As a measles outbreak spreads through western Texas, Dr. Ana Montanez is pouring a lifted battle to convince some parents that vitamin A, promoted by vaccine critics as effective against the highly contagious virus, will not protect their children.
The 53 -year -old pediatrician in the city of Lubbock is working overtime to get in touch with parents who doubt vaccines, explaining the serious risks posed by a disease that most American families have never seen in their life, and that can be prevented through immunization.
However, more and more, you also have to counteract misleading information. A mother, she said, told her that she was giving her two children high doses of vitamin A to protect them from measles, according to an article published by Children’s Health Defense, the Anti -Vacunas group led by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. almost a decade before she became the main health official of President Donald Trump.
“Wait, what are you doing? That was an alert sign, ”said Montanez in an interview. “This is a united community, and I think that if a family does one thing, all the others will follow it. Even if I cannot persuade them that they are vaccinated, at least I can educate them about misinformation. ”
Kennedy resigned as president of Children’s Health Defense and has said that he has no power over the organization, which he has sued in state and federal courts to challenge common vaccines, including measles.
The organization did not respond to a request for comments.
As the Secretary of Health and Human Services of the US, Kennedy has said that vaccination remains a personal choice. It has also exaggerated the evidence of the use of treatments such as vitamin A, according to disease experts.
The supplement does not prevent measles and can be harmful to children in large or prolonged doses, according to the American Pediatrics Academy (American Academy of Pediatrics). It has been shown that the severity of measles infections in developing countries among malnourished and vitamin A deficiency, a rare event in the United States, decreases.
“I am very worried about the messages that are dating,” said Dr. Jeffrey Kahn, head of Children’s Health infectious diseases, in Dallas. “It is something disconcerting for me that we are again litigating the effectiveness of vaccines and alternative therapies. We know how to handle measles. We have six decades of experience. ”
Andrew Nixon, spokesman for the Department of Health and Human Services, did not answer the questions about the management of Kennedy of the measles outbreak. But when commenting on a death related to measles in New Mexico, Nixon said Thursday that the centers for the control and prevention of EU diseases “recommend vaccination as the best protection against measles infection.”
Texas authorities said Friday that the measles outbreak in the state had increased to 198 cases, including 23 people who were hospitalized. That includes the death of a non -vaccinated school age at a Lubbock hospital last month.
New Mexico’s authorities have accounted for 30 cases and a death of an adult not vaccinated. Those are the first measles deaths in the United States since 2015.
You may be interested: Mark Carngey, next Prime Minister of Canada, gets ready to challenge Trump and tariffs before the elections
Doctors oppose while parents accept Kennedy and vitamin A in the measles outbreak in Texas
A 29 -year -old nurse, mother of three children and describes herself as a Kennedy fan, visited the Montanez Clinic on Thursday. He asked to be identified as Nicole C., his second name and the initial of his last name, to protect the privacy of his family.
He said he values the doctor’s advice and appreciates that he was never judged for not completely vaccinating his school -age daughter and his small twins, a boy and a girl, with a second dose of the measles vaccine, papers and rubella.
After the initial injections, he said he worried more about the possible side effects of vaccines and adopted more natural supplements.
He said that school officials told him that his daughter would have to miss classes 21 days if he still did not get vaccinated and was exposed to measles.
The risk of contact in Lubbock is real. Montanez called a dozen families last month because they were exposed to measles in their own waiting room, who shares with other doctors from the Texas Tech doctors group.
Even so, Nicole could not move forward with vaccination during her visit this week. She said that she and her husband had prayed about it and believed in the immune system given by God to her family.
“As a mother, you naturally think: ‘My God, I can’t let my daughter lose 21 days of education.’ But who knows what effects the vaccine could cause? That could be a lifetime of problems. I’m willing to wait for the take, ”he said.
Public health experts have said that measles vaccines and other diseases have minimal risks of side effects and protect children and adults against diseases that once killed many people routinely.
As the flu season worsened this winter, Nicole said she began to give her children a daily dose of strawberry flavor cod liver oil, which has a high vitamin A content, according to the information that other mothers had shared with it.
Montanez calmly took his rejection of the vaccine. The doctor said she has persuaded more than a dozen parents to empty her children completely in recent weeks.
“I think leaving her family enough space to make her own decisions, and being available for any question is really my goal,” said Montañez. “My hope is that at some point I call me and tell me: ‘Can we go vaccinated?'”
With Reuters information.
Follow us on Google News to always keep you informed
