The parents of an unvaccinated child who died in the Texas measles outbreak appeared in a video produced by the anti-vaccine advocacy group Children’s Health Defense, where they continued to urge others to avoid vaccinating their kids.
The young couple are members of the Mennonite community and said their other four children had milder cases of measles because of untested treatments from Veritas Wellness, a holistic clinic in Lubbock, Texas, that’s reported to push treatments such as cod liver oil, vitamin C and the steroid budesonide, according to Mother Jones.
The clinic had help from an online fundraiser organized by Children’s Health Defense, the group led by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. until he launched his 2024 presidential campaign. Kennedy is reported to have spoken with Dr. Ben Edwards of Veritas Wellness last week, in addition to a historian from the area and a member of the Mennonite community.
While the interview with the parents who lost their six-year-old to measles could be seen as an argument in favor of vaccination, Brian Hooker and Polly Tomney of Children’s Health Defense interpreted the case as vaccinations being unnecessary as long as children have access to unproven treatments.
The young Mennonite couple spoke partly in English and partly in German, with a translator, saying that initially, their child seemed to have a regular case of measles, with a rash, fever and mild respiratory issues. But after a few days, her fever remained, and she struggled to breathe.
Taking her to the emergency room, the child was diagnosed with pneumonia. She was put on a ventilator in the ICU before her passing.
Following the funeral, their other four children, aged two to seven, also suffered cases of the disease and were treated by Edwards.
“Dr. Ben came helping us, and he gave them treatments, or like medicine,” the mother told Children’s Health Defense. “And they had a really good, quick, recovery.”
Tomney said, “We spent the morning at Dr. Ben Edwards’ clinic, and the parents are all still sitting there saying they would rather have this than the MMR vaccination because they’ve seen so much injury, which we have as well. Do you still feel the same way about the MMR vaccine versus measles and the proper treatment with Dr. Ben Edwards?”
“Absolutely not take the MMR [vaccine],” she said. “The measles wasn’t that bad. [The other children] got over it pretty quickly. And Dr. Edwards was there for us.”
But it’s likely that the siblings would have had mild cases regardless of the untested treatments as one in five unvaccinated children with measles are taken to hospital, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Earlier this month, Kennedy spoke to Fox News, claiming, without evidence, that treating measles with cod liver oil, antibiotics and steroids had “very, very good results.”
The couple also made other claims during the interview with Children’s Health Defense that don’t have any scientific support. The father said via a translator that he thought that measles boosted the immune system and that it protected against future cases of cancer and other diseases. While the measles virus is being studied as a possible remedy for some types of cancer, research indicates that it’s more effective for those who have been vaccinated.
“It was her time on Earth,” the translator said of the deceased child. “They believe that she’s better off where she is now versus all the negativity and all the stuff going on. They think she was too good for this earth.”
Hooker and Tomney said in a second video shared on Wednesday that they had gotten ahold of the deceased child’s hospital records, and they claimed that the child had not died of measles, but instead, because the hospital had not used the right treatments, Mother Jones noted.
“Vaccination remains the best defense against measles infection,” the CDC said in a statement on February 27. “Measles does not have a specific antiviral treatment. Supportive care, including vitamin A administration under the direction of a physician, may be appropriate.”
