Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. #quack #dunning-kruger #pratt health.com
While the measles outbreak in West Texas continues to grow, U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has made headlines with some unconventional remedies for the virus[…]
Kennedy discussed how the federal government is addressing the outbreak in an interview with Fox News
Kennedy said doctors were seeing “very, very good results” from treating the illness with a steroid called budesonide, an antibiotic called clarithromycin, and cod liver oil, a supplement high in vitamins A and D
But, infectious disease experts are skeptical of the remedies touted by Kennedy
“None of those are treatments for measles,” Tina Tan, MD, a professor of pediatrics at the Feinberg School of Medicine at Northwestern University[…]told Health. “Measles is a virus, and there are no antivirals that are licensed for treatment of measles”[…]
Of the three measles treatments Kennedy mentioned, cod liver oil has received the most media attention[…]
There is evidence that vitamin A—which cod liver oil is high in—could improve measles patient outcomes, but only in specific situations[…]
Budesonide is a steroid that decreases inflammation in the body and is usually prescribed for Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis
In the nasal spray form, budesonide is used to relieve sneezing and congestion caused by hay fever and allergies, but there is no research on the medication’s effectiveness in treating measles[…]
In fact, steroids may even do more harm than good for measles patients[…]
The thought may be that clarithromycin could help fight secondary conditions that develop from measles like pneumonia—the most common cause of death from measles in young children—but experts agreed that clarithromycin is not the antibiotic they would prescribe[…]
There is no specific treatment for measles, and experts agreed that the best protection against the virus is the MMR (measles, mumps, and rubella) vaccine