US Health Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr has urged parents to vaccinate their children following a record-breaking measles outbreak in the United States.
Mr Kennedy, a longtime vaccine critic who has regularly told Americans they should not take medical advice from him, warned people to get the jab during a heated interview on CNN on Sunday, local time.
“Parents should get their children vaccinated for measles," he said.
"A measles vaccine is effective, it stops measles in about 97 per cent of the cases. People should get vaccinated.”
The rise in measles, declared essentially eradicated in the US a quarter of a century ago, has been linked by medical experts to slumping immunisation rates, a trend many attribute in part to vaccine scepticism espoused by Mr Kennedy.
