PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) — 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 “extraordinary” healer.
Dr. Ben Edwards appeared in the video posted March 31 by the anti-vaccine group Kennedy once led, Children’s 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.
Edwards is asked whether he had measles, and he responded, “Yes,” then said his infection started the day before the video was recorded.
“Yesterday was pretty achy. Little mild fever. Spots came in the afternoon. Today, I woke up feeling good,” Edwards said in the video.
Measles is most contagious for about four days before and four days after the rash appears and is one of the world’s most contagious diseases, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Doctors and public health experts said Edwards’ 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’ conduct would be reasonable.
Kennedy met with Edwards about a week after the video was posted by Children’s Health Defense, the group Kennedy led for years until December. In an April 6 post on X, Kennedy said he “visited with these two extraordinary healers,” including Edwards and another doctor, and praised their use of two unproven treatments for measles.
Even as measles has exploded in Texas and spread across the country, Kennedy, the nation’s top health official, has declined to consistently and forcefully encourage people to vaccinate their children and remind them that the vaccine is safe. Kennedy’s post drawing attention to Edwards is inappropriate but unsurprising given Kennedy’s record, said Dr. Craig Spencer, a medical doctor who is also a professor at the Brown University School of Public Health.
“I think is unfortunately perfectly on-brand for how he thinks that medicine should be practiced,” Spencer said. “And that is what makes me remarkably uncomfortable and extremely concerned and scared for the next three-and-a-half years.”
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 “committed to improving children’s health in America and has re-deployed resources to Texas to help with the current outbreak.” 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.
Edwards told The Associated Press in an email that he “interacted with zero patients that were not already infected with measles” during the time he was infectious. “Therefore, obviously, there were no patients that were put in danger of acquiring measles since they already had measles.”
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’s Health Defense. She also questioned what steps Edwards was taking to confirm people were sick with measles, rather than relying on guesswork.
Steier, who runs the Science Literacy Lab and co-wrote an article about Edwards’ 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.
“You have the HHS secretary lifting him up,” she said. “You know, it’s so, so dangerous. I really feel for the people who are on the ground.”
Children’s 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.
Kennedy’s promotion of a doctor who has touted unproven measles treatments is “wholly irresponsible” but is in line with Kennedy’s long public record of anti-vaccine views, said Dr. Paul Offit, a pediatrician at Children’s 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.
“He’s not the director of Children’s Health Defense anymore. He’s responsible for the health and well-being of children in this country,” Offit said. “It’s an emergency, but Kennedy is not treating it that way.”
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