PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) — A Texas physician who has been treating kids in a measles outbreak was proven on video with a measles rash on his face in a clinic every week earlier than Well being Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. met him and praised him as an “extraordinary” healer.
Dr. Ben Edwards appeared within the video posted March 31 by the anti-vaccine group Kennedy as soon as led, Children’s Health Defense. In it, Edwards seems sporting scrubs and speaking with mother and father and youngsters in a makeshift clinic he arrange in Seminole, Texas, floor zero of the outbreak that has sickened a whole lot of individuals and killed three, together with two kids.
Edwards is requested whether or not he had measles, and he responded, “Sure,” then said his infection started the day before the video was recorded.
“Yesterday was fairly achy. Little gentle fever. Spots got here within the afternoon. Right this moment, I awakened feeling good,” Edwards stated within the video.
Measles is most contagious for about 4 days earlier than and 4 days after the rash seems and is without doubt one of the world’s most contagious diseases, in keeping with the U.S. Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention. Docs and public well being specialists stated Edwards’ determination to enter the clinic put kids, their mother and father and their neighborhood in danger as a result of he might have unfold it to others. They stated there was no situation wherein Edwards’ conduct can be cheap.
Kennedy met with Edwards a few week after the video was posted by Kids’s Well being Protection, the group Kennedy led for years till December. In an April 6 post on X, Kennedy stated he “visited with these two extraordinary healers,” together with Edwards and one other physician, and praised their use of two unproven therapies for measles.
At the same time as measles has exploded in Texas and unfold throughout the nation, Kennedy, the nation’s prime well being official, has declined to consistently and forcefully encourage folks to vaccinate their kids and remind them that the vaccine is secure. Kennedy’s publish drawing consideration to Edwards is inappropriate however unsurprising given Kennedy’s report, stated Dr. Craig Spencer, a medical physician who can also be a professor on the Brown College College of Public Well being.
“I believe is sadly completely on-brand for a way he thinks that drugs ought to be practiced,” Spencer stated. “And that’s what makes me remarkably uncomfortable and intensely involved and scared for the following three-and-a-half years.”
It was unclear whether or not Kennedy knew that Edwards had gone into his clinic whereas contaminated with measles earlier than assembly him. A spokesperson for Kennedy stated he isn’t anti-vaccine and that he’s “dedicated to bettering kids’s well being in America and has re-deployed sources to Texas to assist with the present outbreak.” He didn’t reply why the well being secretary selected to fulfill with and reward Edwards relatively than any of the opposite docs in West Texas who’ve been treating kids within the outbreak.
Edwards informed The Related Press in an e mail that he “interacted with zero sufferers that weren’t already contaminated with measles” throughout the time he was infectious. “Due to this fact, clearly, there have been no sufferers that have been put in peril of buying measles since they already had measles.”
However Jessica Steier, a public well being scientist, stated the video reveals Edwards within the room with individuals who don’t seem sick, together with mother and father of sick kids and the individuals who visited the clinic from Kids’s Well being Protection. She additionally questioned what steps Edwards was taking to verify folks have been sick with measles, relatively than counting on guesswork.
Steier, who runs the Science Literacy Lab and co-wrote an article about Edwards’ conduct, stated whereas there could also be some extraordinary emergencies the place it might be acceptable for a sick physician to work, this isn’t a kind of conditions as a result of there is no such thing as a scarcity of suppliers who are usually not contaminated. She additionally identified that the video reveals Edwards was not sporting a masks.
“You may have the HHS secretary lifting him up,” she stated. “You recognize, it’s so, so harmful. I actually really feel for the people who find themselves on the bottom.”
Kids’s Well being Protection has sued numerous information organizations, amongst them the AP, accusing them of violating antitrust legal guidelines by taking motion to establish misinformation, together with in regards to the COVID-19 pandemic and vaccines.
Kennedy’s promotion of a health care provider who has touted unproven measles therapies is “wholly irresponsible” however is in keeping with Kennedy’s lengthy public report of anti-vaccine views, stated Dr. Paul Offit, a pediatrician at Kids’s Hospital of Philadelphia. He stated Kennedy has carried these views to his new job as the pinnacle of the U.S. Division of Well being and Human Providers.
“He’s not the director of Kids’s Well being Protection anymore. He’s liable for the well being and well-being of youngsters on this nation,” Offit stated. “It is an emergency, however Kennedy is just not treating it that method.”
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