Texas children poisoned after RFK Jr touts vitamin A as measles treatment
Texas hospitals are treating children with vitamin A poisoning after Robert F Kennedy Jr, the US health secretary, promoted the supplement as a treatment for measles.
The Covenant Children's hospital in Lubbock, a city in north west Texas, is looking after a small number of patients who all required treatment for measles but who also had elevated levels of vitamin A that was causing abnormal liver function, Texas Public Radio reported.
There have also been reports of measles patients with abnormal liver function in neighbouring New Mexico.
Both states have been hit hard by the worst US measles outbreak in years, even though the disease was declared eliminated in the country at the turn of the millennium.
Almost 500 measles cases across 21 states have been confirmed by the US Centres for Disease Control (CDC) as of March 28 – a 360 per cent increase from the week before.
Dr Ashish Jha, the former White House coronavirus response coordinator and dean of Brown University's School of Public Health, told ABC news on Monday that the US was 'on track to have the worst measles outbreak of this century'.
Some 97 per cent of those infected had not been vaccinated and two people have died – the first measles deaths in 10 years.
Mr Kennedy has been promoting vitamin A as a treatment for measles, writing in an article for Fox News that the supplement 'can dramatically reduce measles mortality'.
He has also said the US government is 'delivering vitamin A' to West Texas to fight the outbreak., claiming that doctors are getting 'very, very good results'.
Protection from measles is already readily available in the US in the form of the two-dose MMR vaccine – a preventative treatment with 97 per cent efficacy according to the CDC.
While Mr Kennedy has voiced support for vaccines to protect both individuals and communities, he maintains that they are a 'personal decision'.
Experts now fear that his endorsement of alternative treatments is confusing parents on how to keep their children safe.
'If people have the mistaken impression that you have an either-or choice of MMR vaccine or vitamin A, you're going to get a lot of kids unnecessarily infected with measles,' said Dr Peter Hotez, co-director of the Texas Children's Hospital Centre for Vaccine Development.
'That's a problem, especially during an epidemic,' he told CNN. 'And second, you have this unregulated medicine in terms of doses being given and potential toxicities.'
Reports in Texas of heightened demand for cod liver oil, which is high in vitamin A, suggest that children are being given the supplement at home in an effort to treat the disease.
Taking too much of the supplement can lead to vitamin A toxicity, which can cause headaches, nausea, vomiting and, in extreme cases, liver damage.
Excess vitamin A in pregnant women can also cause birth defects.
While health officials are concerned that the public is being misled, vitamin A, when administered in a hospital setting, can help reduce the severity of a measles infection.
'Like much of what RFK says, there's always a kernel of truth, which he sort of manipulates to legitimise the things he's saying,' Dr Anita Patel, a paediatric critical care doctor in Washington DC, told the Huffington Post.
'The kernel of truth is that he's right. Vitamin A at very high doses – high doses that you would never administer by yourself at home – but high-dose vitamin A administered in the hospital has shown to reduce both mortality and duration and severity of [measles] illness.'
A CDC advisory recently said that vitamin A supplements could be used as a therapy for measles, but reaffirmed the importance of vaccination.
