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A pulmonary and critical care specialist who has reviewed the medical records of two Texas girls from a Mennonite community who were reported to have “died from measles” is presenting what he argues is “clear evidence” of their actual cause of death, asserting it “wasn’t measles” at all, but, instead, something “easily preventable.”
“Both of the girls died in an ICU of end-stage lung failure,” Pierre Kory, M.D., MPA, a co-developer of COVID treatment protocols, summarized in his Substack column Friday.
“[T]he parents of both children are from the same community and know each other,” wrote the founding member of the Independent Medical Alliance. “They and the community are obviously in grief over these unnecessary and easily preventable deaths … I will state at the outset that, in my professional opinion, neither child died of measles. Not even close.”
In the case of 6-year-old Kaley Fehr, Kory described her as a “previously healthy girl who contracted measles along with her four siblings,” who all ultimately recovered.
However, as Kaley’s measles rash was clearing, “she began to develop signs and symptoms of ‘secondary bacterial pneumonia,’” he wrote, describing it as “a not uncommon complication of almost any viral infection.”
“To wit, one of my three daughters fell ill with the same after she contracted influenza at age 14,” he shared, adding, nevertheless, that, “in her case, she recovered from it two days after receiving an appropriate antibiotic.”
Kory continued that, when Kaley’s respiratory distress continued, her parents brought her on February 22 to Providence Covenant Children’s Hospital in Lubbock, where she was “correctly diagnosed” with “secondary bacterial pneumonia.”
The hospital, however, “treated her with two antibiotics, ceftriaxone and vancomycin,” which he described as “a blatant deviation from the standard of care in treating hospitalized patients with ‘community-acquired pneumonia (CAP).’”
Treatment guidelines for CAP, he said, “have long recommended a different combination, e.g., ceftriaxone and azithromycin (or a quinolone).”
“Only azithromycin and quinolones cover mycoplasma pneumonia, a prevalent cause of community-acquired pneumonia,” Kory wrote, adding that “vancomycin, the antibiotic they chose instead of azithromycin, is used to treat ‘hospital-acquired pneumonia’ as it is one of the only antibiotics that covers MRSA (methicillin-resistant staph aureus).”
“Kaley was from a rural Mennonite community and had not been in any hospital,” Kory explained. He also noted that, when Kaley’s condition worsened, she was intubated and placed on mechanical ventilation – another “deviation from the standard of care” that “went unnoticed and uncorrected until just over a day before she died, when the test for mycoplasma returned as ‘positive.’”
Kory said the hospital then immediately ordered azithromycin – but her chart shows “it took ten hours before she received her first dose.”
“She was dead less than 24 hours later, 4 days after being admitted,” he explained. “My opinion as to the cause of death is that it was from an overwhelming lung injury called Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome (ARDS) caused by mycoplasma pneumonia. The sole reason why she died from mycoplasma was because the initial antibiotic regimen violated the standard of care in the treatment of hospitalized community-acquired pneumonia because they neglected to treat her upon admission with azithromycin (i.e., a ‘Z-Pak deficiency’).”
Eight-year-old Daisy Hillebrand had two admissions to the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) of University Medical Center and one to Providence Covenant Children’s Hospital, Kory reported.
In a case characterized by “multiple tragedies,” he wrote, the emergency room physician started treating Daisy with both ceftriaxone and vancomycin – which, in this situation, “was actually a good choice because she just got out of an ICU.”
Unfortunately, however, the admitting ICU team decided to discontinue these antibiotics.
The pediatric team treating Daisy when she was re-admitted also “never considered the possibility of hospital-acquired pneumonia (HAP) until day 6 of 8,” he alleged.
“For an adult ICU specialist admitting a patient with an infection who was just discharged from an ICU, empiric treatment for hospital-acquired organisms is so basic and routine,” Kory wrote. “I was shocked they did not do this.”
The pulmonary expert did acknowledge that, for children, “there are no published national treatment guidelines with specific antibiotic recommendations for the empiric treatment of hospital-acquired pneumonia,” a situation he attributes to the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP).
Nevertheless, had the hospital sent a sputum culture upon Daisy’s admission, “they would have not only identified the organism but would have learned the antibiotic it was sensitive to and could have started it immediately.”
Kory wrote that his “jaw dropped” as he continued to review Daisy’s medical records to discover that, several hours after she died, “the sputum culture they sent on Day 6 was reported” and showed 4+ growth of ‘E.Coli,’ a nasty bug generally found in our GI tract only,” but one that was indicated as resistant to the antibiotic the hospital team had selected.
“Her death on Day 8 would have likely and easily been prevented,” Kory argued, attributing Daisy’s death to “ARDS, secondary to hospital-acquired pneumonia caused by a highly antibiotic-resistant E.Coli ‘superbug.’”
“Based on the progression and trajectories of her illness, I believe that she contracted the infection from her first ICU admission, which is what caused her to return to the ICU 2 days after that discharge,” he wrote.
As Kory noted, his review of the cases was facilitated by Children’s Health Defense, which was founded by current Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., with a mission of “ending childhood health epidemics by eliminating toxic exposure” through “science, education, litigation, and advocacy.”
Mary Holland, J.D., CEO of Children’s Health Defense, wrote last week that pro-vaccine media fearmongering over the “deadly” measles outbreak in Texas is part of the same “playbook” used during the COVID pandemic.
“The media would have you believe that measles is a ‘deadly’ disease,” Holland wrote. “But any suggestion that MMR vaccines are safer than measles infection isn’t supported by facts.”
“In fact, between 2000 and 2024, nine measles-related deaths were reported to the CDC,” she argued. “During the same period, 141 deaths following MMR or MMRV vaccination were reported in the U.S. to the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) — suggesting the MMR vaccine can be deadlier than measles.”
“The media echo the same familiar refrain: The MMR vaccine is ‘overwhelmingly safe,’” she added. “In fact, the MMR vaccine is associated with serious health risks. The package insert for Merck’s MMRII says, ‘M-M-R II vaccine has not been evaluated for carcinogenic or mutagenic potential or impairment of fertility.’”
“The media insist there’s no viable treatment for measles — hence prevention, with the MMR vaccine, is the sole solution,” she further observed. “In fact, as CHD reported, doctors in West Texas are successfully treating measles with budesonide and vitamin A. Even the World Health Organization recommends vitamin A.”