Measles message too little, too late

COMMENTARY

By Lisa Jarvis

With the death of a second child from measles and cases in the United States surging past 600, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, finally stated the obvious: Vaccination is the best way to prevent the spread of the disease.

It’s a message that should have come sooner from the country’s top public health official. Kennedy’s response is both too late and too confusing to effectively contain the outbreak. The direct, albeit brief acknowledgment of the value of the MMR vaccine — made in an X post last weekend — seemed significant, for a few hours at least. Kennedy, however, muddled the message with a second post praising “two extraordinary healers … who have treated and healed some 300 measles-stricken Mennonite children using aerosolized budesonide and clarithromycin.” Those “healers,” however, have a troubled track record that includes disciplinary action by the Texas Medical Board for one of the doctors. Their “remedies,” a steroid and an antibiotic, aren’t cures for measles — there are no established cures for the disease. Kennedy’s statements show a recognizable pattern: a lukewarm statement supporting medical facts sandwiched between unproven treatments and junk science. This waffling makes it impossible for the public to make well-informed decisions about their health.

The measles outbreak was already underway in West Texas when Kennedy was confirmed. Yet even after the first child died and an adult succumbed to what officials suspect was measles, he failed to decisively advocate for vaccination. Instead, he spent his first weeks in office touting cod liver oil with vitamin A as a cure. Although the World Health Organization recommends people with measles receive two doses of vitamin A to lessen the risk of complications, that advice is directed at children in low-resource countries with high rates of vitamin A deficiencies. “There’s no solid evidence for its use in high-income countries,” says Sean O’Leary, a pediatric infectious diseases specialist at the University of Colorado.

Kennedy, who has spent years pushing the thoroughly discredited link between the MMR vaccine and autism, seems to be looking for more ways to weaken the public’s confidence in this routine childhood shot. He falsely claimed last month that the vaccine causes deaths and is now pushing health agencies to reexamine its safety data.

The outcome of that reexamination seems preordained. In his resignation last month from the Food and Drug Administration, Peter Marks, who oversaw vaccine approvals at the agency, said he came to realize the push wasn’t a search for truth but a demand for “subservient confirmation of his misinformation and lies.” In addition, Kennedy oversaw last week’s massive cuts at HHS, which included gutting staffing and resources at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which tracks and guides the federal response to outbreaks. The public needs clear, accurate information from health leaders, not misinformation and half-truths about settled science.

William Moss, an epidemiologist at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, explains that a sustained outbreak lasting more than 12 months would cause the United States to lose its measles elimination status. That clock started in January, and it’s too soon to predict the outcome. What is certain, however, is that the outbreak has shown no signs of slowing down.

Since an initial cluster emerged in West Texas, more than 480 people have been infected in the state, and neighboring counties in New Mexico have reported another 54 cases. Infections have been reported in 21 states this year, including smaller ongoing outbreaks in Ohio and Kansas.

We’ve already needlessly lost three people to measles. There don’t have to be more heartbreaking deaths.