Having struggled to contain the devastated measles epidemic in West Texas, public health officials are increasingly concerned that residents will rely on unproven relief measures approved by health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., and will visit doctors who will be postponed until the illness gets worse.
Hospitals and officials sounded alarms this week, and issued notices explaining which measles symptoms guaranteed immediate medical treatment and highlighting the importance of timely treatment.
“They're hospitalized,” said Katherine Wells, director of public health in Lubbock, Texas, who has many of the sickest children in the outbreak.
Some seriously ill children were given alternative remedies like cod liver oil, she added. “If that's the case, and if it's sick and low oxygen levels, they should have been in the hospital a day or two earlier,” she said.
The growing outbreak has spread to nearly 260 people in Texas. To date, 34 patients have been hospitalized and one child has been killed. In neighbouring New Mexico County, 35 viruses were sick and two were hospitalized. Two cases in Oklahoma are also linked to the outbreak.
Texas health officials believe the true number of cases is much higher. Overall, there were 301 measles cases in the US this year, the highest number since 2019, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported on Friday.
In his first official statement on the outbreak, Kennedy said he faced intense backlash to minimize the situation, not “unusual” and falsely claimed that many people admitted to the hospital were there “mainly due to quarantine.”
Over the next few weeks, Kennedy changed his approach, offering relaxed recommendations for the vaccine to Western Texans, while also promoting unproven treatments such as cod liver oil containing vitamin A, recovering “almost miraculously and instantly” with steroids or antibiotics.
There is no cure for measles, only medications that help manage symptoms. Vaccination is the most effective way to prevent infection.
Although doctors may administer high doses of vitamin A in hospitals to manage severe cases of measles, there is no reliable evidence that supplements are effective in treating or preventing measles.
Experts also noted that antibiotics that fight bacterial infections could be used to treat secondary infections, but do not stop the virus, measles itself.
Alternative medicine has always been popular in Gaines County, Texas, the epicenter of the measles outbreak. Many of the large Mennonite communities in areas where most measles cases are clustered, avoid interacting with the healthcare system and retain a long tradition of natural remedies.
Over the past few weeks, drug stores in western Texas have struggled to maintain vitamin A pills and cod liver oil supplements on their shelves.
And this week, doctors at Seminole Memorial Hospital in the heart of Gaines County noticed a sudden drop in the number of patients coming in due to measles symptoms. Those who appeared were more ill than those seen in the previous week.
Even as community cases are on the rise, hospital physician Dr. Leila Millick said he had performed half of the measles tests compared to half of the measles tests the previous week.
She was worried that patients would go to the pop-up clinic less than a mile away from the hospital. There, doctors from nearby cities had eliminated alternative remedies like cod liver oil and vitamin C.
Dr. Ben Edwards, a doctor, has produced a podcast that often discusses the risks of vaccines, and his wellness clinic in Lubbock is well known in the area for the idea that reproduction causes certain diseases.
In an interview with Fox News, Kennedy spoke to Dr. Edwards (he accidentally called Dr. Ed Benjamin) and said he learned “what works on the ground.”
In an email relayed through the employee, Dr. Edwards confirmed that he spoke to Kennedy for about 15 minutes in what he called “information gathering.” Dr. Edwards refused to speak directly to the New York Times.
The next day, hundreds of people from the Mennonite community lined up at the mix clinic between Dr. Edwards, behind a local health food store, said Tina Siemens, who helped organize the event.
Mrs. Siemens said there were people seeking treatment for active measles infections and those who wanted to prevent it.
To get enough supplements for the clinic, Dr. Edwards enlisted one of his patients, a pilot, to fly to Scottsdale, Arizona, to pick up about 1,000 bottles of vitamin C supplements and cod liver oil, both as lemon-flavored drinks and tasteless softgels.
“How much stock do you have and how quickly can you get it?” Sullivan recalled Dr. Edwards asked.
The treatment was free, Mrs. Siemens said. Members of Children's Health Defense, an anti-vaccine nonprofit that Kennedy discovered before becoming a health secretary, have created a donation page online that raised more than $16,000 to cover the costs of “essential vitamins, supplements and medications.”
Measles symptoms are often resolved on your own within a few weeks. However, in rare cases, the virus can cause pneumonia, making it difficult for patients, especially children, to put oxygen into the lungs. There is also swelling in the brain, which can cause permanent problems such as blindness, hearing loss, and intellectual disability. Both complications can be fatal.
During the outbreak, children hospitalized with pneumonia had to be intubated, said Lubbock Health Director. In such circumstances, timely care means the difference between life and death.
Former President of the National Foundation for Infectious Diseases, Patsy Stinchfield said the outbreak of measles has made it even more fatal for decades.
She worked as a nurse practitioner at a Minnesota hospital during the 1989 measles outbreak and killed several children. Two of them arrived at her hospital in danger after their parents were prone to them at home with traditional healing remedies.
“They should keep their kids at home for a long time and try these home remedies,” she said. “They went straight from the ER to the intensive care unit and they died.”
