A Texas couple whose unvaccinated 6-year-old daughter died after being hospitalized for measles final month, marking the nation’s first little one dying from the virus in a decade, mentioned they haven’t any regrets about not vaccinating their youngsters and would urge others to not.
“We would absolutely not take the MMR,” the kid’s mom mentioned of the measles-mumps-rubella vaccination in an interview with the anti-vaccine nonprofit Youngsters’s Health Protection, which was based by vaccine critic and Health and Human Providers Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
“They would still say, don’t do the shots,” a translator mentioned for the couple, who’re members of the Mennonite neighborhood in Gaines County and spoke in each English and Low German.
“There’s doctors that can help with measles. They’re not as bad as they’re making it out to be,” the translator mentioned of media reporting on the present outbreak, which has sickened 309 folks in Texas as of Friday, in keeping with the state’s well being division. That’s 24 extra instances than the whole seen in all the U.S. final yr.
The mom, whose title was not shared, reasoned that her different 4 youngsters, ages 7, 5, 3 and a couple of, additionally contracted the extremely contagious, however preventable, respiratory illness throughout her daughter’s sickness and had been wonderful after being given some cough drugs, which she mentioned her 6-year-old didn’t obtain.
“The measles wasn’t that bad and they got over it pretty quickly,” she mentioned of her different youngsters.
That seems to line up with statistics launched by the Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention, displaying that roughly 1 in 5 folks will likely be hospitalized for measles if unvaccinated.
Jan Sonnenmair by way of Getty Photos
“Also, the measles are good for the body,” mentioned the kid’s father, who was additionally not recognized within the interview. He reasoned that the virus boosts the immune system, one thing that Kennedy not too long ago mentioned in an interview with Fox Information however that research have disputed.
The lady’s mom mentioned their daughter got here down with a fever on a Saturday and that she took her to see a physician the next Monday when she began having hassle respiration. She was finally intubated at a hospital and died a couple of days later from pneumonia, which is a recognized complication from the illness and its commonest reason behind dying amongst contaminated youngsters, in keeping with the CDC.
The dad and mom raised considerations of their interview concerning the little one’s hospital therapy, with the mom questioning whether or not extra might have been accomplished to avoid wasting her. The nonprofit additionally shared a video on social media that questioned whether or not the kid was given a correct antibiotic.
Regardless of their heartbreaking loss, the couple mentioned that they consider it was their daughter’s time and “she was too good for this Earth,” in keeping with the translator aiding the interview.
“He says that God does no wrong and he wanted this to wake people up,” their translator mentioned, talking for the daddy.
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Covenant Youngsters’s Hospital in Lubbock, the place the kid was handled, shared a press release with HuffPost Friday that disputed the couple’s interview, saying it incorporates “misleading and inaccurate claims regarding care provided at Covenant Children’s.”
Although the hospital mentioned it can not share info instantly associated to the case, because of affected person confidentiality legal guidelines, it mentioned it was standing by its well being care group.
“What we can say is that 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 hospital mentioned.
