Texas officials yesterday announced the second death in its ongoing measles outbreak.
The patient was an unvaccinated school-aged child who had been hospitalized in Lubbock. Health and Human Services (HHS) Director Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said on X that the child is 8-year-old Daisy Hildebrand of Gaines County. She had no underlying health conditions and died April 3 from measles pulmonary failure, according to her physicians, Texas Health and Human Services said in its news release.
This marks the third death in the United States this year in patients with measles, with two fatalities confirmed in Texas children and one suspected death in an adult from New Mexico. All three patients were unvaccinated against the virus, and the patients were linked to the growing West Texas outbreak, where at least 481 cases have been confirmed and 56 patients have been hospitalized.
The United States now has more than 600 measles cases in 2025, double the number seen last year, and will likely pass the 1,274 cases reported in 2019, a year when a surge of measles activity threatened the nation's measles elimination status earned in 2000.
JFK Jr in Gaines County
Kennedy traveled to Texas yesterday to attend the girl's funeral, he said in his X post "I came to Gaines County, Texas, today to comfort the Hildebrand family after the loss of their 8-year-old daughter Daisy. I got to know the family of 6-year-old Kayley Fehr after she passed away in February."
"I am also here to support Texas health officials and to learn how our HHS agencies can better partner with them to control the measles outbreak, which as of today, there are 642 confirmed cases of measles across 22 states, 499 of those in Texas."
Gaines County is the home to a Mennonite community that is highly under-vaccinated against measles. The county has seen 315 cases since January.
Kennedy said he had deployed Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) workers to Texas to help manage the outbreak, but once again gave convoluted statements about measles.
The most effective way to prevent the spread of measles is the MMR vaccine.
"The most effective way to prevent the spread of measles is the MMR vaccine," Kennedy wrote on X—his most forceful message yet in support of vaccination. He then said he visited with doctors "who have treated and healed some 300 measles-stricken Mennonite children using aerosolized budesonide and clarithromycin," and posted pictures of himself with the two Mennonite families who have lost a child in this outbreak.
Neither budesonide, a steroid, or the antibiotic clarithromycin has been shown to be effective against measles. The disease is caused by a virus, and antibiotics target bacteria.
Several members of the anti-vaccine community have suggested the Texas children died due to the mishandling of their cases by physicians, which has been refuted by health officials in the state. And earlier in the outbreak Kennedy promoted treating at-risk kids with vitamin A to prevent measles, which has landed some kids in the hospital after ingesting toxic amounts of the vitamin.
Two doses of the measles, mumps, and rubella vaccine are 97% effective in preventing measles. There are no known treatments for the disease.