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The Guardian
an hour ago
- The Guardian
Key RFK Jr advisers stand to profit from a new federal health initiative
Federal health officials are seeking to launch a 'bold, edgy' public service campaign to warn Americans of the dangers of ultra-processed foods in social media, transit ads, billboards and even text messages. And they potentially stand to profit off the results. Ultra-processed foods are a fixation for the US health and human services (HHS) secretary, Robert F Kennedy Jr, a vaccine skeptic who believes the US industrialized food supply is a 'primary culprit' behind many chronic diseases. 'We need to fix our food supply. And that's the number one thing,' Kennedy said at his confirmation hearing. Bringing healthier foods to Americans has proved to be one of the most resonant issues of Kennedy's 'Make America healthy again' (Maha) campaign – and arguably the only one that Democrats and Republicans agree on in principle. Kennedy has spent most of his tenure as health secretary dismantling key components of US vaccine infrastructure, instituting mass firings and defunding chronic disease prevention programs, such as for tobacco use. The secretary has been less successful in reigning in food makers. Food advocates have described voluntary changes between the government and manufacturers 'disappointing'. Kennedy was criticized by congressional Republicans for targeting agricultural pesticides in the 'Maha' report before it was even released – showing the limits of Republicans appetite for regulation, then the report itself was riddled with errors, likely generated by AI. 'The campaign's creative content will turn heads, create viral moments on social media, and – above all else – inspire Americans to take back their health through eating real food,' said a document published by the federal government that described the campaign. The campaign is expected to cost between $10m to $20m, according to documents. Anyone seeking to apply for the award will have a quick turnaround – the deadline is 26 June. 'The purpose of this requirement is to alert Americans to the role of processed foods in fueling the diabetes epidemic and other chronic diseases, inspire people to take personal responsibility for their diets, and drive measurable improvements in diabetes prevention and national health outcomes,' it continued. The new public relations campaign also highlights the Trump administration's unconventional approach to hiring – including its reliance on special government employees. A key adviser to Kennedy, Calley Means, could directly benefit from one of the campaign's stated aims: popularizing 'technology like wearables as cool, modern tools for measuring diet impact and taking control of your own health'. Calley Means is a senior Kennedy adviser, and was hired as a special government employee to focus on food policy, according to Bloomberg. He founded a company that helps Americans get such wearable devices reimbursed tax-free through health savings accounts. Casey Means is Calley's sister. She also runs a healthcare start-up, although hers sells wearable devices such as continuous glucose monitors. She is Kennedy's nominee for US surgeon general, and a healthcare entrepreneur whose business sells continuous glucose monitors – one such wearable device. Calley Means's company also works with Casey's company. Due to Calley Means's status as a special employee, he has not been forced to divest from his private business interests – a situation that has already resulted in an ethics complaint. Consumer advocates, such as the non-profit group Public Citizen, had warned such hiring practices could cause conflicts of interest. HHS did not respond to a request for comment about Calley Means's private business interests, or his role in crafting the publicity campaign. Although the publicity campaign focuses on the ultra-processed foods connection to diabetes, at least one high profile nutritionist was queasy about its focus. 'The ultra-processed foods – some of those include breakfast cereals that are ultra-processed because they are fortified with vitamins,' said Walter Willett, a professor of epidemiology and nutrition at the Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health. 'Those are good if they're whole grain breakfast cereals and whole grain breads,' he said. Ultra-processed foods are generally recognized as sodas, salty snacks and frozen meals engineered to be shelf-stable, convenient and inexpensive. Such foods are associated with increased risk of type 2 diabetes – or insulin resistance. The mechanism by which such foods could increase risk of diabetes is unknown, a problem that extends in part from the 'heterogeneous category' of foods that the ultra-processed category encompasses. The publicity campaign proposal does not venture into defining the category, even as Kennedy has fixated on it 'poisoning the American people'. 'When you say processed foods you don't envision a Coke in your brain, and that's the biggest problem,' said Willett, who added that most public service campaigns are carefully crafted and tested for effectiveness.
