A closer look
Medscape explains how clueless and reckless Bad Kennedy is.
In an interview earlier this year, RFK appeared on Fox Nation to talk about a range of issues, but he spent much of the time discussing infectious diseases and the measles outbreak in particular. We took a closer look at the secretary’s comments quoted in his own words and fact-checked them with some leading infectious disease specialists.
RFK: “The safest application of vitamin A is through cod liver oil because you’re getting it through food and the toxicity issue is no longer an issue. You can test people at the hospital for vitamin A.…There’s a lot of good studies out there to show that even as a prophylaxis it’s effective in early treatment.”
Vitamin A is a micronutrient that enhances immune function and cod liver oil is high in vitamin A. Research conducted over several decades has shown that while vitamin A may be helpful in some cases for the treatment of measles, it is not a substitute for vaccination. And cod liver oil should not be used as a source of vitamin A because it would be highly impractical due to the high volume that would need to be ingested to obtain a therapeutic dose of the nutrient, which is 200,000 international units given over two consecutive days.
Also – just a reminder – Kennedy is neither an MD nor a scientist. He has no actual expertise here, just opinions, of the kind any random person on the bus might have.
RFK: “There is malnutrition in West Texas, in Gaines County, and in the Mennonite community. The doctors that I’m talking to on the ground, the leaders in the community are reporting that the people who are getting sick are people who are umm and the little girl who died, where malnutrition may have been an issue in her death. There’s a lot of poverty in that area and the food is kind of a food desert. The best thing that Americans can do is to keep themselves healthy. It’s very very difficult for measles to kill a healthy person.”
One, yes, it’s a good idea for people to keep themselves healthy. Seeking to be unhealthy is a mistake. Those are true statements. However, they are not statements that create a barrier to measles infection. Two, surviving measles is not as good as never having measles at all.
The 6-year-old girl who died from the measles in Gaines County was healthy before she contracted the measles, so recommending a healthy diet in lieu of vaccination is both misleading and dangerous, Offit said.
“[RFK Jr] is of the false belief that if your nutrition is good, you cannot die from the measles. I have no idea where he gets this,” Offit said. “Measles killed 500 children a year before there was vaccination and most of those children were previously healthy.”
We all know where he gets this. He pulls it out of his ass. He’s a conceited fool who thinks his folk wisdom is better than substantive knowledge.
RFK: If you are healthy, it’s almost impossible for you to be killed by an infectious disease in modern times because we have nutrition, because we have access to medicines. It’s very, very difficult for any infectious disease to kill a healthy human being.”
And God’s in his heaven and all’s right with the world.
Ah, but he could just alter the definition of “healthy”, could he not? If a child dies of measles, then the child was not healthy to begin with. The child’s parents and doctor may not have been aware, but look! The child died, it must have been unhealthy.
If you torture your defined terms hard enough, any statement can be true. (And what is truth, anyway?)
I think Harald has it: anyone who dies was unhealthy, and therefore it was their fault for not eating right and exercising.
Suffering Ball-headed Christ on a Crutch! Look at what he says about kids with autism:
Kennedy said “these are kids who will never pay taxes. They’ll never hold a job. They’ll never play baseball. They’ll never write a poem. They’ll never go out on a date. Many of them will never use a toilet unassisted.”
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/rfk-jr-autism-statements-ableist_l_680034d4e4b0b55f47db6cc0
We’re fucked.
Yes we are.
If you have measles, or any other infectious disease, you are, by definition, not healthy. You are sick.
Now I realize that that’s not what he means by “healthy”, but it’s an important point. Diseases weaken you, at least temporarily, and often long after you’ve been “cured”. Even if you survive the disease, it can have long-term effects (shingles, anyone?), or cause permanent damage (remember polio?) which can make you more susceptible to other diseases.
Vaccines can keep you from getting the disease, and can mitigate the effects of the disease if you do get it.
Does this really need to be said?
RFK: “The safest application of vitamin A is through cod liver oil because you’re getting it through food and the toxicity issue is no longer an issue. You can test people at the hospital for vitamin A.…There’s a lot of good studies out there to show that even as a prophylaxis it’s effective in early treatment.”
A toxic dose of vitamin A doesn’t know whether it came from a bottle of cod liver oil, or a polar bear liver.
I recall an anecdote about a woman who was big into supplements, who was trying to alleviate some health problem in her daughter by giving her more and more vitamin A, but she kept getting worse. Finally the woman took the girl to a doctor. The diagnosis: vitamin A overdose.
So, “the toxicity issue” does not arise in food? I’d like to see RFK demonstrate it by adopting a diet consisting exclusively of foods that are supposedly toxic in large quantities.
Ah, but wait – that wouldn’t be good nutrition. If he ever started to feel unwell, it would probably be because of the measles or something like that. Oh well.
Aaaaaaand . . . one of the most important and effective “medicines” we have “in modern times,” is freaking vaccines, you idiot.
It would go right along with the very narrow redefinition of “harm” that the junta is going to use for enforcement of the Environmental Protection Act. Destroy as much habitat as you like, but if you didn’t directly kill a specimen of an endangered species with your own bare hands, you haven’t “harmed” them.
Re: Shingles
Have people here seen the articles about people who have taken the shingles vaccine being less likely to get Alzheimers?
Re: Vitamin A
My understanding is that taking it in the form of Beta Carotene, such as by eating food that contains Beta Carotene is safer. The body turns BC into the active form of Vitamin A as needed, and an overdose is *much* harder to get. In some places the best way to get BC would be to eat golden rice, if people weren’t trying to ban evil GMOs.
Yeah, I saw that about the shingles vaccine, and I’m even happier that I got mine.