More than 220 troops at San Antonio’s Lackland Air Force Base have contracted influenza, and lawmakers on both sides of the aisle are assigning blame for the outbreak to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.
The upsurge in flu cases at the Alamo City site — the nation’s biggest military base by population at 67,000 service members — comes two months after Hegseth declared that annual influenza vaccines would no longer be mandatory for military personnel.
“After Secretary Hegseth scrapped the military’s flu vaccine mandate, it was only a matter of time before an outbreak occurred,” Congressman Joaquin Castro, D-San Antonio, tweeted Friday. “It was a reckless decision that put troops in harm’s way and undermined our military readiness.”
Castro added that Air Force personnel informed his office that the number of cases had climbed to 222, or 62 more than had been reported earlier in the week.
The outbreak swept through a batch of new recruits in the 37th Training Wing. One of those recruits, identified as Keon McDaniel, died last Tuesday at Brooke Army Medical Center after experiencing a “medical emergency,” though it’s unclear whether the emergency was flu-related, the San Antonio Express-News reports.
“A comprehensive medical review is being conducted to determine the facts,” an Air Force spokesperson told the daily.
Hegseth announced the decision to repeal the flu-shot mandate in an April 21 video posted to X.
“The War Department is once again restoring freedom to our Joint Force,” Hegseth stated in the video’s caption. “We are discarding the mandatory flu vaccine requirement, effective immediately.”
In the clip, Hegseth argued the decision gave troops “medical autonomy” and “freedom to express their religious convictions.” He also spoke of “absurd, overreaching mandates that only weaken our warfighting capabilities.”
“Our men and women in uniform were forced to choose between their conscience and their country, even when those decisions posed no threat to our military readiness,” a Pentagon spokesperson told The Hill.
However, Senate Armed Services Committee Chair Roger Wicker, a Missouri Republican, said ending the vaccine requirement was “a mistake,” The Hill reports.
“When I was on active duty and a reservist, I dutifully took my flu shot every year. And as a whole, it made for a healthier [armed forces],” Wicker told reporters in the press pool.
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