Times
19 hours ago
- Times
‘RFK Jr is a disaster': Staff describe chaos in ‘anti-science' regime
For the workers of Building 21, keeping a low profile is considered the best way to survive. Zoom meetings are avoided out of fear they are being secretly recorded. Conversations about budgets and policies are held in soundproof offices, as if they were matters of national security. Many employees carry small notebooks with them, jotting down notes instead of logging them on a computer. The desks of several sacked colleagues are empty — save for the few who have left family photos and possessions behind in case a judge rules they can return. It sounds like a scene out of Nineteen Eighty-four — yet this is the headquarters of the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta, Georgia. Here, staff do everything they can to avoid the twentysomething officials from the Department of Government Efficiency (Doge) who stalk the building's corridors, said a global health specialist at Building 21, who asked that his name not be used. 'There is a constant sense that we're being watched and monitored,' the source said. 'Doge leadership are located several floors above but they have this omnipotent presence … We're counted when we swipe our badges into the building.' Ever since Robert F Kennedy Jr was appointed health secretary in February, more than 10,000 staff — many with decades of experience — have been fired. Now, the tens of thousands of health workers and scientists still employed by the US government feel like their lives have been turned upside down, according to ten current and former staff at the CDC, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and National Institutes of Health (NIH), speaking to The Times. Under instruction from Kennedy and Doge, health priorities have been reset, longstanding scientific norms disrupted and thousands of research programmes cancelled because of their perceived 'wokeness', officials said. 'RFK Jr is a disaster,' said one CDC grant specialist who joined the agency within the past five years. 'He is completely dismantling things to the point where the damage is going to become irreparable.' • Tom Whipple: Trump's tragic war on science could be an opportunity for Britain Kennedy's vision to 'make America healthy again' has sparked the most significant transformation of the country's health infrastructure in generations. And the health secretary's allies argue this reform is long overdue. But in interviews with The Times, sources describe scenes of dysfunction and chaos that threaten to make America sicker. Decades-old research centres dedicated to preventing chronic diseases like cancer and heart disease are being shuttered, one source said. Another claimed that layers of bureaucracy had been added to the approval process for grants, even though Doge's stated aim is to improve government efficiency. A third source said funding was so short that staff were rifling through others' desks for stationery: 'We are literally going through the offices of our fired colleagues to scavenge supplies like paper and pens as we no longer have the ability to buy those types of things.' Asked to comment on the claims, Andrew Nixon, director of communications at the US Department of Health and Human Services, said: 'Secretary Kennedy was appointed to drive bold, necessary reforms in a system long plagued by inefficiency and complacency. 'Streamlining outdated programmes, ensuring fiscal discipline and demanding transparency are not attacks on science — they are a defence of it. Secretary Kennedy remains committed to evidence-based leadership that serves the American people — not the preservation of status-quo bureaucracies.' Kennedy's crusade to overhaul America's vaccine policies has generated the most controversy. Earlier this month he abruptly fired all 17 members of the advisory committee on immunisation practices (ACIP), a group that has reviewed vaccine trial data and advised the government on which jabs to approve for more than six decades. The former independent presidential candidate, who has claimed for years that some vaccines are unsafe and could cause autism, said the committee was hobbled by conflicts of interest. Firing its members en masse, he said, would 're-establish public confidence in vaccine science'. Days later he hired eight new advisers, including a Covid conspiracy theorist and prominent critic of pandemic-era lockdowns. Dr Charlotte Moser, one of the 17 sacked experts, said vaccines were being 'politicised' under Kennedy. 'My fear at this moment is for the health of the people of the United States if vaccines become less available,' she told The Times in her first public interview since her dismissal. She pointed to the removal of Covid-19 vaccines from the list of jabs recommended for pregnant women and children — a decision that was made last month without any input from Moser and her colleagues, and which 'does not align with the science', she said. Dr Yvonne Maldonado, another former committee member, warned that 'the firings, disruption and the chaos' of Kennedy's administration were 'incredibly damaging' and unlikely to benefit public health. 'I can't think that these downstream impacts are going to be good ones,' she said in her first public comments. month Kennedy announced 'Generation Gold Standard' — a $500 million initiative to develop vaccines using technology dating from the 1950s. Scientists fear it marks a step back from newer, more innovative vaccine technologies like the mRNA platform, which was used for several highly effective Covid vaccines but has been demonised by antivaxers, including the organisation that Kennedy once chaired, Children's Health Defence. An NIH source with knowledge of the initiative said the senior leadership had bypassed all the 'typical internal scientific review, discussions and grant-making processes' to launch the programme. The source said Kennedy was 'fixated on a link between vaccines and autism' and described the programme as a 'waste of money'. 