The U.S. is in the grips of a historic measles surge, with more than 3,000 measles cases reported in 45 states across the country since the start of 2025. So far, two unvaccinated children have died from the disease. At least 920 people have been infected in South Carolina, and a similar number in Texas. In both states, nearly all infected individuals were unvaccinated.
Now Dr. Mehmet Oz, administrator to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, is urging Americans to get the measles vaccine as the country is on the brink of losing its measles elimination status.
“Take the vaccine, please. We have a solution for our problem,” Oz said on CNN’s State of Union on Sunday. “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 [for],” Oz said.
Mehmet’s urging comes almost a year after Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. called in April 2025 for supplying Texas with “needed” measles vaccines in the wake of an outbreak.
“The most effective way to prevent the spread of measles is the MMR vaccine,” Kennedy said in a post on X last April. The vaccine-skeptical Kennedy also told CBS that HHS would “encourage people to get the measles vaccine.” It was a reversal from decades of vaccine skepticism pushed by Kennedy and Children’s Health Defense, the anti-vaccine non-profit that he chairs. His tenure under President Donald Trump, with changes in vaccine schedules for children, has further eroded public trust in the government’s ability to keep them healthy.
BASH: Is this measles outbreak a consequence of the administration undermining support for vaccines?
DR OZ: I don’t believe so. Secretary Kennedy has been advocating for measles vaccines
BASH: Oh, come on pic.twitter.com/gCIMqIuN7I
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) February 8, 2026
Oz has expressed less public skepticism of vaccines overall, but has questioned the effectiveness of the flu vaccine. “Every year, there’s a flu vaccine. It doesn’t always work very well,” Oz told Newsmax in January.
“That’s why it’s been controversial of late,” Oz said, recommending Americans “take care” of themselves to prevent severe flu infections.
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The surge in measles cases comes more than twenty-five years after the nation was declared measles-free. In 2000, the US declared measles eradicated, meaning “no locally transmitted measles infections or outbreaks lasting 12 months or longer,” per Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines. Measles is one of the most contagious diseases known, which can also wipe out the immune system’s “memory,” making illness and death from other pathogens more likely.