Wisconsin doctor makes wild measles claims

[Pelican Press 0]

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Wisconsin doctor makes wild measles claims

Pierre Kory testifies in front of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. | Screenshot via CSPAN

This story was published in partnership with the

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Last month, Health and Human Services (HHS) secretary and longtime anti-vaxxer Robert F. Kennedy Jr. attended the ******** for the second unvaccinated child in Texas to have died in the

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. While in Texas, he met with the two grieving families — along with two local doctors promoting unproven measles treatments, whom he called “extraordinary healers.” 

Following the first death, Children’s Health Defense (CHD), the anti-vax organization Kennedy led until recently, pushed its own narrative claiming that the 6-year-old Mennonite girl did not actually die from the measles. In this effort, CHD has relied heavily on

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, a Wisconsin doctor who has both amplified that assertion and claimed that the measles virus has been weaponized by unknown conspirators.

Kory is a Kennedy ally who has been widely criticized for spreading Covid

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during the pandemic, including pushing the use of ivermectin as a “

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” for treating that virus. 

For years, CHD and Kennedy have promoted the debunked claim that the standard measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine given to almost all children in the U.S. is tied to autism. With an upsurge in the pandemic-era, right-wing embrace of the anti-vax movement — and of Kennedy himself — there has been a notable

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in the U.S. 

Now that measles immunization rates have fallen below thresholds to maintain herd immunity in certain parts of the country, outbreaks such as the one in West Texas are expected to become more common. In February, Texas reported the country’s first measles death in a child in the

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since the disease was classified as eradicated in the U.S. 

In response to this death, CHD posted a

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on March 19 featuring Kory and Ben Edwards, another Texas doctor Kennedy applauded, discussing the girl’s medical records, which her parents released to the organization. 

Despite having no training in pediatric medicine and having had his board certifications in internal medicine and critical care

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last year, Kory

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the child’s death was due to incorrect antibiotic management of a bacterial pneumonia infection that had “little to do with measles.” Edwards — a family doctor who has been treating measles-stricken children in Texas with medications

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and was accused of seeing pediatric patients while

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with measles himself — concurred with Kory. 

Without being able to examine the medical records themselves, pediatricians consulted for this article were limited in their critique of Kory’s assessment. But they did question his understanding of empiric antibiotic

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for pediatric pneumonia. Secondary bacterial pneumonia infections following viral diseases are common, and pneumonia is a well-documented complication of a measles infection. 

These doctors also questioned the strong personal bias underpinning Kory’s assessment and pointed to his history of extreme claims about Covid made online and to right-wing media outlets  as evidence against his reliability as an “expert.” 

Furthermore, Kory has been inconsistent in his messaging around this measles death when addressing various audiences. When Alex Morozov, founder of the counter-misinformation group Eviva Partners,

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about his statements regarding the young girl’s cause of death at the so-called “Summit for Truth & Wellness” on March 29, the answer he got was very different. At that event, Kory suggested this was a case of the measles being “weaponized.”

In an

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of their conversation published by Morozov, Kory said: 

Do you want to know the real story on this case? Quite a few of us believe that they weaponized the measles virus. And this measles is more. They’re doing this on purpose. She got sicker from the measles probably because they monkeyed with the measles virus…. Do you know how many bioweapons labs there are and what they can do?

Like the unfounded claim of an error in medical treatment, this “weaponized measles” narrative has spread rapidly throughout the online crankosphere. However, this conspiratorial rhetoric has not been accompanied by urgent recommendations for increased vaccinations to prevent infection from a supposedly more virulent strain.

Kennedy, who promoted pandemic conspiracy theories along with ivermectin as an alternative to Covid vaccines, has called Kory “

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” and “

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.” The doctor appeared with him at various campaign-related events in the lead-up to the 2024 presidential election, both before and after RFK Jr. suspended his own campaign and joined forces with Trump to launch the “Make America Healthy Again” (MAHA) movement. 

As ivermectin proved to be ineffective against Covid, Kory turned on the

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mRNA vaccines while cozying up to Kennedy and CHD. Kory and the ivermectin group he co-founded — the Frontline COVID-19 Critical Care Alliance (FLCCC), now called the

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following a pro-MAHA rebrand — have rallied with Kennedy and CHD on multiple occasions, including against Covid vaccine mandates during the deadly Omicron wave in late 2021 and early 2022.

Kory has not just turned on Covid vaccines, but routine childhood immunizations in line with Kennedy’s and CHD’s established anti-vax rhetoric as well. 

In 2023, Kory appeared in an FLCCC

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about pediatric vaccines titled “Your Child, Your Choice.” The same year, despite his lack of pediatric credentials, he served as an “expert” on the issue of childhood vaccinations for Republicans in Wisconsin.

That same year, Kory testified at the Wisconsin Capitol as part of a GOP-led

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to block adding the meningitis vaccine as a state requirement for school-aged children, which is  required in many other states and has been recommended by the Center for Disease Control’s Advisory Council on Immunization Practices since 2005. (While Kory and company were initially successful, the meningitis vaccine was eventually added to Wisconsin’s requirements as of the 2023/24 school year.) 

During this measles outbreak, both Kennedy and Kory have once again promoted “alternative” treatments. 

Kennedy has drawn heavy criticism for pushing

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as a treatment for measles while simultaneously failing to provide a sorely needed, full-throated endorsement of the MMR vaccines. Following the second death, while the HHS secretary correctly called the vaccines the “most effective way” to prevent measles, he quickly undermined his own statement. In his tweet about the ********, Kennedy

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a shoutout to doctors Edwards and Richard Bartlett, his other “extraordinary healer” from Texas, for their use of unproven treatments on infected children in the local community. 

On March 31, Kory appeared in another CHD

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about the first Texas child’s death, claiming she should have received intravenous vitamin C, which is

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for measles-related pneumonia. Of note, prior to his co-authorship of

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on the use of ivermectin to fight Covid, Kory co-authored a

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on a Covid hospital protocol that featured vitamin C.

Given his past statements on Covid and routine pediatric vaccines as well as his ties to Kennedy and CHD, Kory would have a vested interest in distancing himself from children’s deaths from vaccine-preventable illness. But this is dangerous, experts warn, during a measles outbreak where vaccines play a vital role in stopping the spread of disease.

A representative for the hospital that treated the first child

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against “misleading and inaccurate claims” about this case being circulated online. “Our physicians and care teams follow evidence-based protocols and make clinical decisions based on a patient’s evolving condition, diagnostic findings, and the best available medical knowledge,” the spokesperson said.

CHD did not back down in the wake of the second pediatric measles death early last month. The organization

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for this case while offering a free e-book — featuring a foreword by Kennedy — on “secrets the government and media aren’t telling you about measles and the measles vaccine.” The book

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the mainstream media of weaponizing outbreaks “for political gain.” 

In an

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to their followers on April 7 — the day after the second child’s ******** — CHD announced an April 17 webinar event called “Inside the Measles Deception” featuring Kory, Booker, and Edwards. The restricted event was available only to their donors. 

On April 8, CHD

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, “Our mission hasn’t changed. The MMR vaccine is dangerous and has caused more deaths than measles,” a claim that is totally unsubstantiated. The next day, Kory returned for

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claiming to have reviewed the medical records for the second case and, unsurprisingly, again maintained that the 8-year-old girl did not die from the measles. He said:

“This is just getting exhausting, this constant fear-mongering by the media. I’ve already lost so much trust in the institutions of society. But to see them rampage like this on inaccuracies and peddling falsehoods and just distortions, it’s terrible. It’s terrible for our health. They are scaring people into getting what I think is a very dangerous vaccine.” 

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