'He's dropping half a billion dollars on God knows what,' said the NIH source, who asked not to be named because he is still working for the agency. • Meet the antivax whisperer fighting the vaccine slump Preventing chronic disease is one of the cornerstones of Kennedy's mission. In proposals that are widely supported, he has pledged to improve the quality of American produce, crack down on ultra-processed foods, detoxify the environment, diminish people's dependence on drugs and promote cleaner, healthier lifestyles. But insiders say the teams of experts needed to achieve these aims are being dismantled. 'He's shooting himself in the foot,' said a federal worker who was recently fired from the CDC's global health centre. Earlier this year the CDC's childhood lead-poisoning prevention programme was shuttered — despite one in two American toddlers showing detectable levels of lead, a neurotoxin that can cause cognitive impairments and developmental issues, in their blood. No reason was given for the programme's closure. It meant the CDC was unable to help when Wisconsin requested formal aid to tackle a growing lead-contamination crisis in its schools in March. 'Due to the complete loss of our lead programme, we will be unable to support you with this,' the CDC said in response. Kennedy later said the lead programme's 26-person team would be rehired, but one CDC source close to the situation told The Times: 'Those folks are not back yet.' It is also understood that the Prevention Research Centres (PRC) programme — a network of 20 research hubs dedicated to chronic disease prevention in poorer communities in the United States — is to be closed after its team of federal scientists was fired in April. 'They're saying that they're just going to cancel the entire programme,' a CDC source with knowledge of discussions said. Universities and clinics partnered with the PRC programme, like Georgia State University and the Arkansas Centre for Women's Health, have been 'left in the dark about what happens next, with no one available to answer their questions'. Established in 1984 and renewed last year for another five years, the programme is likely to have prevented thousands of premature deaths from obesity, addiction, diabetes and cancer. 'It's one of the country's most vital and important research programs,' the CDC source said. At the FDA, experts responsible for inspecting factories to ensure food products are safe have been hamstrung by the mass firing of project managers, administrators and communication specialists, according to one source from the agency's human foods programme. 'These are the people who keep the day-to-day operations running,' the source said. Inspectors are now expected to book flights and hotels for assignments using their own credit cards, but because it can take weeks to get reimbursed many are reluctant to travel, the FDA source said. He added that a hiring freeze and funding constraints had made it harder for laboratories to analyse samples, further slowing the inspection process. 'The erosion of the oversight will eventually result in [food producers] cutting corners, maybe not being caught as quickly,' said the source, who asked to remain anonymous. 'As a result, things are going to slip and people will get sick.' • RFK Jr and Dr Oz are on a mission to save Canadian ostriches With Kennedy unable to pursue his vision of reform amid the disruption, questions are being raised over who really is in charge of the nation's health. One source speculated that it is Russell Vought, the director of the White House Office of Management and Budget, who is calling the shots. 'It's unclear to me how much RFK is actually in charge versus other Trump appointees, like Vought,' said a CDC programme co-ordinator with more than ten years at the agency. 'Kennedy clearly has certain ideas he's interested in but at this point it seems more about cutting programmes than anything else.' Despite the push to save money and improve efficiency, three sources criticised Kennedy's team of Doge officials for adding extra layers of bureaucracy to the processing of CDC grants. Every time a grant recipient wishes to make a drawdown from their funding allocation they must now fill out a questionnaire, which gets sent to Doge for final approval. Previously, grant recipients who had been meticulously assessed and cleared for funding could access their money whenever they wanted. 'It's the exact opposite of efficiency,' the CDC grants specialist said. Among staff who have been fired — but whose contracts remain in limbo as federal judges review whether Kennedy's mass terminations are lawful — many said they had no desire to return to an administration they accused of being anti-science. 'There's been a number of different steps that we could take to potentially get back into the agency and I haven't taken any of them,' said the worker fired from the CDC global health centre. 'What this administration is doing, whether it's RFK, Trump or Doge, is so antithetical to my own values that I can't work there any more.' As for those continuing to labour under Kennedy's regime, there is not much hope for the future. 'It's the perpetual anxiety, it's the lack of knowing anything that is going on. There is no plan in place,' said the global health specialist in Building 21. 'This will have real consequences for people both here in America and overseas. It breaks my heart.'
