Instead of vaccines, RFK Jr. focuses on unconventional measles treatments, driving worries about misinformation
As a measles outbreak in West Texas continues to grow, the response from US Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has leaned heavily on treatment with vitamin A, as well as “good results” from the use of the steroid budesonide, the antibiotic clarithromycin and cod liver oil.
Doctors say that this messaging might take away from efforts to increase vaccination, and some misinformation about these therapies is already circulating online.
Many US doctors have never seen measles, given that the virus was declared eliminated in the country in 2000. There are no antiviral medications specifically to treat measles infection.
“Vitamin A is not a substitute for vaccination,” said Dr. Megan Ranney, dean of the Yale School of Public Health.
Vitamin A is important for vision and immunity. The World Health Organization recommends two doses for all children and adults who are diagnosed with measles. Guidance from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention also says vitamin A should be given to children with severe measles, such as those who are hospitalized, and specifies doses based on age.
In an opinion piece published Sunday on Fox News, Kennedy referenced studies that show that vitamin A can “dramatically reduce measles mortality.” Speaking to Fox News on Tuesday, Kennedy described how CDC has been on the ground in West Texas and discussed the use of cod liver oil, which has high amounts of vitamins A and D.
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Some Texas residents have decided to get vaccinated, which experts attribute to access to good information.
Those who are choosing vaccination are getting “vaccine questions answered by medical and public health professionals rather than purveyors of disinformation on social media,” Dr. Katherine Wells, director of Lubbock Public Health, and Dr. Phil Huang, director of health and human services in Dallas County, wrote in an opinion piece in a USA Today.
Kennedy, who has a history of anti-vaccine activism, has said little about vaccination. He did not explicitly recommend the vaccine in his opinion piece on Fox News, calling the decision to vaccinate “a personal one,” and acknowledging it can contribute to “community immunity.”
In Kennedy’s interview on Tuesday, he said measles vaccination, “in highly unvaccinated communities like the Mennonites, it’s something we recommend, but we also understand there is a lot of mistrust of the vaccines.”