I Went to an Anti-Vaccine Conference. Medicine Is in Trouble.

Opinion|I Went to an Anti-Vaccine Conference. Medicine Is in Trouble.

Peter Hildebrand choked back tears as he told the crowd about his daughter, Daisy. She was 8 years old when she died in April, one of the two unvaccinated children lost in the measles outbreak that tore through West Texas. “She was very loving,” he told the audience.

It was Day 2 of the annual conference of Children’s Health Defense, the organization of vaccine critics previously led by Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who is now the U.S. health secretary. Mr. Hildebrand had been asked to speak on a panel titled “Breaking the Mainstream Media Measles Narrative” at the conference, which brought 1,000 people to an event center in Austin, Texas, this month.

Mr. Hildebrand spoke about mistrusting Daisy’s hospital doctor, who he said talked to his wife about measles when he was out of the room. “You know, just whenever I wasn’t around, he would sit there and be political about it,” Mr. Hildebrand said.

The panel also featured a woman from the Mennonite community where the Hildebrands live; two Children’s Health Defense leaders; and three current or former doctors. One, Andrew Wakefield, is the British physician who lost his license after falsely linking the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine to autism. Another, Pierre Kory, is a former intensive care physician who, among other things, is a leading promoter of ivermectin as a Covid-19 treatment.

Mr. Hildebrand had granted the organization access to his daughter’s medical records. After reviewing them, Dr. Kory concluded that Daisy hadn’t died of measles, but of a hospital-acquired pneumonia that, he alleged, her medical team had treated incorrectly. This explanation convinced Mr. Hildebrand. He said that he would never bring one of his children to a hospital again and that “if anybody is going to try to force my kids to get the vaccines, they got something else coming.” All of the panelists agreed that the Hildebrands’ story had been misrepresented in national coverage of the measles outbreak.

“The media have a lot to answer for,” said Polly Tommey, a senior Children’s Health Defense staff member on the panel. “I can’t imagine how many women, petrified hearing two girls had died unvaccinated, ran out and got” their kids the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine.