Health
For Some Measles Patients, Vitamin A Remedy Supported by RFK Jr. Leaves Them More Ill
Doctors in West Texas are seeing measles patients whose illnesses have been complicated by an alternative therapy endorsed by vaccine skeptics including Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the health secretary.
Parents in Gaines County, Texas, the center of a raging measles outbreak, have increasingly turned to supplements and unproven treatments to protect their children, many of whom are unvaccinated, against the virus.
One of those supplements is cod liver oil containing vitamin A, which Mr. Kennedy has promoted as a near miraculous cure for measles. Physicians at Covenant Children’s Hospital in Lubbock, Texas, say they’ve now treated a handful of unvaccinated children who were given so much vitamin A that they had signs of liver damage.
Some of them had received unsafe doses of cod liver oil and other vitamin A supplements for several weeks in an attempt to prevent a measles infection, said Dr. Summer Davies, who cares for acutely ill children at the hospital.
“I had a patient that was only sick a couple of days, four or five days, but had been taking it for like three weeks,” Dr. Davies said.
While doctors sometimes administer high doses of vitamin A in a hospital to manage severe measles, experts do not recommend taking it without physician supervision. Vitamin A is not an effective way to prevent measles; however, two doses of the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine are about 97 percent effective.
At high doses, vitamin A can cause liver damage; dry, peeling skin; hair loss; and, in rare instances, seizures and coma. So far, doctors at West Texas hospitals have said they’ve seen patients with yellowed skin and high levels of liver enzymes in their bloodwork, both signs of a damaged liver.
Many of those patients had been in the hospital for a severe measles infection; doctors discovered the liver damage only after routine lab work.
As of Tuesday, the outbreak, which began in January, had spread to more than 320 people in Texas. Forty patients have been hospitalized, and one child has died.
In neighboring New Mexico counties, the virus has sickened 43 and hospitalized two. Seven confirmed cases in Oklahoma have also been linked to the outbreak.
Local doctors and health officials have become increasingly concerned about the growing popularity of unproven remedies for preventing and treating measles, which they fear is causing people to delay critical medical treatment and to reject vaccination, the only proven way to prevent a measles infection.
In Gaines County, alternative medicine has always been popular. Many in the area’s large Mennonite community, where most cases have been clustered, avoid interacting with the medical system and adhere to a long tradition of natural remedies.
Health officials said the recent popularity of vitamin A use for measles could be traced back to a Fox News interview with Mr. Kennedy, in which he said he had heard of “almost miraculous and instantaneous recovery” with treatments like cod liver oil, which he said was “the safest application of vitamin A.”
In an opinion essay for The Washington Post on Tuesday afternoon, Kevin Griffis, who was until last week the communications director at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, wrote that he had resigned in part because of Mr. Kennedy’s handling of the outbreak.
“In my final weeks at the C.D.C., I watched as career infectious-disease experts were tasked with spending precious hours searching medical literature in vain for data to support Kennedy’s preferred treatments,” Mr. Griffis wrote.
In the weeks after the Fox News interview, drugstores in West Texas struggled to keep vitamin A and cod liver oil supplements on their shelves. “I did not hear anything about vitamin A until he said it on television,” said Katherine Wells, the director of public health in Lubbock.
One local doctor — whom Mr. Kennedy named in the Fox News interview as one of the physicians who had told him “what is working on the ground”— opened a makeshift clinic in Gaines County and began doling out various treatments, including vitamin A supplements, to treat active measles cases and to prevent infection.
Dr. Davies said she suspected that a majority of the children she had treated had taken vitamin A supplements at home.
Experts say that vitamin A can play an important role in the “supportive care” that doctors provide to patients with severe measles infections.
It works by replenishing the bodily stores depleted by the virus, which bolsters the immune system, said Dr. William Schaffner, an infectious disease specialist at Vanderbilt University Medical Center.
In the hospital, physicians give only two doses of the vitamin to children with measles, usually over the course of two days, and “very carefully calibrate” the amounts depending on age and weight, he said.
Dr. Schaffner emphasized that it is not a miracle treatment for the virus, and that there is no antiviral medication for measles. And there is no credible evidence that vitamin A helps prevent infection in children in the United States, where vitamin A deficiencies are exceedingly rare.
In fact, giving children repeated, high doses of the vitamin is dangerous. Unlike other vitamins, which are flushed out of the body through urine, excess vitamin A accumulates in fat tissue, making it more likely to reach dangerous levels over time.
