Peter Hildebrand buried his 8-year-old daughter, Daisy, barely a week ago after she died from what Texas health officials say was “measles pulmonary failure.”
Yet having had a week to reflect on the decline of his daughter and her heartbreaking death, he told the anti-vaccine nonprofit Children’s Health Defense he has no regrets about not vaccinating Daisy ― or any of his other children.
“Absolutely not,” he told the media outlet in an interview Monday that aimed to sow doubt about the cause of his daughter’s death.
“From here on out, if I have any other kids in the future, they’re not going to be vaccinated at all,” he added.
Hildebrand told the hosts that he believes “doctors’ foolishness” killed his daughter by not properly treating her pneumonia.
Pneumonia is the most common cause of death from measles in young children, according to data tracked by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. About 1 in 20 children with measles develops the inflammatory lung condition.
“Everybody else that I know of that has had the measles is completely fine,” he said. “Because the measles don’t kill people. These foolish doctors are the ones that kill people.”
Out of every 1,000 children who contract measles, somewhere between 1 and 3 will die from respiratory and neurologic complications.
As of Tuesday, the virus has sickened 624 people in West Texas and New Mexico, 607 of whom have no record of being vaccinated. So far, three people, including Daisy and another girl, age 6, are believed to have died from the highly contagious disease.
Like Hildebrand, the parents of the other girl, who died last month after being hospitalized with measles, also told Children’s Health Defense they have no regrets about not vaccinating their children.
Vaccine skepticism, sowed in part by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., has undermined health officials’ attempts to stymie the outbreak.
“This is the epitome of an absolute needless death,” Dr. Peter Marks, the Food and Drug Administration’s former vaccine chief, told The Associated Press in an interview after Daisy died. “These kids should get vaccinated — that’s how you prevent people from dying of measles.”
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Kennedy initially dismissed the outbreak as “not unusual,” before touting vitamins A and D, administered via cod liver oil, as a possible treatment. Soon after, unvaccinated children began showing up in Texas hospitals with vitamin A toxicity. Health professionals told HuffPost they don’t recommend parents provide supplements like cod oil, which is unregulated and subject to inconsistent dosing, to children.
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