An apparent endorsement of the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine (MMR) by US Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr has provoked an outcry from MMR vaccine sceptics and glee from his critics. In a lengthy post on X, responding to the Texas measles outbreak, Kennedy said ‘the most effective way to prevent the spread of measles is the MMR vaccine’. In the past he has expressed his deep reservations, but Sally Beck is far from convinced he has changed his mind. She reports on the facts of the outbreak and on everything Kennedy said.
TWO unvaccinated children have died during the current measles outbreak in Texas igniting a new controversy over the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine. One of the children, aged six, had four unvaccinated siblings who caught measles after their sister, but made full recoveries. The other was eight years old and wrong hospital treatment seems to have contributed to both deaths.
Kayley Fehr, six, was the second-eldest of five unvaccinated brothers and sisters between the ages of seven and two. She died in hospital late February where she was being treated for pneumonia, a complication of measles. Her GP had already seen her and gave her parents, Jake and Tina Fehr from Seminole, Gaines County, West Texas*, a prescription to help Kayley’s cough, a symptom of measles, and instructions to keep her fever down.
Kayley’s temperature kept rising so her worried parents took her to hospital. Mrs Fehr said: ‘She was drinking a lot but not eating because the inside of her mouth was sore. I just noticed she was getting very tired, and her breathing wasn’t normal. She was short of breath. That’s when we decided to go to the emergency room to get her checked out. There wasn’t anything very bad happening, it was just something I was concerned about.’
Hospital staff asked whether Kayley was vaccinated. The Mennonite couple answered no, as vaccination is against their religion. They had also seen children injured by the MMR, they said.
Kayley’s left lung was infected with pneumonia, so she was admitted to University Medical Centre, Lubbock. Mrs Fehr said: ‘Doctors said if it got worse, they would drain the fluids from her lung, and she would get better. They never did that. I don’t know why. They didn’t tell us. Instead, she was transferred to the intensive care unit (ICU). Just before she got into ICU, one nurse mentioned breathing treatments. That’s when they transferred her downstairs. I asked the nurse if they were still going to do some breathing treatments, and she just said that it wasn’t going to do her any good.’
Unable to stay overnight in Lubbock, 90 minutes from their home, Mr and Mrs Fehr left that evening to see their other children. Hospital staff prescribed Kayley an antibiotic, then sedated her so they could ventilate her, an invasive procedure with a tube inserted into the nose or throat. It is not clear why a non-invasive oxygen mask was not used or a steroid inhaler. Sedating patients with pneumonia is contra-indicated according to the British Medical Journal and can be fatal. In 2012 the BMJ said: ‘Commonly prescribed sleeping pills/sedatives may increase the risk of contracting pneumonia by as much as 50 per cent and increase the risk of dying from it.’
Kayley never woke up and died two days after admission. One of the last things her mother tried to do before staff took Kayley to ICU was give her a drink of water. ‘She was very thirsty. Her mouth was all sticky and I wanted to give her water, but they wouldn’t let me,’ said Mrs Fehr, in tears at the memory.
The couple are still waiting for Kayley’s death certificate, but bacterial pneumonia was confirmed.
Dr Ben Edwards, an integrative medicine practitioner with around 2,000 patients in Lubbock, the town where the hospital is based, treated the Fehrs’ other children with cod liver oil, a good source of vitamin A known to support measles recovery, and budesonide, a steroid inhaler that relieves inflammation in the airways. ‘They recovered around five days after their rash appeared,’ Mr Fehr said. Other reports say their youngest daughter, Helena, was admitted to hospital for two weeks. Dr Edwards said Kayley’s death might have been prevented if she had received the same treatment as her siblings.
The second unvaccinated child to die was Daisy Hildebrand, eight. She had existing health issues and had been admitted to hospital a month earlier with glandular fever, streptococcal pharyngitis, also known as strep throat, and pneumonia. Then she developed measles, from which she had almost recovered by the time she was readmitted to hospital.
