A Texas doctor who has been treating children in a measles outbreak was shown on video with a measles rash on his face in a clinic a week before Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. met him and praised him as an \u201cextraordinary\u201d healer. <\/p>\n
Dr. Ben Edwards appeared in the video posted March 31 by the anti-vaccine group Kennedy once led, Children\u2019s Health Defense. In it, Edwards appears wearing scrubs and talking with parents and children in a makeshift clinic he set up in Seminole, Texas, ground zero of the outbreak that has sickened hundreds of people and killed three, including two children. <\/p>\n
Edwards is asked whether he had measles, and he responded, \u201cYes,\u201d then said his infection started the day before the video was recorded. <\/p>\n
\u201cYesterday was pretty achy. Little mild fever. Spots came in the afternoon. Today, I woke up feeling good,\u201d Edwards said in the video. <\/p>\n
Measles is most contagious for about four days before and four days after the rash appears and is one of the world\u2019s most contagious diseases, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Doctors and public health experts said Edwards\u2019 decision to go into the clinic put children, their parents and their community at risk because he could have spread it to others. They said there was no scenario in which Edwards\u2019 conduct would be reasonable. <\/p>\n
Kennedy met with Edwards about a week after the video was posted by Children\u2019s Health Defense, the group Kennedy led for years until December. In an April 6 post on X, Kennedy said he \u201cvisited with these two extraordinary healers,\u201d including Edwards and another doctor, and praised their use of two unproven treatments for measles. <\/p>\n
Even as measles has exploded in Texas and spread across the country, Kennedy, the nation\u2019s top health official, has declined to consistently and forcefully encourage people to vaccinate their children and remind them that the vaccine is safe. Kennedy\u2019s post drawing attention to Edwards is inappropriate but unsurprising given Kennedy\u2019s record, said Dr. Craig Spencer, a medical doctor who is also a professor at the Brown University School of Public Health. <\/p>\n
\u201cI think is unfortunately perfectly on-brand for how he thinks that medicine should be practiced,\u201d Spencer said. \u201cAnd that is what makes me remarkably uncomfortable and extremely concerned and scared for the next three-and-a-half years.\u201d <\/p>\n
It was unclear whether Kennedy knew that Edwards had gone into his clinic while infected with measles before meeting him. A spokesperson for Kennedy said he is not anti-vaccine and that he is \u201ccommitted to improving children\u2019s health in America and has re-deployed resources to Texas to help with the current outbreak.\u201d He did not answer why the health secretary chose to meet with and praise Edwards rather than any of the other doctors in West Texas who have been treating children in the outbreak. <\/p>\n
Edwards told The Associated Press in an email that he \u201cinteracted with zero patients that were not already infected with measles\u201d during the time he was infectious. \u201cTherefore, obviously, there were no patients that were put in danger of acquiring measles since they already had measles.\u201d <\/p>\n
But Jessica Steier, a public health scientist, said the video shows Edwards in the room with people who do not appear sick, including parents of sick children and the people who visited the clinic from Children\u2019s Health Defense. She also questioned what steps Edwards was taking to confirm people were sick with measles, rather than relying on guesswork. <\/p>\n
Steier, who runs the Science Literacy Lab and co-wrote an article about Edwards\u2019 conduct, said while there may be some extraordinary emergencies where it would be appropriate for a sick doctor to work, this is not one of those situations because there is no shortage of providers who are not infected. She also pointed out that the video shows Edwards was not wearing a mask. <\/p>\n
\u201cYou have the HHS secretary lifting him up,\u201d she said. \u201cYou know, it\u2019s so, so dangerous. I really feel for the people who are on the ground.\u201d <\/p>\n
Children\u2019s Health Defense has sued a number of news organizations, among them the AP, accusing them of violating antitrust laws by taking action to identify misinformation, including about the COVID-19 pandemic and vaccines. <\/p>\n
Kennedy\u2019s promotion of a doctor who has touted unproven measles treatments is \u201cwholly irresponsible\u201d but is in line with Kennedy\u2019s long public record of anti-vaccine views, said Dr. Paul Offit, a pediatrician at Children\u2019s Hospital of Philadelphia. He said Kennedy has carried those views to his new job as the head of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. <\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s not the director of Children\u2019s Health Defense anymore. He\u2019s responsible for the health and well-being of children in this country,\u201d Offit said. \u201cIt\u2019s an emergency, but Kennedy is not treating it that way.\u201d <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
A Texas doctor who has been treating children in a measles outbreak was shown on video with a measles rash on his face in a clinic a week before Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. met him and praised him as an \u201cextraordinary\u201d healer. Dr. Ben Edwards appeared in the video posted March 31 by …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2222,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"loftocean_post_primary_category":0,"loftocean_post_format_gallery":"","loftocean_post_format_gallery_ids":"","loftocean_post_format_gallery_urls":"","loftocean_post_format_video_id":0,"loftocean_post_format_video_url":"","loftocean_post_format_video_type":"","loftocean_post_format_video":"","loftocean_post_format_audio_type":"","loftocean_post_format_audio_url":"","loftocean_post_format_audio_id":0,"loftocean_post_format_audio":"","loftocean-featured-post":"","loftocean-like-count":0,"loftocean-view-count":535,"tinysalt_single_post_intro_label":"","tinysalt_single_post_intro_description":"","tinysalt_hide_post_featured_image":"","tinysalt_post_featured_media_position":"","tinysalt_single_site_header_source":"","tinysalt_single_custom_site_header":"0","tinysalt_single_custom_sticky_site_header":"0","tinysalt_single_custom_sticky_site_header_style":"sticky-scroll-up","tinysalt_single_site_footer_source":"","tinysalt_single_custom_site_footer":"0","footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2221","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-health-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/retirednurseblog.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2221","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/retirednurseblog.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/retirednurseblog.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/retirednurseblog.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/retirednurseblog.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2221"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/retirednurseblog.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2221\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/retirednurseblog.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2222"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/retirednurseblog.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2221"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/retirednurseblog.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2221"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/retirednurseblog.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2221"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}