Parents of child who died of measles still don't support MMR vaccine
The parents of the unvaccinated 6-year-old girl who died from the measles are speaking out — but not in favor of vaccination.
In an emotional video interview with the anti-vaccine group Children’s Health Defense published earlier this week, the Mennonite husband and wife outlined how their five children — all unvaccinated — contracted the highly contagious disease. Their daughter, the first to get sick, became the first measles death in the U.S. in a decade. She died in late February.
Their family lives in Gaines County and is part of an under-vaccinated Mennonite community where measles has spread since January. Dozens of people have been hospitalized, and hundreds of cases are nearly entirely among unvaccinated people.
“We would absolutely not take the MMR,” the wife said in English, referring to the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine. The vaccine is highly effective at preventing measles; even one dose gives a person 93% protection, and the full two-dose series gives 97% protection. Officials have said the girl had no underlying health conditions.
“The measles wasn’t that bad,” said the wife, who added she also had measles during her daughter’s funeral. Her other four children got sick days later. She said “they got over it pretty quickly.”
In the interview dated March 15, the couple, who weren’t identified by name, spoke in English and Low German through a translator with Polly Tommey, Children’s Health Defense’s executive director, and Brian Hooker, the group’s chief science officer. Children’s Health Defense is an organization founded by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who has been criticized for his mixed and erroneous messaging about the ongoing measles outbreak, the largest in six years.
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services did not respond to a request for comment.
The parents said their 6-year-old had measles for days. Other children in their community had measles and they heard of its spread, the parents said.
In the U.S., about 1 in 5 unvaccinated people who contract measles get hospitalized, and 1 to 3 in every 1,000 children infected with the disease die, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Around 1 in 20 children with measles gets pneumonia, which is the most common cause of death in young children. In rare cases, children develop brain swelling that can cause convulsions, deafness and intellectual disabilities.
The parents took their daughter to Covenant Children’s Hospital, in Lubbock, after her fever kept rising and she described feeling tired. Her breathing wasn’t normal, the wife said, but she said it didn’t appear bad.
Hospital officials told them she had pneumonia. She had been intubated to help with her breathing and given antibiotics. Days later, the child died from pneumonia, they said.
In a follow-up article, Children’s Health Defense accused the hospital of a “medical error” in her treatment. The group cited a review of medical records by Dr. Pierre Kory, a physician who lost his medical certifications including for pulmonary and critical care after spreading misinformation during the COVID-19 pandemic.
On Thursday, Covenant Children’s said in a statement that the video circulating online contained misleading and inaccurate claims regarding care at the hospital. Hospital officials urged people with questions about measles to talk a health provider. Patient confidentiality laws prevent the hospital from providing information directly related to the case, hospital officials said.
After their 6-year-old girl’s death, the parents said their other four children came down with a rash, the telltale sign of measles.
“Measles are good for the body,” the father said in English. In Low German, he said through a translator that immunity from measles wouldn’t allow children to get cancer as easily, a claim recently echoed by Kennedy in a Fox News interview. This is not supported by evidence.
In recent interviews, Kennedy has embraced treatments such as cod liver oil, containing vitamin A, to treat measles. Experts say cod liver oil is not an evidence-based treatment. Vitamin A is typically used for malnourished patients sick with measles who often can’t access vaccines, but it is not an effective treatment in the U.S., where malnutrition isn’t as common.
The parents said they then sought treatment from a local doctor who has promoted such treatments.
While HHS and CDC have called vaccination the best tool to contain the spread, Kennedy and officials have framed it as a personal choice or sowed doubts about vaccine safety. Experts say vaccination is the best tool.