Critical care and pulmonary care specialist Dr Pierre Kory, who describes measles as ‘typically benign’, has reviewed Daisy’s medical notes and said ‘she was already in a pretty diminished shape’. He also maintains measles was not the cause of death, and that hospital-acquired pneumonia and the wrong antibiotics are to blame. ‘It’s abundantly clear from her chart that a litany of very poor clinical decisions were made which led to gross mismanagement.’
Kennedy has spoken with the Fehrs, and met Daisy’s parents Peter and Eva Hildebrand, when he travelled to Texas to attend Daisy’s funeral last weekend. Mr Hildebrand is open about being a vaccine sceptic. ‘I know it’s not effective because some family members ended up getting the vaccine, and they got the measles way worse than some of my kids,’ said Mr Hildebrand, who has two other children with his wife. ‘The vaccine was not effective.’
Many blame the outbreak, which occurred in vaccinated as well as unvaccinated children and adults, on Kennedy. He has frequently questioned the MMR’s safety, and his supporters were baffled when he tweeted last week: ‘The most effective way to prevent the spread of measles is the MMR vaccine’, a statement he does not believe. Mr Hildebrand had dinner with him after he made that statement and said he did not mention the vaccine. Mr Hildebrand said: ‘He did not say that the vaccine was effective. I had supper with the guy . . . and he never said anything about that.’
RFK Jr is well versed in measles history and the fact that deaths were almost eliminated before any vaccine was introduced. In a Fox News statement he said: ‘Tens of thousands died with, or of, measles annually in 19th century America. By 1960 – before the vaccine’s introduction (in 1963 and 1968) – improvements in sanitation and nutrition had eliminated 98 per cent of measles deaths. Good nutrition remains a best defence 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.’
Data culled from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) and the National Vital Statistics System (NVSS) show far more deaths associated with the vaccine than with measles infection.
The question is why is Kennedy not pushing this vital information? It is no secret that Democrat senators voted against Kennedy’s appointment as America’s top health official, so he needed all Republican senators to vote for him. There was one vocal Republican sceptic, Louisiana’s Senator Bill Cassidy, a doctor proud of his work pushing the hepatitis B vaccine to tens of thousands of children.
He told Kennedy: ‘Because of policies or attitudes that you bring to the department, people could die of vaccine-preventable diseases.’ Kennedy needed Cassidy’s vote to advance his nomination to the full Senate so Cassidy extracted some promises from Kennedy that he would support immunisation schedules recommended by the CDC, maintain systems to vet new vaccines and monitor their safety, and preserve statements on the CDC website assuring the public that vaccines do not cause autism. He also wanted to meet Kennedy ‘multiple times a month’.
Kennedy had little choice but to agree, but behind the scenes he is working on an exit strategy. He has already ordered the CDC to conduct a large-scale study to look at what many describe as the ‘debunked’ link that vaccines cause autism but Kennedy believes is a factor. He has told President Trump that his team will reveal the cause of autism by September.
It is wise to read between the lines to unearth the truth, for example, Kennedy has denied he is anti-vaccine and has not acknowledged the epidemiological studies saying vaccines do not cause autism. It was epidemiological studies, not clinical studies, the tobacco industry used to say that smoking did not cause cancer. It is easy to see that the argument is far from over.
*In March, it was reported that the Texas outbreak predominantly affected children, with 116 of the 146 cases occurring in individuals under 18 years of age. The Department of Social and Health Services, (DSHS) Washington’s social services department, said that 79 of the confirmed cases involved individuals who had not received the MMR vaccine, while 62 cases had unknown vaccine status. At least five had received an MMR vaccine. Mrs Fehr, who is vaccinated, still developed a mild measles infection on the day of her daughter’s funeral.
Last week, the Texas Department of State Health Services said 481 cases have been identified since late January, and 56 of the patients have been hospitalised.
