Eight-year-old Daisy Hildebrand died of measles complications in Lubbock this April, and local health officials tried to handle the tragedy with dignity—waiting until after her funeral to make the news public. Enter Robert Malone, self-styled “Covid misinformation star,” who blasted out her death to his 1.3 million followers first, claiming she didn’t die of measles at all but of hospital mismanagement. Daisy’s father, blindsided, had to field reporters at his daughter’s funeral. Imagine losing your child and then finding out her death is internet fodder for strangers playing “gotcha” with science.
This is the mess we’re in: local health experts plead for vaccination, while anti-vaccine celebrities, fringe doctors, and—yes—the U.S. Health Secretary himself, RFK Jr., keep muddying the waters. Kennedy even told Daisy’s grieving dad at the funeral, “You don’t know what’s in the vaccine anymore,” as if the man needed a fresh conspiracy theory to go with his daughter’s casket. Meanwhile, Children’s Health Defense and other groups are churning out slick videos and interviews casting doubt on the deaths of not one but two Texas kids.
All this noise has real consequences. Hospitals in Lubbock have treated kids not just for measles but also for vitamin A overdoses—thanks to “alternative” treatments pushed online. Local health officials report vaccine clinics standing empty while anti-vaxxers flood Facebook comment sections from hundreds of miles away, screaming about autism and government plots. And the state? Still spending less per person on public health than it did a decade ago, because of course it is.
In the end, the science is simple: two shots prevent measles, misinformation doesn’t. But in West Texas, the loudest voices belong to people who’d rather rewrite a child’s cause of death than admit they’re wrong.
https://www.texastribune.org/2025/04/16/texas-measles-misinformation-vaccines/