The Guardian
19 hours ago
- The Guardian
CDC vaccine panel to review ingredient RFK Jr has targeted for removal
A key vaccine advisory panel reconstituted by health secretary and vaccine skeptic Robert F Kennedy Jr is slated to discuss thimerosal-containing influenza vaccines in its first meeting – an ingredient which has been a fixation of anti-vaccine activists for decades. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) will hold two separate votes later this month: one on 'influenza vaccines' and one on influenza vaccines that contain thimerosal. Thimerosal is an ethylmercury preservative used in multi-dose vaccine vials to prevent fungi and bacteria growth. The preservative has been studied and deemed safe, but was nevertheless removed from all routine childhood vaccines in 2001 as a precaution. 'I was there when we went through this the first time,' said Dr Paul Offit, director of the vaccine education center and an attending physician in the division of infectious diseases at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, about debates over the preservative in the early 2000s. Offit served on the ACIP panel in question from 1998 to 2003. He said the issue of thimerosal was vigorously debated and found safe then, prompting him to ask: 'What's the point?' In a short history of the thimerosal controversy published in the New England Journal of Medicine, Offit described how some parents became convinced thimerosal gave their children autism, resulting in thousands of autistic children receiving heavy metal chelation treatments each year. Studies have found no link between thimerosal and autism, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics. The National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program has also denied claims of a thimerosal-autism link. Kennedy, however, has written a book arguing against the use of thimerosal. Offit said the discussion of thimerosal appeared to geared to, 'accomplish [Kennedy's] goals of making vaccines less affordable, less accessible and more feared', he said. 'Here's what you do know – you do know RFK Jr is an anti-vaccine, science-denying conspiracy theorist. He is devoted to this, he is a zealot, there is no middle ground with him,' said Offit. 'He believes we have merely substituted infectious diseases for chronic diseases.' The panel's advisory recommendations are critical because they result in vaccine 'schedules'. These schedules are relied on by health insurers to determine which vaccines to cover and by clinicians who use them as an evidence-based guide on immunization – effectively giving the American public access to the medicines. Although the CDC does not always take the panel's advice, the CDC typically affirms the panel's decisions. However, the agency is currently without a leader, as Senate hearings have not yet been held for nominee and CDC career official Susan Monarez. As a result, Kennedy has signed off on some previous ACIP recommendations. Kennedy wrote a book on the preservative thimerosal in 2014 called Thimerosal: Let the Science Speak, in which he argues that 'there is a broad consensus among research scientists that thimerosal is a dangerous neurotoxin that should be immediately removed from medicines'. Kennedy said in the book he is 'pro-vaccine'. Until 9 June, the ACIP was an independent panel of 17 experts who served staggered terms and were rigorously vetted by career CDC staff. Kennedy broke with tradition when he fired the entire panel, claiming in a Wall Street Journal editorial that he was working to 'restore public trust in vaccines'. The same week, Kennedy appointed eight new members to the committee, including medical professionals with little vaccine expertise and known vaccine skeptics. A wide spectrum of groups criticized the decision, from MomsRising, who said they were 'alarmed and disgusted', to major doctors' groups such as the American Academy of Pediatrics, to public health leaders who described Kennedy's actions as 'a coup,' to the former members of the committee, who warned the independent panel was at 'a crossroads'. The group is scheduled to meet the last week of June. Prior to Kennedy's changes, they had been expected to discuss reducing the number of shots needed for human papilloma virus (HPV) and a meningococcal vaccine. On Wednesday, the panel released a draft agenda for its upcoming meeting. A wide range of vaccines will be discussed – including those against influenza; the tropical disease chikungunya; the measles, mumps, rubella and varicella (chickenpox) vaccine; anthrax; Covid and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV). The agenda scheduled a vote on recommendations for flu vaccines, including the multidose versions that still contain thimerosal. These vaccines are used only in adolescents and adults. The panel is also scheduled to vote on recommendations for maternal and pediatric versions of the respiratory syncytial virus (RSV). Notably, despite Kennedy's repeated pledges of 'radical transparency', the draft agenda does not include the names of many speakers, which are listed as 'TBD' (to be determined) for instance on 'Covid-19 safety update'. New ACIP members have not been added to a conflict of interest tracker for ACIP members developed by the Trump administration. A spokesperson for HHS said the new members ethics agreements 'will be made public' before they start work with the committee. In addition to the new draft agenda, there have also been changes to the committee's meeting times not reflected in the Federal Register, according to Politico. The group will meet for two days instead of three, and there does not appear to be a vote scheduled on Covid vaccines.
