated Press.

Vaccine mandates for schoolchildren are set at the state level, though federal recommendations have historically driven those decisions. Some states have begun forming their own alliances to push back against the administration’s revised guidance. Vaccination rates have dropped nationwide, and the share of children with vaccine exemptions has reached an all-time high, according to federal data, as rates of measles and whooping cough continue rising across the country.

Administration Health Officials Diverge on Vaccine Messaging

Even as Oz urged vaccinations, other administration officials sent a less certain message. During a Senate hearing, Jay Bhattacharya, director of the National Institutes of Health, said no single vaccine causes autism, though he did not rule out the possibility that some combination of vaccines could produce negative health effects. Public health authorities have widely characterized the claim that vaccines cause autism as unfounded.

Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has argued in Senate testimony that a link between vaccines and autism has not been disproved, a position that contradicts the medical consensus. His 2019 trip to Samoa came before a devastating measles outbreak that sickened thousands and killed 83 people, mostly children under age 5. Oz defended Kennedy’s stance on measles specifically. “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 told CNN.

Kennedy’s broader record has drawn scrutiny alongside those assurances. He spent years leading Children’s Health Defense, a prominent anti-vaccine activist organization, and has ordered reviews of public health guidelines that leading medical research groups say do not warrant reexamination. He has claimed that thimerosal, a mercury-containing preservative, may cause autism, though most measles, mumps, and rubella vaccines do not contain it. Oz said “we have advocated for measles vaccines all along” and that Kennedy “has been on the very front of this.”

With Elimination Status at Risk, Health Officials Are Urging the Public Not to Wait

Infectious disease experts have warned that rising public distrust of vaccines may be contributing to the spread, according to the Associated Press. A disease that U.S. public health officials once declared eradicated is now circulating in multiple states at once, and the exemption rate among schoolchildren has never been higher, according to federal data.

Oz was direct about what the federal government will and will not do. Medicare and Medicaid will keep covering the measles vaccine, he said, and access will not be restricted. “There will never be a barrier to Americans getting access to the measles vaccine. And it is part of the core schedule,” Oz told CNN. That commitment, he said, holds regardless of broader debates about the recommended immunization schedule.

Measles elimination status took decades of sustained vaccination to achieve, and officials warn it carries no guarantee of permanence. Outbreaks are now active in South Carolina, along the Utah-Arizona border, and across several other states, all while exemption rates climb and federal vaccine guidance undergoes revision. Oz’s position remains focused on vaccination as the solution.