In a scanningRobert F. Kennedy Jr., the Secretary of Health and Social Services, described a strategy to contain the epidemic of measles in western Texas which has moved away from dominant science, based strongly on marginal theories on prevention and treatments.
He launched an appeal stifled to vaccinations in the affected community, but said the choice was personal. He suggested that measles vaccine injuries were more common than known, Unlike in -depth research.
He said that natural measles immunity acquired by infection also protected from cancer and heart disease, a complaint not supported by research.
He applauded on questionable treatments like cod oilAnd said that local doctors had obtained “almost miraculous and instant” recovery with steroids or antibiotics.
The worsening of the measles epidemic, which has spread out with a Mennonite community in the county of Gaines, infected nearly 200 people and killed a childThe first death of this type in the United States in 10 years.
Another death suspected of measles has been reported to New Mexicowhere cases have recently increased In a county that borders the county of Gaines.
The interview, which lasted 35 minutes, was published online by Fox News last week, just before President Trump’s address in the Congress. Segments had been displayed earlier, but the full version received little attention.
Kennedy offered contradictory public health messages while he was trying to reconcile the approval of long -standing vaccines by the government with his own skepticism for decades.
Vaccines are “recommended” for Western Texans, but the risk of vaccination has been underestimated, he said.
Kennedy admitted that vaccines “prevent infections” and said the federal government helped to guarantee that people have access to “good medicines, including those who wish them, vaccines”.
“In very vaccinated communities like mennonites, this is something we recommend,” he said.
Mr. Kennedy described vaccination as a personal choice that must be respected, then continued to raise frightening concerns about vaccine safety.
He told him that he had been told that a dozen Mennonite children had been injured by vaccines in the County of Gaines. Community people wanted federal health workers Arrive in Texas “To also look at our children injured by the vaccine and look them in the eye,” said Kennedy.
However, the Ror vaccine itself has been fully studied and is sure. There is No link to autismAs the secretary has claimed it in the past. Although all vaccines have occasional undesirable effects, the Health of Health in the world has concluded that the advantages prevail from far the very small risks of vaccination.
Mr. Kennedy said otherwise: “We do not know what risk profile is for these products. We must restore government confidence. And we will do it by telling the truth and doing a rigorous science to understand both the problems of security and efficiency. »»
In response to questions about Mr. Kennedy’s position on vaccination, a health and social services spokesman has stressed a recent opinion In which he wrote that the shots prevented children from contracting measles and protected by people who could not be vaccinated.
“However, he thinks that” the decision to vaccinate is personal, “said the spokesperson, referring to Mr. Kennedy’s opinion article.
Kennedy said he was “very difficult” for measles to kill a healthy person and that malnutrition played a role in the Texas epidemic.
At the start of the interview, Mr. Kennedy recognized the severity of measles infection, noting that it can cause death, brain swelling and pneumonia.
But he also described the disease as rarely fatal, even before 1963, when the vaccine became available. He said measles has a “very, very low infection rate”.
According to the centers for disease control and preventionFor each thousand people infected with measles in the United States, the virus kills one to three. A study estimated that without vaccination today, there would be 400,000 hospitalizations and 1,800 deaths annually.
Death is not the only possible consequence. Measles can also cause permanent blindness, deafness and intellectual disabilities. Before the vaccine became available, on a a thousand people every year had encephalitis because of the virus.
In later comments, Mr. Kennedy suggested that serious symptoms mainly affected unhealthy people before contracting measles.
“It is very, very difficult for measles to kill a healthy person,” he said, adding later that “we see a correlation between people who injure themselves by measles and people who do not have good nutrition or who do not have a good exercise diet.”
West of Texas is “a kind of food desert,” he added. Malnutrition “can be a problem” for the deceased child of measles in the county of sheaths.
Texas health officials said the child had “no known underlying condition”.
Dr. Wendell Parkey, a County Gaines doctor with many Mennonite patients, said the idea that the community had been badly fed was wrong.
Mennonites often avoid processed foods, raise their own cattle and make their own bread, he noted. From an early age, many members of the community also help agriculture and other physically demanding jobs.
