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A top spokesperson for the Department of Health and Human Services has abruptly resigned from the department, just two weeks after starting the job and as the country grapples with an escalating measles outbreak.
Tom Corry, who served as assistant secretary of public affairs at HHS, said on Monday that he resigned on Friday effective immediately.
“I want to announce to my friends and colleagues that last Friday I announced my resignation effective immediately,” Corry, who previously served in a similar role in the first Trump administration, wrote on LinkedIn. “To my colleagues at HHS, I wish you the best and great success.”
Corry, who was sworn in just two weeks ago, did not provide a reason for his departure, and HHS did not respond for a request for comment.
Last month, Corry had said that he was “thankful” to be a part of the team “that is going to work to make America healthy again, and on making healthcare more affordable and accessible”.
But on Monday, two people familiar with the matter told Politico that Corry had been clashing with the HHS secretary, Robert F Kennedy Jr, along with his close aides, regarding the management of the health department amid the escalating measles outbreak.
The sources indicated that Corry had become increasingly uneasy with Kennedy’s “muted response” to the intensifying outbreak of measles in Texas, where more than 140 people have become infected since January.
The outbreak has also resulted in the death of an unvaccinated child, marking the first fatality from the highly contagious disease in the US since 2015.
Corry’s resignation comes as last week, during Donald Trump’s first official cabinet meeting, a reporter asked Kennedy about the Texas outbreak, to which he responded that it was “not unusual”, which sparked blowback and criticism from doctors and health experts around the country.
Measles was declared eliminated in the US in 2000, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, meaning no outbreaks have spread in a region for 12 or more consecutive months.
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On Friday, just two days after initially downplaying the outbreak, Kennedy said he recognized the serious impact of the ongoing epidemic in Texas and that the government was providing resources, including protective vaccines, to combat the situation,
Then, on Sunday, two days after Corry’s resignation, Kennedy published an opinion piece in Fox News, expressing his concerns about the disease’s spread.
In the piece, the prominent vaccine skeptic adopted a different stance from his previous remarks, and said that “vaccines not only protect individual children from measles, but also contribute to community immunity, protecting those who are unable to be vaccinated due to medical reasons”.
However, he stopped short of directly calling for vaccinations, instead suggesting that the vaccines should be “readily accessible for all those who want them”.
“Parents play a pivotal role in safeguarding their children’s health. All parents should consult with their healthcare providers to understand their options to get the MMR vaccine,” he also wrote. “The decision to vaccinate is a personal one.”
The ongoing crisis in Texas comes as Kennedy reportedly cancelled an upcoming meeting to discuss next year’s flu vaccines, and last month postponed a public meeting on immunization.
