A flu outbreak has been tearing through a Texas Air Force base, less than two months after Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced the Pentagon would be ending its flu shot requirement.
The outbreak at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio has reportedly sickened nearly 160 troops, prompting the Air Force to temporarily require recruits there to once again get the flu shot, The New York Times reports.
“Over the last three weeks, the 37th Training Wing, in close coordination with the 59th Medical Wing, has been managing a localized influenza outbreak among trainees at Basic Military Training,” an Air Force spokesperson told The Independent in a statement. “Medical professionals and Public Health officials have implemented mitigation measures to isolate and treat symptomatic trainees to reduce further exposure and continue to monitor the situation.”
“Once they are cleared by medical professionals they will return to training,” the official added.
On Wednesday, the 37th Training Wing announced that Keon McDaniel, a basic military trainee from the 737th Training Support Squadron, died earlier in the week after experiencing a “medical emergency” and being taken to Brooke Army Medical Center.
“The cause of the medical emergency is currently under investigation, and a comprehensive medical review is being conducted to determine the facts,” the unit said in a statement.
It is unclear if McDaniel’s death was flu-related.
In April, Hegseth announced the Pentagon was axing the military’s policy of requiring the influenza vaccine.
Hegseth called the requirement and a prior policy of mandatory Covid shots for troops “absurd, overreaching mandates that only weaken our war fighting capabilities.”
“The notion that a flu vaccine must be mandatory for every service member, everywhere, in every circumstance at all times is just overly broad and not rational,” he added.
In the wake of the outbreak, the Pentagon defended the new policy.
“The decisions were based upon thorough risk assessments and are designed to maximize operational readiness, lethality, and force generation, while safeguarding at-risk populations,” chief Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said in a statement to The Independent.
Outside of the military, the Trump administration has elevated vaccine skeptics to top positions, including Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., whose department has baselessly linked vaccines to autism, while sidelining vaccine advocates and seeking to shrink the childhood vaccine schedule.
