A senior US public health official called on Americans to get vaccinated against measles as outbreaks continue in multiple states and concerns grow that the country could lose its measles elimination designation. Dr Mehmet Oz, a cardiothoracic surgeon, spoke in support on Sunday of the measles vaccine.

“Take the vaccine, please,” said Oz, the administrator of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. “We have a solution for our problem.”

“Not all illnesses are equally dangerous and not all people are equally susceptible to those illnesses,” he told CNN’s State of the Union. “But measles is one you should get your vaccine.”

His boss, health secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr, has a long history of questioning both the safety and necessity of vaccines.

The remarks come as South Carolina is experiencing an outbreak involving hundreds of cases, exceeding the number recorded in Texas’ measles outbreak earlier in 2025. Another outbreak has been identified along the Utah-Arizona border, and several additional states have reported confirmed cases this year. Children have been the most affected.

Public health specialists say the resurgence is occurring as skepticism toward vaccines grows, potentially fueling the return of a disease that officials had previously declared eliminated in the US.

In January alone, the US saw 25% of the total cases confirmed in all of last year, and the outbreak shows no sign of slowing as federal officials mostly stay silent on vaccination.

The vast majority of patients are not vaccinated, but there have been no national campaigns announced, with Oz being the first major statement from the federal government. Last year, Kennedy positioned measles vaccines as a personal choice and recommended unproven treatments for the highly contagious illness.

Oz has previously leaned into Kennedy’s campaign to “make America healthy again” (Maha), an effort to redesign the country’s food supply, reject vaccine mandates and cast doubt on some long-established scientific research. He cast doubt on how well flu vaccines work in an interview with Newsmax last year. “Every year, there’s a flu vaccine. It doesn’t always work very well. That’s why it’s been controversial of late,” Oz said. He instead recommended that Americans “take care” of themselves, so they can “overwhelm” the flu when they encounter it.