“That kind of preventative use I think is especially concerning,” said Dr. Lara Johnson, another doctor at the Lubbock hospital.
“When we have kids taking it for weeks and weeks, then you do potentially have a cumulative impact of the toxicity,” she added.
Dr. Johnson added that local physicians were particularly concerned about parents’ relying on over-the-counter supplements — whose labels don’t always accurately reflect the amount of vitamin they contain — and accepting dosage recommendations from unverified sources.
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An experimental medication was shown to help boost weight loss by up to 20%, a study found.
Eloralintide, a once-weekly injectable manufactured by Eli Lilly in Indianapolis, led to “meaningful, dose-dependent weight loss” in adults who were overweight or obese but did not have diabetes, according to a press release.
The drug was generally well-tolerated by the study participants.
An experimental medication was shown to help boost weight loss by up to 20%, a study found. (iStock)
The Phase 2 trial, which was funded by Eli Lilly, included 263 adults. After 48 weeks, they had lost between 9.5% and 20.1% of their body weight, compared to 0.4% for those taking the placebo.
Treatment with eloralintide was also linked to improvements in waist circumference, blood pressure, lipid profiles, glycemic control and markers of inflammation, all of which can increase cardiometabolic risk, according to the researchers.
WEIGHT LOSS DRUGS COULD ADD YEARS TO AMERICANS’ LIVES, RESEARCHERS PROJECT
“The weight loss we saw in the study is clinically impactful,” lead study author Liana K. Billings, M.D., director of clinical and genetics research in diabetes and cardiometabolic disease at Endeavor Health in Skokie, Illinois, said in the press release.
“With this degree of weight loss in only 48 weeks, we see people having improvement or resolution in other conditions like hypertension, hyperlipidemia, osteoarthritis, sleep apnea and more weight-related conditions.”
Eloralintide, a once-weekly injectable manufactured by Eli Lilly in Indianapolis, led to “meaningful, dose-dependent weight loss” in adults who were overweight or obese but did not have diabetes. (Getty Images)
“Furthermore, in the study, we did not see a nadir or plateau of weight loss, so I would expect weight loss to continue if the study continued for a longer duration. Additionally, up to 90% of participants on eloralintide improved by at least one BMI category,” she added.
The results were published in The Lancet and presented at ObesityWeek 2025 in Atlanta, Georgia, earlier this month.
AMERICA’S FATTEST STATES REVEALED — AND HOW OZEMPIC IS CHANGING THE MAP
While popular GLP-1 drugs — including Ozempic, Wegovy, Mounjaro and Zepbound — work by mimicking the gut hormone GLP-1 (glucagon-like peptide-1), eloralintide is a selective amylin receptor agonist that works by mimicking a pancreas hormone called amylin.
Similar to GLP-1s, it helps to slow digestion, reduce appetite and control blood sugar after meals. It has not yet been FDA-approved for clinical use.
While GLP-1 drugs work by mimicking the gut hormone GLP-1, eloralintide is a selective amylin receptor agonist that works by mimicking a pancreas hormone called amylin. (iStock)
The biggest side effects noted for eloralintide were mild to moderate gastrointestinal symptoms and fatigue, the researchers noted. These effects were greater at higher doses.
“Obesity is a complex condition, and no single treatment works for everyone,” said Billings.
“To truly address each patient’s needs, we need therapies with different mechanisms of action so that each person can receive the treatment that offers the best balance of effectiveness and tolerability for them.”
COULD GLP-1 WEIGHT-LOSS MEDICATIONS LIKE OZEMPIC BECOME THE ‘EVERYTHING DRUG’?
Based on the trial results, the reseachers plan to launch Phase 3 clinical studies for obesity treatment by the end of this year, the president of Lilly Cardiometabolic Health confirmed to Fox News Digital. The drug is also being evaluated for use in combination with GLP-1 medications.
Dr. Brett Osborn, a Florida neurosurgeon and longevity expert, shared some concerns about the new anti-obesity agents being developed.
“Bottom line: If an individual has an experienced and competent physician supervising their care — and driving the formation of healthy habits in addition to simply using the medication — they will lose weight,” a doctor said. (iStock)
“Between all the agents out there, there is no way any person cannot lose weight when coupled with progressive resistance training and attention to their daily macronutrient intake, even if only a little,” the doctor, who was not involved in the study, told Fox News Digital.
