In a drastic interview, Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. outlines strategies to contain measles outbreaks in West Texas, far from mainstream science, relying heavily on fringe theories of prevention and treatment.
He issued a vaccination call in affected communities, but said the choice was personal. He suggested that measles vaccine damage is more common than known, contrary to extensive research.
He argued that the natural immunity to measles obtained from the infection is somehow protected from cancer and heart disease.
He cheered for suspicious treatments like cod liver oil, and said local doctors achieved recovery “almost miraculous and instantaneous” with steroids or antibiotics.
The worsening measles outbreak has largely spread to the Mennonite community in Gaines County, infecting nearly 200 people and killed a child, the first US death in 10 years.
New Mexico has reportedly reported another suspected death of measles, and cases have recently increased in counties that border Gaines County.
The interview, which lasted 35 minutes, was posted online by Fox News last week, just before President Trump's speech to Congress. The segment had been posted previously, but the full version received little attention.
Kennedy provided a conflicting public health message as he tried to reconcile the government's long-standing vaccine approval with decades of skepticism.
Although the West Texans have a vaccine “recommended,” he said, the risk of vaccination is underestimated.
Kennedy acknowledged that the vaccines “prevent infections” and said the federal government is helping people to ensure that people “put good medicines into the vaccine, including those who want them.”
“In a highly unvaccinated community like Mennonite, that's what we recommend,” he said.
Kennedy described vaccinations as a personal choice that must be respected, and then continued to raise horrific concerns about vaccine safety.
He said Mennonite children were said to have been injured by the Gaines County vaccine. People in the community wanted federal health workers to arrive in Texas.
However, the MMR vaccine itself has been thoroughly researched and is safe. As the secretary has previously argued, there is no link to autism. Although all vaccines sometimes have negative effects, health officials around the world have concluded that this benefit far outweigh the very small risks of vaccination.
Kennedy insisted in another way: “We don't know what the risk profile of these products is. We need to restore government trust. And we will do that by telling the truth and doing rigorous science to understand both safety and effectiveness issues.”
In response to questions about Kennedy's vaccination position, a health and human services spokesman pointed to a recent opinion, in which the shot prevented children from contracting measles and protected people who were unable to get vaccinated.
“But he believes, 'the decision to get vaccinated is personal,'” the spokesman said. He mentioned Kennedy's opinion article.
Kennedy argued that measles was “very difficult” to kill healthy people, and that malnutrition played a role in the Texas outbreak.
Earlier in the interview, Kennedy acknowledged the severity of the measles infection, noting that it could lead to death, swelling of the brain and pneumonia.
However, he also described the disease as rarely fatal, even before 1963, when vaccines became available. He said measles has a “very very low infection fatality rate.”
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, every 1,000 people infected with measles in the United States, the virus kills one to three people. One study estimates that without today's vaccinations, there will be 400,000 hospitalizations and 1,800 deaths per year.
Death is not the only consequence. Measles can cause permanent blindness, hearing loss and intellectual disability. Before the vaccine became available, about 1,000 people suffered from encephalitis each year due to the virus.
In a later comment, Kennedy suggested that severe symptoms primarily affect people who were unhealthy before developing measles.
“It's very difficult for measles to kill healthy people,” he said, adding that “there is a correlation between people who get injured by measles and those who don't have good nutrition or good exercise therapy.”
West Texas is a “type of food desert.” Malnutrition “may have been a problem” for a child who died of measles in Gaines County.
Texas health officials said children “have no known underlying conditions.”
Dr. Wendell Parky, a Gaines County doctor with many Mennonite patients, said the idea that the community is malnourished is wrong.
He pointed out that Mennonites often avoid processed foods, raise their own livestock and make their own bread. From a very young age, many members of the community help farming and other physically demanding jobs.
“They are the healthiest people here,” he said. “Nutritionally, I leave them to anyone.”
Dr. Sean O'Leary, chairman of the American Academy of Pediatrics' Infectious Diseases Committee, has data showing that severely malnourished children in poor countries often worsen the outcome of measles.
However, there is no reliable evidence that poor eating habits and exercise routines are more likely to cause measles complications, he added.
There is also ample evidence that measles were routinely killing healthy children before the MMR vaccine became available, said Patsy Stinfield, former president of the National Infectious Diseases Foundation.
Before 1963, about 500 children, previously many healthy, died of the virus every year from the virus. According to the CDC, about 40% of people infected last year were hospitalized.
In an interview, Kennedy appeared to be unhappy with the fact that vaccine-preventable diseases, not chronic diseases, had attracted public attention during her first few weeks as secretary.
“We have experienced two measles deaths in this country in 20 years. We have 100,000 autism diagnoses each year,” he said. “We need to look at the ball. Chronic illness is our enemy.”
The suggestion that vaccines cause autism has been discredited by numerous scientific studies. Scientists point out that measles deaths are extremely upset because vaccinations can prevent them.
“Innate immunity” after infection can protect the body from a variety of chronic diseases, the secretary said.
We asked if they opposed the so-called measles party – an event that parents hold intentionally to spread measles from sick children to healthy children – Kennedy said, “I won't advise anyone to get sick.”
However, he also praised the benefits of innate immunity, praised the protections protected after contracting the virus, claiming it could last longer than vaccine-induced immunity and later protect against cancer and heart disease.
It is true that measles infections can provide lifelong protection against the virus, but the risk of getting sick far outweighs the small immunity benefits, Dr. O'Leary said.
Two doses of the MMR vaccine are approximately 97% effective in preventing infection. Even if a person who has been vaccinated receives a groundbreaking infectious disease, the illness tends to be mild.
Experts also said there was no reliable evidence to support the claim that measles infection protects against other diseases.
Just the opposite: Measles infection can cause “immune amnesia,” where the body “forgets” how to protect itself from diseases that are already exposed to, making it susceptible to future infections.
Kennedy spoke enthusiastically about the unproven treatment of measles, saying that HHS will study them.
Kennedy said the Department of Health and Human Services will conduct clinical trials on several unproven treatments for measles, including the steroid, budesonide. An antibiotic called clarithromycin. And he said that cod liver oil was the “safeest spray of vitamin A”.
Kennedy said he heard from two local doctors that these treatments led to “miraculous and instant recovery.”
“We need to do a really good job talking to frontline doctors and seeing what's working on the ground,” he said. “These treatments have been really ignored by agents for a long time.”
Dr. William Schaffner, an infectious disease expert at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, said that while doctors may administer high doses of vitamin A to care for children with severe measles, it is difficult to supply it via dietary supplements such as cod liver oil.
There is no reliable data to suggest that cod liver oil is “probably safer” than traditionally administered vitamin A, he added.
Dr. Schaffner said antibiotics that combat bacterial infections are not an effective treatment for the viral measles. And he was unaware of evidence that showed that steroids improved outcomes in children with measles.
Clinical trials for these treatments are difficult on a practical level. In the US, measles children are not sufficient to carry out large-scale trials. And such research will be ethically plagued. Doctors may need to withhold standard advocacy care, such as vitamin A, to test these remedies.
Kennedy's focus on untested treatments has irritated some Gaines County doctors. They are trying to explain to patients that measles is not antiviral and that they have little control over which patients suffer from severe symptoms.
“We're already dealing with people who think measles isn't a big deal,” says Dr. Leila Millick, a family medicine physician in Seminole, Texas, who has been caring for measles patients for several weeks.
“Now they're going to think they can get this miracle treatment and don't need to get vaccinated. That's 100% to make it difficult.”
