Charles Ellis Schumer, the Democratic leader of the Senate, asked Robert Francis Kennedy Jr., head of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), to declare a state of emergency due to the high number of measles infections registered in the US territory.

Through a letter, the Brooklyn politician holds Kennedy Jr. responsible for his alleged negligence shown in preventing more people from continuing to be exposed to a virus that should already have been eradicated with the help of vaccination campaigns.

“Under your tutelage as secretary, you have undermined vaccines, cut public health funding, and dismantled fundamental federal protections designed to keep Americans safe. You have led our country to the largest measles outbreak in 33 years. Cases will reach a record high 25 years after this country eliminated the disease,” part of the document states.

The 74-year-old Democrat explained that a focal outbreak in Texas should have been addressed in a timely manner to prevent its spread to 38 states already reported with infected Americans, adding up to nearly 1,300 cases nationwide and a trend that will continue to rise if the problem is not taken more seriously.

“To prevent this record-breaking spread from spreading further and to save lives, a public health emergency must be declared immediately for measles,” he said.

Critics of the man responsible for the health of more than 340 million people living in the United States criticize him for having eliminated the 17 members of the advisory committee that guides policy and recommendations on vaccines for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

“They have fired disease experts, they have canceled the National Institutes of Health (NIH) research on vaccine hesitancy,"They've fired scientists from the nation's top immunization panel and eliminated more than $11 billion in federal public health grants, including $550 million from Texas during the peak of its outbreak. This is a catastrophe of your own making," Chuck Schumer emphasized, also denouncing the closure of 50 vaccination clinics.