(NewsNation) — Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. recently recommended consuming vitamin A for measles treatment.
Kennedy also recently called for the nation’s parents to consult a health care provider before deciding on the MMR vaccine used to prevent measles, mumps and rubella.
“The decision to vaccinate is a personal one. Vaccines not only protect individual children from measles, but also contribute to community immunity, protecting those who are unable to be vaccinated due to medical reasons,” a statement from the HHS reads in part.
Dr. Philip Huang, director of Dallas County Health and Human Services, told NewsNation he’s worried Kennedy’s advice could “distract” from what he believes is the real solution for this preventable disease.
“Some people will do some of these alternative practices instead of getting the vaccine,” Huang told NewsNation. “And we really want to make sure the vaccine is the primary message.”
Can vitamin A treat measles?
Huang and Dr. Amesh Adalja, a senior scholar at Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, both told NewsNation that vitamin supplements are not enough to contain the growing outbreak in the U.S.
“I don’t think these are good recommendations. I don’t think they’ll have any impact on this outbreak in the United States,” Adalja said on Monday’s airing of “Morning in America.”
The World Health Organization recommends a daily dose of vitamin A for children with measles in areas where vitamin A deficiencies are common. The supplement is meant to reduce eye damage and blindness from the disease — not prevent it altogether, per WHO.
“Yes, vitamin A is important in places like Africa, but this isn’t Africa,” Adalja said. “We don’t have vitamin A deficiency.”
It’s important to note that excessive vitamin A intake can “pose various adverse effects, disrupting the body’s equilibrium and overall well-being,” the National Institutes of Health explains.
Too much vitamin A can accumulate in the body and cause liver damage, fatigue, headaches and hair loss.
Kennedy also said that Texas doctors are administering cod liver oil and steroids to their patients with “very, very, good results.” While cod liver oil is sometimes used to heal skin wounds and rashes, there is no scientific connection to measles prevention or treatment.
Instead, both experts recommend the tried-and-true MMR vaccine.
“It’s been around since the 1960s. Millions of people have had it. It’s safe, effective … and this is how you can protect yourself,” Huang said.
Measles outbreak: How many cases are there?
Two people have died and hundreds more have been sickened by measles in the U.S. since January.
A large portion of the cases are in young children in West Texas, which on Friday updated its total reported cases to nearly 200, according to officials. Nearby Mexico reported 30 cases on Friday.
Maryland saw its first case on Sunday when the Maryland Department of Health and Howard County health officials announced that a person who traveled internationally was infected when they returned to the U.S.
As of March 6, there were measles cases reported to the CDC in:
- Alaska
- California
- Florida
- Georgia
- Kentucky
- New Jersey
- New Mexico
- New York City
- Pennsylvania
- Rhode Island
- Texas
- Washington
The number of cases is likely to grow. One infected person can infect 9 out of 10 people they come in contact with, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has said.
Wasn’t measles eradicated? Why is there an outbreak?
Measles was officially eradicated in the U.S. in 2000 thanks to the MMR vaccine, which is typically administered to young children in two doses, the CDC said.
For more than two decades, community immunity from the vaccine limited new cases to those infected during international travel.
But kindergartner vaccination rates have dropped in recent years — from 95.2% during the 2019-20 school year, to 92.7% in the 2023–24 term, CDC data shows.
That leaves roughly 280,000 kindergartners at risk and opens up the possibility for outbreaks among primarily school-aged children.
“When measles gets into communities of unvaccinated people in the United States, outbreaks can occur,” the CDC said.
