The former top vaccines official at the Food and Drug Administration criticized Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. for downplaying the deaths of unvaccinated children from measles, amid this year's record outbreak of the virus.

"To dismiss children's deaths due to infectious diseases that are preventable by vaccines as just expected or not a big deal, that's just not acceptable to me," said Dr. Peter Marks, in an interview airing Sunday on "Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan."

Weekly measles cases have climbed to the highest levels seen in the U.S. since a 2019 wave of the virus, which had been the worst in decades. Three deaths have been linked to this year's measles outbreak, including two unvaccinated children in Texas.

"We've had three measles deaths in this country over 20 years, and we're trying to refocus the press to get them to pay attention to the chronic disease epidemic," Kennedy said Thursday at a White House Cabinet meeting.

Kennedy also contrasted U.S. measles case numbers to Europe, where thousands more infections and dozens of deaths have been reported in recent months. Kennedy has also used the comparison as evidence that his response to the outbreak was a success.