“Yet big pharma will continue to search for novel targets to introduce a new drug that will likely prove similarly, yet not more, efficacious than the current agents. There are enough agents out there to drive weight loss to a malnutrition status.”
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Osborn also noted that the lower cardiovascular risk associated with the drug was likely due to the participants losing body fat, which reduces the risk for all age-related diseases.
“Some side effects are rare or take time to show up, so it is important to monitor new drugs like eloralintide for safety over the long term.”
“Bottom line: If an individual has an experienced and competent physician supervising their care — and driving the formation of healthy habits in addition to simply using the medication — they will lose weight,” he said.
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Sue Decotiis, M.D., a medical weight-loss doctor in New York City, also shared her thoughts on eloralintide’s potential as an alternative treatment.
“It seems that the more receptor systems that are influenced, the more weight a patient can lose,” she told Fox News Digital. “This is why tirzepatide (Mounjaro, Zepbound), which hits two receptors, induced more weight loss than Ozempic and Wegovy.”
“To truly address each patient’s needs, we need therapies with different mechanisms of action so that each person can receive the treatment that offers the best balance of effectiveness and tolerability for them,” a researcher said. (iStock)
“In my practice, I witnessed significantly better results with tirzepatide when patients were switched from Ozempic.”
Hitting more receptors may be the answer for those patients who do not respond well or who “hit the wall” with simpler drugs, according to Decotiis, who also was not involved in the study.
“For long-term safety and results, peptide drugs show promise,” she said.
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Whitney Di Bona, in-house attorney and consumer safety advocate for Drugwatch, noted that while the Phase 2 results are “promising,” it is important to be cautious.
“These drugs have been used for years, but new safety concerns keep appearing,” the Florida-based expert told Fox News Digital. Some of those include a potentially serious eye condition, delayed stomach emptying, bowel obstruction and serious digestive problems, which have led to many lawsuits.
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“Some side effects are rare or take time to show up, so it is important to monitor new drugs like eloralintide for safety over the long term,” Di Bona advised. “Even with careful studies, some risks may only become clear after the drug is used by many people.”
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More adults are suddenly developing allergic reactions later in life — and experts aren’t sure why.
Nearly 50% of adults developed at least one food allergy in adulthood, according to a 2019 investigation published in JAMA.
Illana Golant, founder and CEO of the Food and Allergy Fund (FAF) in New York City, told Fox News Digital that she developed allergies in her 40s.
GUT IMBALANCE MAY BE DRIVING AMERICA’S FOOD ALLERGY EPIDEMIC, EXPERTS WARN
“That is not fully understood at all or recognized … we don’t know why they’re starting at certain points,” she said.
FAF hosted a forum last week in Washington, D.C., attended by HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, FDA Chief Martin Makary and NIH Director Jay Bhattacharya.
Nearly 50% of adults develop food allergies later in life, studies have shown. (iStock)
Health officials and researchers are investigating whether allergies may be caused by gut health microbes.
In an interview with Fox News Digital, Makary shared how the function of microbiomes has evolved over time.
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The intestine hosts over a billion different types of bacteria, which normally live in balance, according to Makary.
“But when it’s altered by the modern-day diet and by antibiotics and other exposures … that disequilibrium can cause inflammation [and] health problems, and it may be implicated in food allergies,” he said.
Ilana Golant, FAF founder and CEO (left), chats with HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. in Washington, D.C., at the Food Allergy Fund Forum. (Ashley J. DiMella/Fox News Digital)
Golant shared that there seems to be a “critical inflection point,” as some foods trigger adults more than children.
“Seafood shellfish [and] tree nuts seem to be proliferating among adults,” she noted.
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Shellfish was the top allergen in adults, according to a 2018 survey of over 40,000 people that was published in the Annals of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology.
Golant said she luckily knew about allergies when she had her first anaphylactic reaction.
“If I didn’t know about food allergies, I would have thought I was having a heart attack,” said the founder of the Food and Allergy Fund. (iStock)
“If I didn’t know about food allergies, I would have thought I was having a heart attack,” she said. “Genetics can’t change so quickly. In a generation, food allergies have skyrocketed.”
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Approximately one in 10 adults are affected by food allergies, according to FAF.
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“It’s very much the perfect storm of a variety of environmental triggers,” Golant added. “We still don’t know which ones and … if there is one primary [trigger], but my guess is that more likely, it is a perfect storm.”
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