“They are the healthiest people here,” he said. “Nutritionally, I said them against anyone.”
There are data to show that children seriously suffering from malnutrition in poor countries often suffer lower results from measles, said Dr. Sean O’Leary, president of the American Academy of Pediatrics.
But there is no credible evidence that bad eating habits and exercise routines make a child more subject to the complications of measles, he added.
There are also many evidence that measles has regularly killed healthy children before the Ror vaccine was available, said Patsy Sstinchfield, former immediate president of the National Foundation for Infectious Diseases.
Before 1963, around 500 children, many in good health, died from the virus each year, she said. About 40% of people infected last year were hospitalizedAccording to the CDC
In the interview, Mr. Kennedy seemed frustrated that a preventible vaccine disease rather than chronic diseases drew national attention during his first weeks as secretary.
“We have had two deaths in measles in 20 years in this country-we have 100,000 autism diagnoses each year,” he said. “We have to keep an eye on the ball. Chronic disease is our enemy. »»
The suggestion that vaccines cause autism have been discredited by dozens of scientific studies. Scientists have stressed that the death of measles is so overwhelming because they are avoidable by vaccination.
“Natural immunity” after infection can protect the body from various chronic diseases, said the secretary.
When asked if he opposed the so -called parts of measles – events that parents hold to deliberately spread the measles of a sick child to healthy children – Mr. Kennedy said that he would never advise someone to get sick “.
But he also praised the advantages of natural immunity, the protection acquired after being infected with a virus, saying that it lasted longer than the immunity induced by the vaccine and can later protect against cancers and heart disease.
If it is true that infection of measles can offer permanent protection against the virus, the risks of falling sickly prevail from a very small immunity service, said Dr. O’Leary.
Two doses of the ROR vaccine are around 97% to prevent an infection. Even if a vaccinated person obtains a revolutionary infection, the disease tends to be light.
Experts also said that there was no credible evidence to support the assertion that an infection of measles protects against other diseases.
Just the opposite: a infection of measles can cause “Immune amnesia“, In which the body” forgets “how to defend itself against the diseases to which it has already been exposed, making it more sensitive to future infections.
Kennedy spoke enthusiastically about unproven treatments for measles and said HHS would study them.
Mr. Kennedy said the Ministry of Health and Social Services would carry out clinical trials on several unproven treatments for measles, including a steroid, Budesonide; an antibiotic called clarithromycin; And cod liver oil, which, according to him, was “the safest application of vitamin A.”
Kennedy said he had heard two local doctors say that these treatments had led to a “miraculous and instant resumption”.
“We really have to do a good job to talk to front line doctors and see what works in the field,” he said. “These therapies have been really ignored by the agency for a very long time.”
While doctors sometimes Administer high doses of vitamin A To take care of children with severe measles, deliver it via a food supplement like cod liver oil makes it difficult to administration of specific quantities, said Dr. William Schaffner, specialist in infectious diseases at the Vanderbilt University Medical Center.
There is no credible data to suggest that cod liver oil is “In any way whatsoever” than the administration traditionally of vitamin A, he added.
Dr. Schaffner said antibiotics, which fight against bacterial infections, are not effective treatments for measles, a virus. And he did not know any evidence that showed that steroids would improve results for children with measles.
Driving a clinical trial of these treatments is difficult at a practical level – there are not enough children with measles in the United States to conduct a large trial. And such a study would be ethically heavy: doctors may need to withhold standard support, such as vitamin A, in order to test these remedies.
Mr. Kennedy’s orientation on unaccompanied treatments has frustrated certain doctors of the County Gaines, who tried to explain to patients that there is no antiviral for measles and that they have little control over patients with serious symptoms.
“We are already dealing with people who think that measles is not a big problem,” said Dr. Leila Myrick, family doctor in the family in Seminole, Texas, who has been involved in measles for several weeks.
“Now they will think that they can get this miracle treatment and that they certainly don’t need to be vaccinated. It is a 100% will make things more difficult. »»
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