As Measles Spreads, Kennedy Embraces Cures Like Cod Liver Oil

As a measles outbreak expands in West Texas, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the well being and human companies secretary, on Tuesday cheered a number of unconventional remedies, together with cod liver oil, however once more didn’t urge Individuals to get vaccinated.

In a prerecorded interview that aired on Fox Information, Mr. Kennedy stated that the federal authorities was transport doses of vitamin A to Gaines County, the epicenter of the outbreak, and serving to to rearrange ambulance rides.

H.H.S. officers beforehand stated they had been transport doses of the measles-mumps-rubella vaccine to Texas, however Mr. Kennedy didn’t focus on vaccination.

Texas docs had seen “very, superb outcomes,” Mr. Kennedy claimed, by treating measles instances with a steroid, budesonide; an antibiotic referred to as clarithromycin; and cod liver oil, which he stated had excessive ranges of vitamin A and vitamin D.

Whereas physicians typically administer doses of vitamin A to deal with kids with extreme measles instances, cod liver oil is “on no account” an evidence-based therapy, stated Dr. Sean O’Leary, chair of the American Academy of Pediatrics Committee on Infectious Illnesses.

Dr. O’Leary added that he had by no means heard of a doctor utilizing the complement in opposition to measles.

In feedback that appeared to refer to traditional measures in opposition to measles, Mr. Kennedy stated, “We’re going to be trustworthy with the American folks for the primary time in historical past about what really — about the entire exams and the entire research, about what we all know, what we don’t know.”