Currently browsing posts about: RFK Jr

Nutritionist that I am, I was shocked to see this headline: Remedy Supported by Kennedy Leaves Some Measles Patients More Ill

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.

Vitamin A toxicity?  Two reasons for my shock:

1. Vitamin a toxicity is extremely rare. Amounts typically in food never cause problems except when people eat polar bear or seal liver (or, in one instance, dog liver).  Even supplements cause only occasional cases.  The New York Times last reported a case of a child overdosing on vitamin A supplements in 1981.
2. These children were given way too much Vitamin A for way too long.

The deal on Vitamin A and measles

• Vitamin A will not prevent measles; vaccinations prevent measles.
• Vitamin A is, however, used to treat active cases of measles.
• The treatment involves two doses of vitamin A, one day apart.
• The amounts depend on the age of the child.

Rationale for use of Vitamin A to treat measles

• The World Health Organization recommends vitamin A for all children with acute measles, regardless of country of residence
• Children in the US can have low serum vitamin A concentrations
• Low vitamin A concentrations correlate with more severe measles disease
• Measles virus can deplete vitamin A stores
• In low- and middle-income countries, vitamin A is associated with decreased mortality and morbidity

Comment

• When RFK Jr recommends vitamin A for measles treatment, he is repeating standard advice.
• When he states or implies that vitamin A should be routinely supplemented, or used as a preventive measure for measles rather than vaccination, he puts sick children at serious risk of vitamin A overdose and toxicity.
• He should not recommend or imply that vitamin A is a substitute for measles vaccination.
• When he recommends vitamin A treatment for measles, he should insist on limiting supplements to two doses.
• Measles is preventable with vaccination.
• Vitamin A toxicity is preventable by avoiding supplements or using them only when needed and in appropriate amounts.
• Animal foods are the best sources of Vitamin A; brightly colored vegetables are the best sources of the Vitamin A precursor, beta-carotene.

References

• Vitamin A for treating measles in children
• Call to Action: Vitamin A for the Management of Measles in the United States
• Vitamin A Toxicity
• Overdose of Vitamin A Nearly Kills 3-Year-Old (1981)
• The vitamin A content and toxicity of bear and seal
• Death by Nutrition: How an Antarctic scientific expedition turned deadly thanks to an unlikely source: dog liver.

Food Fix broke the news: Jim Jones, FDA Deputy Commissioner for Human Foods , resigned saying that the firings of the staff he had recruited over the last year made his job impossible.

The New York Times quotes Jones. 

They’ve created a real pickle for themselves,” by cutting staff members working on a key priority, Mr. Jones said. “You just can’t do an assessment [of food additives] for free and you can’t ban chemicals by fiat.

But wait!  Maybe you can.

The FDA is an agency of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).  And that brings me to its new secretary’s astonishing opening statement on his first day on the job.

I’m totally for making chronic disease a national priority for intervention, for getting conflicts of interest out of the FDA, and for focusing on child health.  And for Making America Healthy Again (MAHA).

I am eager to see what he does.

The FDA has long been plagued by cumbersome procedures (many of which do protect the public), conflicts of interest (especially the “revolving door” between the agency and industry), and apparent capture by the industries it is supposed to regulate.

Can RFK Jr address those problems in a way that promotes the public interest?  We shall see.

In the meantime, Jim Jones is being replaced by Kyle Diamantas, a lawyer from the large firm, Jones Day.

Not much is known about Mr. Diamantas, beyond his hunting turkeys with President Trump.

Food Fix quotes Vani Hari, the Food Babe as saying Diamantas “has a lot of Big Food contacts…I think that actually serves him. It puts him in an interesting position because he understands the stakeholders at play….I think that puts him in a good position to figure this out…He gets this issue.”

The nominee to be the new FDA Commissioner,  Martin Makary, has not yet been confirmed.

So much remains uncertain.  I am following all this with great interest.

Update on the chaos

The FDA has now rehired some of the people who were fired (particularly those supported by user fees).  Presumably, Jim Jones remains out.