Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has told the Centers for Disease Control to look into “vitamins” as a treatment for measles, according to a Health and Human Services statement issued Friday.
Amid an outbreak of the disease in the southern United States, the Health and Human Services secretary has often advocated for vitamin A as a miracle cure for measles despite a lack of scientific support. Now that perspective is translating into government action.
“Secretary Kennedy will be enlisting the entire agency to activate a scientific process to treat a host of diseases, including measles, with single or multiple existing drugs in combination with vitamins and other modalities,” the statement read, according to CNN.
The news comes as a measles outbreak has ravaged West Texas, infecting more than 900 people to date.
With an effective vaccine preventing the spread of the virus, Measles had been declared eliminated in America in 2000—although that status is at risk if the outbreak continues.
A top immunologist, Dr. Paul Offit, told The Guardian Saturday that the world is at risk of losing “herd immunity to measles amid the U.S. outbreak.
Kennedy, a vaccine skeptic who has pushed scientifically disputed medical treatments for a number of diseases, has in recent weeks promoted vitamin A as an effective treatment for the disease.
In a March Fox News op-ed, Kennedy encouraged people to get the vaccine but also claimed that vitamin A “can dramatically reduce measles mortality.”
A vitamin A deficiency can make people, especially children, more susceptible to measles, according to the World Health Organization. However, infectious disease experts told ABC News that it should be regarded as a supplement for a deficiency rather than as a treatment for the disease.
The New York Times reported in March that some children in Texas who had received Kennedy’s favored treatment, cod oil containing vitamin A, had suffered liver damage.
Kennedy has long drawn criticism for pushing a link between vaccines and autism—a connection that has not been supported by scientific research.
Last month, Kennedy pledged that his agency would find the true cause of autism, which research has suggested is largely genetic, by September.
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