This story was originally reported by 19th News Staff of The 19th. Meet 19th News Staff and read more of their reporting on gender, politics and policy.
This story was originally reported by staff of The 19th. Meet and read more of their reporting on gender, politics and policy.
Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is more directly promoting measles vaccinations following the death of a second unvaccinated child. But he continues to highlight remedies that medical experts say do not prevent or treat the virus. As the number of measles cases grows around the country, experts worry that parents and other caregivers are getting mixed messaging about the safety of vaccines.
Over the weekend, Kennedy traveled to Texas for the funeral of an 8-year-old who public health officials say died this month of complications from measles. Kennedy met with the child’s family, as well as the family of a 6-year-old in the state who died in February of measles complications. Both children were unvaccinated. (An unvaccinated adult in New Mexico who died recently also had measles, according to public health officials.)
“The most effective way to prevent the spread of measles is the [measles-mumps-rubella] vaccine,” Kennedy wrote on X on Sunday, the day of the funeral. In the lengthy post, he said he had redeployed Centers for Disease Control and Prevention teams to Texas at the request of the state’s governor. He said staff previously helped supply pharmacies and clinics with MMR vaccines, medicines and medical supplies, and supported contact investigations and community outreach.
The MMR vaccine, which is safe, is 93 percent effective after one dose and 97 percent effective after the second dose.
But in a follow-up post, which included photos with the impacted families, Kennedy also noted that he had visited with “two extraordinary healers” — Dr. Richard Bartlett and Dr. Ben Edwards. Kennedy claimed the two men have “treated and healed” about 300 children from the Mennonite community at the epicenter of the outbreak using aerosolized budesonide and clarithromycin.
Aerosolized budesonide can open airways to help treat asthma. Clarithromycin is an antibiotic that can help treat bacterial infections. But Patsy Stinchfield, an infectious disease nurse practitioner and a past president of the National Foundation for Infectious Diseases (NFID), told The 19th that neither is a measles antiviral medication.
Stinchfield said to suggest either treatment healed hundreds of children from measles “is distracting.” There is no specific treatment for measles, though doctors can try to treat secondary symptoms that might emerge from an infection.
“The way that it’s being framed is confusing and misleading and kind of off the main message, which should be to vaccinate, vaccinate, vaccinate,” she said.
Both “healers” have a history of challenging the safety of vaccines. Bartlett faced disciplinary action from the Texas Medical Board in 2003 for “unusual use of risk-filled medications,” according to CNN. At the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, he claimed vaccines were not needed and a combination of drugs, including budesonide, was a “silver bullet” for treating the virus.
Edwards, who said mass infection is “God’s version of measles immunization,” according to the Washington Post, runs a facility in Texas where he reportedly treats some people for measles-related ailments with budesonide. A nearby store distributes cod liver oil, according to NBC News. Cod liver oil, which Kennedy has also promoted, is not a preventive measure for measles, Stinchfield said, and should not be used in place of the MMR vaccine.
Dr. Adam Ratner, who serves on an infectious diseases committee for the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), said in an email to The 19th that there is no evidence to support the use of either treatment to care for children who have been infected with measles.
“Promoting unproven medications for measles treatment puts children at unnecessary risk, and the only way to prevent measles is by vaccination with the measles-mumps-rubella vaccine,” Ratner wrote.
Dr. John Swartzberg, a clinical professor emeritus at the UC Berkeley School of Public Health, made the same point in a separate email to The 19th.
“Budesonide and clarithromycin have NO therapeutic role in treating or preventing measles infection,” he wrote. “There is no credible science to support their use for this purpose.”
An HHS spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Kennedy is traveling to parts of the Southwest this week.
Kennedy’s first expansive remarks on the measles outbreak came in an op-ed published on Fox News in early March, when the secretary encouraged parents to consult their health care providers about getting the MMR vaccine. He said at the time that the decision to vaccinate “is a personal one.”
Stinchfield said that messaging can dilute from efforts to end the current outbreaks, which now include more than 600 confirmed cases across at least 21 states this year.
“When we’re talking about the most contagious virus that we have and how easily it spreads to other children, when someone chooses not to vaccinate … it is not a personal choice anymore,” she said. “You have now endangered other individuals, and especially little children, those who are immunodeficient, pregnant women. So an unvaccinated person is potentially a walking infectious risk to others.”
In his March op-ed, Kennedy recommended that some people administer vitamin A under the supervision of a physician to reduce related measles deaths. Cod liver oil also contains vitamin A.
While people who are malnourished or have a weakened immune system may be treated with vitamin A — the World Health Organization along with AAP and NFID support physician-prescribed high dose vitamin A for some measles management — any other use of vitamin A is not recommended, and importantly, too much vitamin A can be toxic.
At Covenant Children’s Hospital in Lubbock, Texas — which has treated children infected with measles — a representative confirmed to The 19th that its staff had encountered cases of vitamin A toxicity among unvaccinated children who were initially hospitalized due to measles complications. Some patients used vitamin A for both treatment and measles prevention. As of late March, the staff had reported fewer than 10 vitamin A toxicity cases.
“This topic has garnered extensive attention on social media and other platforms,” according to a statement from Dr. Lara Johnson, pediatric hospitalist and chief medical office of Covenant
Health-Lubbock Service Area, which includes Covenant Children’s Hospital. “While there are potential benefits, it is crucial to consult with your primary care physician before initiating any new treatment regimen.”
Stinchfield said the takeaways from Kennedy’s posts are offering mixed messaging to parents at a time when the federal government should already have more urgent calls for immunization.
“We should be in all hands on deck mode and pouring resources into stopping the measles outbreak and I am not seeing that,” she later wrote in an email.
Kennedy has a long history of anti-vaccine views that he has tried to dispel as he begins to oversee HHS. During his Senate confirmation hearings, Kennedy told lawmakers that he would support the childhood vaccine schedule.
But since then he has alarmed some people within his own agency. In March, a top vaccine official within the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, which is run under HHS, announced he would resign.
“It has become clear that truth and transparency are not desired by the Secretary, but rather he wishes subservient confirmation of his misinformation and lies,” Dr. Peter Marks wrote in his resignation letter as director of the Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research. According to the Wall Street Journal, Marks said he was asked to find data on brain swelling cases and deaths tied to the MMR vaccine — data that Marks said did not exist. Marks has encouraged parents to get the MMR vaccine for their children.
Swartzberg said he appreciates that Kennedy is “finally” stating that the best way to control measles infections and deaths is vaccination, but noted that it’s been months since the first cases were reported. He believes Kennedy’s promotion of vitamin A and other drugs has also steered people, including parents, away from vaccinating their kids.
“This came very late in the game,” he said. “And, he has never stated that the vaccine is safe.”
Stinchfield helped address a measles outbreak in Minnesota within the Somali community in 2017 and measles outbreaks in the early 1990s. She’s seen firsthand how children suffer from a measles infection. It can include brain swelling, long-term complications and death. Vaccination rates among kindergartners have been declining since around the start of the pandemic, a dynamic that some medical experts believe is partially attributed to a growing distrust of the government.
Stinchfield encouraged parents to seek reliable sources of information — including from reputable medical organizations, children’s hospitals and trusted pediatric providers — amid an onslaught of misinformation online.
“You really need to make sure that you’re getting reliable information from people who know what they’re talking about,” she said.
