Anti-Vaccine Campaign Takes Aim at Texas Doctors Who Treated Measles Victims
A campaign moves from dead children to their doctors
Children's Health Defense, the anti-vaccine organization once led by Robert F. Kennedy Jr., says it has helped trigger malpractice investigations into the physicians who treated two unvaccinated girls who died of measles in West Texas last year. The Guardian and Important Context reported the effort this week, and neither outlet could confirm the group's claim that the Texas medical board is reviewing complaints filed by its chief scientific officer, Brian Hooker, and a colleague. The doctors' identities have not been made public.
Two girls died in last year's outbreak
Complaints zero in on antibiotic use
In a recent video, Hooker argued that antibiotics were prescribed incorrectly and that this treatment, not measles, killed the girls. He said the complaints were first expected to be thrown out and were later routed to a medical expert for review. Hooker obtained the children's records from their parents and gave them to Pierre Kory, a critical care physician with no pediatric training who lost his board certifications for promoting Covid misinformation, heavily promoted ivermectin as a Covid cure and has claimed polio paralysis is caused by pesticides rather than a virus. Kory concluded the deaths were medical error, saying one child "did not die of measles" but of pneumonia he blamed on mismanagement, and he floated the notion of a "weaponized version" of the virus. A federal court has separately ruled that Kory was responsible for the death of one of his own patients.
Lubbock's health chief defends her doctors
Katherine Wells, who directs public health in Lubbock, said the physicians and the hospitals "went above and beyond," noting that hospital pediatricians care for the sickest children under high stress and comparatively modest pay. "It's so hard to be told that you either wanted to hurt them or didn't want to give the best care you could," she said. With the accusations and possible medical board reports, "I think it's in the back of everybody's minds." She called the campaign "their playbook," designed to sow doubt about vaccines rather than confront the outbreak: "The issue at hand is that we're having these large measles outbreaks, and they're not stopping."
The state attorney general is probing pediatricians too
Anti-vaccine figures have long vilified physicians, and Texas has official backing for the pressure. Attorney General Ken Paxton has opened what he calls a "wide sweeping investigation" into doctors who vaccinate children, alleging a conspiracy among doctors, drug companies and insurers, and has implicated the American Academy of Pediatrics. One small-town pediatrician, identified only by her middle name, Rachel, received a 28-item document demand and has spent nearly $15,000 on legal fees digging up receipts for $18 vaccines from a decade ago; she is reconsidering whether to keep practicing. Paxton announced the probe in January, and Children's Health Defense filed a RICO suit against the academy over vaccine-schedule changes. Kennedy, now the health secretary, has publicly disputed the rising death toll, saying pediatricians are "pressured to follow the money, not the science."
Fear settles into hospital wards
Rekha Lakshmanan of the Texas Immunization Partnership said investigations like Paxton's could have a chilling effect, making doctors think twice about urging vaccination or opening a practice in Texas. Dr. Kathryn Edwards of Vanderbilt University called it "another attempt at intimidation," while adding that pediatricians are "not being intimidated because their moral core is about the well-being of children." Dr. Jeffrey Kahn of Children's Health in Dallas said it is "somewhat baffling" that the country is relitigating vaccines it has understood for six decades.
New York declares an emergency, and what comes next
On October 5, New York Governor Kathy Hochul declared a statewide disaster emergency: 108 cases this year, 101 of them outside New York City, with 92 across 18 rural counties since mid-July. The order runs through November 4 and lets nurses, paramedics, midwives and pharmacists expand who can administer the MMR vaccine and order tests. Two things now watch: how the Texas medical board disposes of Hooker's complaints, and whether the argument that measles deaths are really medical error spreads as Pennsylvania's outbreak keeps growing.
