Two long-planned vaccine meetings — one at the US Centers for Disease Control and another at the US Food and Drug Administration — have now been disrupted under the watch of US Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F.

Epidemiologist Michael Osterholm, the head of the University of Minnesota Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy, joined Morning Edition host Cathy Wurzer to talk about the implications of axing the meeting.

The cancellation plays into fears among scientists who worry that Robert F. Kennedy Jr. will use his position as health secretary to sow doubts about vaccines.

Before the measles vaccine, there were over 30 million cases of the disease worldwide each year.

The majority of the 124 measles cases reported in Texas this year have been in children between five and 17. The first death in an ongoing measles outbreak has been reported in Texas. The Texas Department of State Health Services announced the death of a school-aged child on Wednesday morning.

Opting against vaccines may uphold ideas of personal freedom, but it has doomed the county at the center of the Texas measles outbreak