Anti-Vax Group Founded by RFK Jr. Denies that a Texas Child’s Death Was Really Due to Measles; Gets Millions of Views on X
By John Gregory
What happened: Anti-vaccine activists are claiming that the first reported U.S. measles death in a decade was caused by “medical error,” not measles. The narrative, which has attracted millions of views on X, was launched by a group founded by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
Context: In late February, an unvaccinated six-year-old girl in Texas died from measles, according to the Texas Department of State Health Services and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, amid an outbreak in the state that grew to 327 cases as of March 21.
A closer look: On March 19, Children’s Health Defense (Trust Score: 17.5/100), the anti-vaccine group founded by RFK Jr., posted a video on X saying that measles was not the girl’s cause of death.
In the video, Dr. Pierre Kory, a frequent proponent of the false claim that the drug ivermectin is an effective COVID-19 treatment, said that he had reviewed the child’s medical records and determined the child “did not die of measles by any stretch of the imagination.”
Kory claimed that the child died due to a “medical error” caused by the hospital not properly treating her pneumonia. “You see the media’s going nuts about how everyone needs to get vaccinated,” Kory stated. “We’ve been treating pneumonia for decades with antibiotics, and this was just a tragic error.”
The girl’s family shared the medical records with Children’s Health Defense, according to a March 19 article on the group’s website. The records have not been made public. Kory and Children’s Health Defense did not respond to NewsGuard’s emails asking whether the group would release the records and seeking comment on the claims made in the video.
Where it spread: The Children’s Health Defense video generated 1.2 million views and 19,000 likes on X in five days.
The video was cited in articles in the Natural News network (Trust Score: 5/100) of health misinformation websites and the AI-generated CountyLocalNews.com. A March 23 post of the video by X user @VigilantFox amassed 1.5 million views in one day.
Kory repeated the claim in a March 20 episode of former Trump aide Steve Bannon’s podcast “Bannon’s War Room,” which has 1 million followers on Rumble, as well as in the March 21 episode of “The Jimmy Dore Show” podcast, whose YouTube account has 1.4 million subscribers.
Actually: The child died of measles, according to state and federal health officials, and confirmed by the hospital that treated her.
Covenant Children’s Hospital in Lubbock, Texas, where the 6-year-old was treated, said during a February 2025 press conference that the child died due to measles complications.
Asked about the Children’s Health Defense video, the hospital told NewsGuard in a March 20 emailed statement that the video “contains misleading and inaccurate claims regarding care provided at Covenant Children’s. Patient confidentiality laws preclude us from providing information directly related to this case.”
The hospital’s statement also noted that pneumonia is a “well-known complication” of measles. In fact, the CDC’s website states, “As many as 1 out of every 20 children with measles gets pneumonia, the most common cause of death from measles in young children.”