In February, Health and Human Services secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. appeared to downplay the seriousness of an ongoing measles outbreak in Texas after an unvaccinated child became the first person to die from the virus in the United States since 2015.
“There’ve been four measles outbreaks this year. In this country last year, there were 16. So it’s not unusual. We have measles outbreaks every year,” he said at the time.
Kennedy, a prominent, longtime anti-vaccine activist, changed course somewhat over the weekend. In an X post after a second child died from the Texas outbreak, the secretary expressed public support for the measles vaccine. But hours later, he praised two “healers,” making dubious claims about them treating 300 children with measles.
On Sunday, Kennedy attended the funeral of 8-year-old Daisy Hildebrand, who passed away on Thursday. According to Texas officials, Hildebrand was unvaccinated, had no underlying health conditions, and died of “measles pulmonary failure.” The Health secretary spoke to the child’s family, per the New York Times, but he did not speak at the ceremony or make a public statement during his visit.
In a social-media post, Kennedy confirmed that he traveled to Gaines County, Texas, to “comfort” Hildebrand’s family, noting that he had also become close with the relatives of Kayley Fehr, the 6-year-old who died from measles in Texas in February. (The death of an unvaccinated adult in New Mexico has also been tied to the outbreak.)
“My intention was to come down here quietly to console the families and to be with the community in their moment of grief,” he wrote.
Buried in his statement was a brief acknowledgment of the measles vaccine and its efficacy in preventing the disease. “The most effective way to prevent the spread of measles is the MMR vaccine,” Kennedy said.
This was a marked difference from the positions that Kennedy had taken publicly since being confirmed as HHS secretary. In a Fox News editorial published early last month, Kennedy outlined the health risks that the measles pose to communities, but notably stopped short of advocating directly for Americans to get vaccinated for the disease, calling the decision to vaccinate “a personal one.” Instead, the secretary advised readers to eat better. “Good nutrition remains a best defense against most chronic and infectious illnesses. Vitamins A, C, and D, and foods rich in vitamins B12, C, and E should be part of a balanced diet,” Kennedy wrote.
A week later, Kennedy spoke with Fox News’ Sean Hannity and played up the alleged negative effects of the measles vaccine, once again advising Americans to make their own personal decision on vaccination. “There are adverse events from the vaccine,” Kennedy said. “It does cause deaths every year. It causes all the illnesses that measles itself causes: encephalitis and blindness, et cetera. And so people ought to be able to make that choice for themselves.”
And several hours after his Sunday social-media post, Kennedy was back to floating bogus information about measles treatments. The secretary posted three photos of himself with the families of the children who died of measles and wrote, “I also visited with these two extraordinary healers, Dr. Richard Bartlett and Dr. Ben Edwards who have treated and healed some 300 measles-stricken Mennonite children using aerosolized budesonide and clarithromycin.”
As Bloomberg explained, the drugs RFK Jr. mentioned are “a steroid treatment and an antibiotic,” and “neither has proved to treat measles, which is a virus and thus not susceptible to antibiotics”:
The data supporting alternative treatments for measles is scant, in part because the rarity of the disease makes it difficult to run controlled studies, said Marschall Runge, dean of the University of Michigan Medical School. In many cases, it’s impossible to tell whether a given medicine was effective or whether the patient simply had a mild case of the disease that cleared up on his own.
“What we do have is abundant evidence that there is no cure for measles,” Runge said.
Both doctors have promoted unproven treatments in the past. In 2003, Bartlett was disciplined by the Texas Medical Board over “unusual” prescribing of antibiotics and steroids in five patients, according to CNN. Bartlett complied with the board’s requests and was cleared to return to practice two years later. As for Edwards, the New York Times reported:
The physician, Dr. Ben Edwards, is well known in the area for producing podcasts that often discuss the dangers of vaccines, and for his wellness clinic in Lubbock, which rejects central tenets of medicine, like the idea that germs cause certain diseases.
As of April 4, Texas has seen at least 481 reported cases of the measles, and the outbreak area has expanded to ten counties. Neighboring New Mexico has reported 54 cases since February.
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