Robert F. Kennedy Jr., staring down his first main well being disaster as the top of Well being and Human Providers, had a plan. After Texas skilled the primary measles demise in the USA in a decade, Kennedy advised Fox earlier this month that the federal authorities was delivering vitamin A—an unproven therapy that Kennedy has promoted as a substitute for vaccines—to measles-stricken communities in West Texas “proper now.” However a Texas official advised me this week that no doses of vitamin A have arrived on the state well being division—not as a result of RFK Jr. broke his promise, however as a result of Texas medical doctors didn’t ask for them.
The doses can be found “if we’d like them,” Lara Anton, the senior press officer for the state public-health division, advised me in a press release. However her workplace, she stated, has not requested any, “as a result of healthcare suppliers haven’t requested it from us.” Anton had no information of any shipments of vitamin A, budesonide, clarithromycin, or cod-liver oil—all of which Kennedy has stated can assist with measles—although the state has obtained 1,760 further vaccines for measles, mumps, and rubella from the federal authorities because the center of February.
Once I requested Anton if Texas officers thought vitamin A therapy was ineffective, she referred me to a state web site, which reads, “Vitamin A can not stop measles. Vitamin A could also be helpful as a supplemental therapy as soon as somebody has a measles an infection, particularly if they’ve a extreme case of measles or low vitamin A ranges and are below the care of a physician.” The native well being division for Gaines County, the epicenter of the lethal outbreak, advised me that it has not obtained any of the choice remedies both. (HHS didn’t reply to a request for remark.)
In only a few brief weeks on the job, Kennedy has damaged with a long time of public-health precedent in responding to measles. In a March 2 op-ed for Fox, he acknowledged that vaccines “not solely shield particular person youngsters from measles, but in addition contribute to group immunity”—solely after emphasizing that “the choice to vaccinate is a private one.” He has additionally endorsed vitamin A, which isn’t FDA-approved to deal with measles, as a method to considerably lower deaths from the illness. Vitamin A can cut back the chance of demise amongst youngsters below 2 who’re contaminated, in keeping with a 2005 meta-analysis. Nonetheless, it has not been proven to successfully stop the illness, opposite to Kennedy’s declare in his Fox interview.
It’s hardly stunning {that a} well being division wouldn’t need shipments of unproven remedies. However Texas’s resolution to disclaim a proposal of assist from the highest federal well being official throughout a lethal measles outbreak means that not everybody within the nation’s public-health equipment is able to fall in line behind Kennedy’s unfounded claims. That apparently consists of some workers on the Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention, which falls below Kennedy’s purview. On Tuesday, the CDC’s prime communications officer introduced his resignation in an op-ed lambasting Kennedy’s embrace of other measles remedies. Public information I’ve gathered from Texas present that CDC workers are aiding not less than one native well being division in spreading pro-vaccine messages to the area people. In a sequence of emails with Texas well being staff, as an illustration, CDC officers workshopped a number of pro-vaccine public-service bulletins and helped translate them into Low German and Spanish. “One of the simplest ways to guard towards measles is with the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine,” one flyer learn. And a letter from the native health-department government director, Zachary Holbrooks, that was distributed to oldsters of unvaccinated schoolchildren acknowledged: “I strongly encourage you to have your youngster vaccinated as quickly as potential.” Not one of the supplies I obtained made any point out of vitamin A.
It’s unclear if these pro-vaccine messages are convincing locals, notably the Mennonite inhabitants on the middle of Texas’s outbreak. Final faculty yr, just below 82 p.c of kindergarteners in Gaines County had been vaccinated towards measles. Knowledge from the state’s vaccine registry counsel that immunizations are up roughly 10 p.c this yr in contrast with the identical interval in 2024, though Texas has restricted visibility on vaccine administration. Holbrooks just lately advised The Atlantic that three native Mennonite church buildings had refused the district well being division’s request to position a measles-testing website on their property. In the meantime, residents are clearing out native drugstores’ provides of vitamin A and cod-liver oil, and displaying as much as a makeshift clinic that’s giving out cod-liver oil. This week, The New York Occasions reported that some youngsters within the space are taking such excessive doses of vitamin A that they’re displaying indicators of liver harm.
After casting a key vote to verify Kennedy as well being secretary, Senator Invoice Cassidy of Louisiana, a Republican, advised his colleagues that Kennedy would assist with “restoring belief in our public-health establishments.” However Kennedy has already made that laudable purpose even much less achievable. As long as the nation’s prime public-health official is propping up purported miracle cures, households in West Texas will likely be inspired to imagine that not vaccinating their youngsters is a accountable selection. Public-health leaders can’t repair that drawback on their very own, even when they refuse to play together with Kennedy’s pseudoscientific routine.