Measles can cause complications like pneumonia, brain swelling, long-term hearing loss and death as is the case in the current Texas outbreak. In the decade before the measles vaccine, the CDC estimates 3 to 4 million people were infected and 400 to 400 people died from the virus every year in the United States.

Kennedy's immediate response to news of the measles death, the first in the U.S. since 2015, was to say that such outbreaks are a commonplace event. He incorrectly alluded to two deaths and said that hospitalized patients were being kept "mainly for quarantine" reasons.