KENNEDY, in interview with Sean Hannity that aired on Fox News on March 11: “There are adverse events from the vaccine. It does cause deaths every year. It causes — it causes all the illnesses that measles itself causes, encephalitis and blindness, et cetera. And so people ought to be able to make that choice for themselves.”

On four separate occasions, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the Health and Human Services secretary, has suggested that the measles outbreak in Texas, which is now over 500 cases, is beginning to subside and grow more slowly.